Pre-production Taycan sets a new record for an electric Porsche

A pre-production Porsche Taycan has set an official lap time of 7:07.55 minutes on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife circuit with development driver Lars Kern at the wheel.

It is a new record for a Porsche electric vehicle. 

The official lap time is 26 seconds faster than Kern’s last record drive in a Taycan Turbo S Sport sedan equipped with the performance package, back in August 2022.

“Twenty-six seconds is half an eternity in motorsport. Lars’ lap time of 7:07.55 minutes on the Nordschleife is sensational, putting the Taycan in the same league as electric hypercars,” says Taycan product line vice president Kevin Giek. 

“And the impressive thing about it is that over several laps, Lars clocked almost exactly the same time,” Giek says.

“I pushed as hard as I could, but that was really all I could do,” says Kern. 

The Nürburgring-Nordschleife was at Kerns exclusive disposal for the day of fast laps and for safety reasons, the test car was equipped with the legally prescribed roll cage, along with racing bucket seats. 

Compared to the 2022 record in a Taycan Turbo S, the times were significantly better: the pre-series car was a good 25 km/h faster heading into the Schwedenkreuz. 

To illustrate the difference further, by the time Kern crossed the finish line near Grandstand 13 (T13), 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-production 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.

 An onboard video of the complete lap will be published in mid-March.