The battle for the electric vehicle (EV) lap record at the Nürburgring is heating up again, as a pre-series Porsche Taycan has come within inches of beating the record set last year by the Rimac Nevera.
The Nürburgring is an iconic race track in Germany, having hosted numerous racing events, including Formula 1 races, endurance races like the 24 Hours of Nürburgring, and various touring car championships. It is actually two race tracks in one, with the 20.8km (12.9 mile) Nürburgring Nordschleife (North Loop), one of the most demanding and challenging race tracks in the world, and the Nürburgring GP-Strecke (Grand Prix Circuit).
Many automaker use the Nürburgring Nordschleife as a benchmark for testing and development of their high-performance vehicles due to its challenging nature and variety of conditions. Among those is Tesla, which has taken its Model S Plaid to Germany several times, at one point holding the EV lap record with a time of 7:25.231 seconds.
That record was handily beaten last year by the Rimac Nevera, an electric hypercar which lapped the iconic track in a time of 7:05.298, just shy of 20 seconds faster than the Plaid. While the record still stands, it might not once the next generation Porsche Taycan hits production.
In a press release on Tuesday, Porsche said a pre-series Taycan lapped Nürburgring in a time of 7:07.55, just over 2 seconds behind the Nevera. What makes this time even more impressive is that it is a 26-second improvement compared to Porsche’s previous record drive in August 2022 in a Taycan Turbo S Sport sedan with the performance package.
According to Porsche, it wasn’t a one-time feat either, as driver Lars Kern clocked similar times over several laps. The automaker put the time difference into perspective, saying,
“To illustrate the difference further, by the time Kern crossed the finish line near Grandstand 13 (T13) this time, he would have only just been passing the entrance to the Nordschleife, about to enter the Antoniusbuche section, during his record drive in the Taycan Turbo S in 2022. This put the distance between the pre-series Taycan and the current Turbo S at more than 1.3 kilometres – a figure that illustrates the leap in performance achieved on the 20.8 km course in Germany’s Eifel region.”
Porsche has obviously been quiet about the specs of its next generation Taycan, but it rumoured to be a Turbo GT version with over 1,000 horsepower. We should find out more details soon as it is expected to be released in the 2025 model year.
A complete video of the lap will be released in March.
