Tayc that, Elon! Porsche reclaims the title of fastest production electric car as its £142,000 Taycan beats Tesla Model S Plaid’s Nürburgring time by 2 seconds
- Porsche Taycan Turbo S set a new record lap time of 7 minutes 33 seconds
- That’s two seconds faster than last year’s Tesla Model S Plaid
- This means the £142,400 range electric sports car is the fastest on sale
- Watch the full, thrilling – and almost silent – lap record from the onboard video
When it comes to bragging rights in the automotive world, there’s nothing quite like holding the lap record on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.
When it comes to the fastest time recorded for a lap of the fearsome 12.9-mile track in a production electric car, last year’s Tesla Model S Plaid took the crown. However, it has just been defeated.
Porsche now holds the crown, having circumnavigated the track in its showroom-available Taycan Turbo S in just seven minutes and 33 seconds – about two seconds short of the time set by Elon Musk’s fastest publicly sold car.
Fastest electric car you can buy: The £142,000 Porsche Taycan Turbo S is officially the fastest electric car on the showroom floor after setting an all-time fastest time on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife
Porsche announced the new record on Wednesday with its development driver Lars Kern at the wheel of the high-performance EV.
The German marque is reclaiming the title it lost to Tesla last year after previously holding the fastest record time since 2019 in a previous iteration of the most powerful Taycan on sale.
The £142,400 battery-powered sports car used in the latest feat has been fitted with a new performance kit, which is currently only sold in Germany and is not yet confirmed for the UK market.
The performance package adds unique 21-inch wheels wrapped in Pirelli P Zero Corsa sport tires, which are street-legal but made of the same compound used for racing rubber.
The kit includes a software update for the Porsche chassis control system to improve handling.
Aside from the required roll cages and racing seats, the Taycan used was a production-only vehicle that you could buy from a dealer today.
According to Porsche, the vehicle used weighs the same as a showroom model and the powertrain has not been mechanically optimized.
The record time of 7 minutes and 33.3 seconds was around two seconds faster than the previous record
The £142,400 battery-powered sports car used in the latest feat has been fitted with a new performance kit, which is currently only sold in Germany and is yet to be confirmed for the UK
The current Turbo S delivers 617 hp, accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 2.8 seconds and has a limited top speed of 260 km/h.
“In the past, only thoroughbred super sports cars managed to get to the 7:33 range,” explains Kern after his record run.
“With the new performance kit I was able to step on the gas even more and the car was even more precise and agile on top of that.”
The lap time was recorded on camera and the hot lap footage was released with TÜV Rheinland’s confirmation that it is now the fastest distance ever covered by a purely electric car on the forest track.
“We are delighted that the Nürburgring record for electric cars is back in Porsche’s hands,” says Kevin Giek, Vice President of the Taycan model range.
“This lap time not only shows how much potential there is in our new performance kit, but also once again confirms the Taycan’s sports car genes.”
The previous record holder was the £118,000 Tesla Model S Plaid, which was scrapped at the 12.9-mile circuit in 2019
The Model S Plaid, the fastest production model sold by Tesla, set a then-record time of 7 minutes and 35.6 seconds
Last month, the famous German sports car brand announced that it was recalling 40,000 Taycan models worldwide over concerns about a wiring harness under the front seats.
Sliding the seats back and forth could potentially damage the wiring and disable the airbags and seat belt pretensioners.
Porsche UK confirmed it informed customers of the recall in June and has already carried out checks on vehicles at its workshops across the country.
It is the second major recall for the £75,000+ Taycan EV, after over 43,000 models were recalled in July last year over an electronic fault that caused a sudden power outage.
While the Porsche now holds the crown for the fastest production electric car, it’s over a minute slower than the all-time record for battery vehicles.
The Volkswagen ID.R, which was originally created for the legendary Pikes Peak hill climb, helps here.
In 2019 he lapped the Nürburgring-Nordschleife in a time of six minutes and five seconds.