How the Porsche Taycan is quietly grabbing the accolades and shattering records
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From endurance to drifting to acceleration, the Porsche Taycan has racked up performance record after record for electric vehicles in no time at all. And it hasn’t stopped yet
Why do people love breaking records? There’s the glory, of course. And the personal journey that’s often undertaken to achieve it. To some, it all boils down to satisfying a competitive nature.One thing we can all agree on is that records are made to be broken. Or “…Because it’s there”, to borrow the apocryphal words uttered by the British mountaineer George Mallory in 1923 about why he wanted to climb Everest.In the case of the all-electric Porsche Taycan, breaking records has been second nature ever since this milestone in electric mobility was officially unveiled in 2019. Indoors and outdoors, endurance and speed, agility and performance – each acts as a glowing testimony to the car’s wide-ranging capabilities. Here’s a few highlights of some of the landmarks that the Taycan has achieved already.
Note Story updated March 2025Lap record for an electric car at InterlagosSão Paulo, Brazil February 2025 With the Taycan holding performance records in Europe, North America and Asia, it’s only fair that South America be afforded the opportunity to add to that impressive list of achievements. So, step forward Porsche Penske Motorsport driver, Felipe Nasr (pictured above, helmet on, at Interlagos on the day of his record-breaking drive). A three-time IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Champion, three-time 24 Hours of Daytona winner and an ex-Formula 1 driver, the Brazilian powered a Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach package to another landmark time on 5 February 2025, at Interlagos in São Paulo, Brazil.
Interlagos is not only home to the Brazilian F1 Grand Prix and a round of the FIA Endurance Championship (WEC), it’s also one of the toughest challenges in motorsport, with its undulating nature, plentiful elevation changes and high-speed sections.
Felipe set a time of 1 minute 42.1 seconds for the 4.3-kilometre circuit in the Taycan Turbo GT – knocking eight seconds off the record set by a Taycan Turbo S in 2022, to lay down a new mark for the fastest electric car at Interlagos. Not only that, it was also under a second quicker than an earlier outright production-car lap record which was set by the 911 Turbo S (1 minute 43.087 seconds).
“It’s amazing how brutally the car accelerates and delivers its power,” said Felipe after breaking the record. “The steering of the Taycan Turbo GT was very precise in the slow corners and remained stable even under heavy braking. The balance, the grip – a real performance machine.”Guinness World Record for longest continuous vehicle drift on ice by an electric vehicleLevi, Finland January 2025
?si=-PvACDmdzY5u65gKAnd now for something completely different with a Taycan record attempt that threw up a whole new challenge. Driving at speed against the clock on a racetrack is guaranteed to quicken the pulse – so just imagine what it’s like to control an electric sportscar like the Taycan on an icy, purpose-built track in snowy Finland in the heart of winter.Porsche Experience instructor Jens Richter was handed that opportunity in January 2025 with a single goal in mind – to set a Guinness World Record for the longest continuous vehicle drift on ice by an electric vehicle. The car of choice was a Taycan GTS, wearing Michelin tyres studded with one-millimetre spikes. The venue was the Porsche Arctic Center in Levi, Finland, some 150 km north of the Arctic Circle. Here, a track made up of a drift circle with a diameter of 59 metres was specially created for the record bid. Once Jens had set the Taycan GTS into a controlled drift, he used just throttle and steering interventions to set a record of 17.503 km (132 laps) for the longest uninterrupted drift of an electric car on ice. It smashed the previous record of 14.809 km. It all means that, as of February 2025, the Taycan now holds four Guinness World Records.Record for fastest series-production car at Shanghai International CircuitShanghai, China October 2024Not content with holding records in Europe and North America, Lars Kern made it a hat-trick in October 2024 by securing the fastest lap by a series-production car at the Shanghai International Circuit. In doing so, it also became the first-ever lap record recognised by the Formula 1 track, where the Chinese Grand Prix is held each year.Despite the drizzly weather, Lars – again driving a Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach package – completed a lap of the 5.4 km-long track in 2 minutes 11.28 seconds, with the Taycan hitting a top speed of 300 km/h (186 mph) at one point.Record for fastest electric production car at Laguna SecaLaguna Seca, USA February 2024
?si=WK7r70ZnpIq7NYgOLars Kern knows the Nürburgring-Nordschleife better than, perhaps, anyone else in the world – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t get to show off his skills at other legendary racetracks. There’s no disputing that the Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca in northern California is one of the world’s greatest circuits. Home to the formidable, plunging downhill corner called the Corkscrew, it’s a challenge for any driver – even one as experienced as Lars. Just a few weeks after securing the record for the fastest-ever electric Porsche at the Nürburgring, Lars headed over to the US to get behind the wheel of a Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach package. The goal? To earn the title of fastest-ever electric series-production car at the Weathertech Raceway Laguna Seca. It came as no surprise that Lars took a car that, currently, is the most powerful production Porsche has ever produced and lapped Laguna Seca in just 1 minute 27.87 seconds. A mark good enough to secure Lars another record – the fastest-ever time at the circuit by a road-approved electric car.Record for fastest electric Porsche at the NürburgringNürburgring, Germany January 2024Yes, it’s that man Lars Kern again! He added another record to his impressive list of achievements in 2024 when he piloted a pre-series Taycan around the Nordschleife in a time of 7 minutes 07.55 seconds.That’s an incredible 26 seconds faster than when Lars broke the record for the fastest series-production electric car on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife back in 2022 in a Taycan Turbo S with performance kit. In distance terms, it translates to a huge 1.3 km between the two cars and is testimony to the Porsche commitment to ongoing development for every model it produces.Guinness World Record for greatest altitude change by an electric carChina September 2023The Taycan was designed to take Porsche to new heights when it came to an electrified drive. But a team of people in China took that to a literal extreme when they drove a Taycan 4 Cross Turismo from the lowest natural point in China to the summit of one of the world’s highest roads. Car and team had to endure scorching desert heat and freezing ice and snow in the mountains, as they travelled along gravelly, muddy and pothole-filled roads as well as on high-speed highways.
Starting at Ayding Lake – nearly 219 metres below sea level – the team and its Taycan took ten days to travel the 2783 km-long distance, eventually reaching a height of 5355.134 metres above sea level at the top of Hongtu Daban. It earned the Taycan 4 Cross Turismo a Guinness World Record for the greatest altitude change by an electric car – 5573.979 metres in total. Fastest speed achieved by a vehicle indoorsNew Orleans Convention Center, Louisiana, USA January 2021Standing on the banks of the great Mississippi, the vast New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (MCCNO) is one of the largest exhibition spaces in the US and the longest continuous area of its kind in the country. But like so many other event locations, it’s been a little emptier than normal recently. Where better to drive a Porsche Taycan and set an impressive record then?Here, professional racing car driver Leh Keen – fresh from setting a record for the fastest EV lap time at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in a Taycan Turbo S – wrote his name in the official Guinness Records when driving another Taycan Turbo S along a straight course set up through the MCCNO’s exhibition halls. In doing so, he recorded the fastest speed achieved by a vehicle indoors. Even more impressive, the mark of 165.1km/h (102.6mph) was achieved on the first run.13 British endurance recordsBrands Hatch Circuit, England December 2020Not content with one record, the Taycan hunted down and achieved 13 different ones in a single day at the legendary Brands Hatch Circuit in December 2020. During a 1,000km run around the English racetrack’s famed Indy circuit, two cars – a Taycan 4S and Turbo S – notched one record after another, all ratified by Motorsport UK.It began in the morning gloom at 7am, ending in the dark at 8pm. Several experienced racing drivers – including former F1 and Porsche driver Jonathan Palmer and Le Mans legend Richard Attwood (pictured above, right, with 2020 Porsche Carrera Cup GB champion, Harry King) – battled the heavy rain and damp track conditions. But the records in the electric cars over 1000 kilograms category kept tumbling. They include the British record for distance covered from a standing start in one hour (98.19km) and 12 hours (915.76km) – including charging time.A remarkable showcase of the Taycan and its ability to charge quickly, efficiently and reliably.Longest recorded permanent drift for an electric vehiclePorsche Experience Centre, Hockenheimring, Germany September 2020On a sunny early autumn day last year, Dennis Retera, a Porsche instructor from the Netherlands, set a benchmark in a rear-wheel drive Taycan that showed off the car’s brilliant handling ability as well as the admirable concentration levels of its pilot.With the Guinness World Records in attendance, and on a 200m-long, 80m-diameter course at the Porsche Experience Centre at the Hockenheimring racetrack in Germany, Retera set a new world best for the longest recorded permanent drift for an electric vehicle. The final figures are impressive: it took 55 minutes, 210 laps and 42.171 kilometres to achieve at an average speed of 46km/h. Didn’t think you could drift a Taycan? For this RWD model, turns out it’s perfect.Fastest four-door electric car on the Nürburgring-NordschleifeNürburgring, Germany August 2019As a Porsche test driver, Lars Kern (above right) knows all about driving a Porsche very quickly. His playground just happens to be one of the greatest stretches of road on earth – the Nürburgring. When he describes, in glowing terms, how impressed he was when driving a pre-series Taycan to break the record for the quickest four-door electric car on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, it means something.Kern and the Taycan lapped the 20.6km section of the Green Hell used for record attempts in a scarcely believable seven minutes and 42 seconds – an average speed of 160.52km/h (99.74mph). Other high-speed records that the Taycan has grabbed include a prototype covering a distance of 3,425km in 24 hours at Nàrdo in Italy in temperatures that peaked at 42 degrees Celsius.An eye for detailThe nature of the desire to constantly improve means that we are guaranteed more records to follow. Just hear the words of Porsche test driver Lars Kern after he broke yet another record at the Nürburgring. “We have a little party in the evening, but then the next morning life goes back to normal,” he said. “Everything starts from zero again because there are new cars to be developed and new projects.”
Consumption and emission informationTaycan 4 Cross Turismo
(WLTP): Electric energy consumption combined: 22.0 – 18.7 kWh/100 km; CO₂ emissions combined: 0 g/km; CO₂ class: A.
Taycan Turbo S
(WLTP): Electric energy consumption combined: 20.5 – 17.9 kWh/100 km; CO₂ emissions combined: 0 g/km; CO₂ class: A.
Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package
(WLTP): Electric energy consumption combined: 21.3 – 20.6 kWh/100 km; CO₂ emissions combined: 0 g/km; CO₂ class: A.
Taycan GTS
(WLTP): Electric energy consumption combined: 20.7 – 18.1 kWh/100 km; CO₂ emissions combined: 0 g/km; CO₂ class: A.
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