Porsche’s Taycan sets a very specific Nurburgring record

Porsche took the upcoming Taycan to Germany’s Nürburgring track to break a very specific record. With test driver Lars Kern behind the wheel, a pre-production variant of the luxury sedan became the fastest four-door electric car ever to lap the Green Hell.

It took the Taycan 7 minutes and 42 seconds to go around the grueling, 12.6-mile track. While the Taycan wasn’t designed for competition, and most examples will never position their tires behind a starting line, the sedan is comfortable going flat-out on a track because engineers began testing it on virtual circuits early in the development process, and later wrung out camouflaged test mules on the Green Hell. Including circuit stints in the comprehensive testing program taught the men and women in charge of creating the Taycan valuable lessons about thermal management.

The Taycan is quick, but it can’t boast about being the fastest sedan around the ‘Ring; the fire-breathing Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S Four-Door claimed that honor in 2018 by setting a 7:25:41. Alfa Romeo’s Giulia Quadrifoglio is about seven seconds behind that. The electric car lap record belongs to the Volkswagen ID.R, which recorded 6:05.33 in 2019. It’s not street-legal, and it’s not headed to production, so it doesn’t compete in the same arena as the Taycan.

The 2020 Porsche Taycan is scheduled to make its official debut during the 2019 Frankfurt auto show, which opens its doors in a little over two weeks. We’ll learn everything there is to know about it during the event, but we expect to hear much more about the German firm’s first series-produced electric car in the days leading up to the event. And, it will be interesting to see how long its record remains unbroken.