Taycan, Porsche’s four-door, electric sports cars, has set a record on the 20.6-kilometre Nürburgring-Nordschleife Grand Prix race track. Test driver Lars Kern drove the e-beast on the race circuit, which is also known as the Green Hell and covered the distance in 7.42 minutes. “Our electric sports car demonstrated the reproducibility of its performance as part of a strenuous test involving 26 successive acceleration runs from zero to 200 km/h. Then it completed 3,425 kms within 24 hours in Nardò (Italy) and now the record at the Nürburgring-Nordschleife,” says Stefan Weckbach, Vice President, Product Line, Taycan.
Various factors can be contributed to such a stellar performance of an e-car and the efficiency of the powertrain (the mechanism that transmits the drive from the engine of a car to its axle) at such high speeds—the chassis systems that react within a fraction of a second, as well as its aerodynamics. “The Taycan is also suitable for race tracks and it convincingly proved that here, on the world’s most challenging circuit. Again and again, I am impressed at how stable the all-electric sports car handles in high-speed sections such as Kesselchen; and how neutrally it accelerates from tight sections, such as Adenauer Forst,” says Kern. The section of Forst is nastily famous for causing damage to the cars when approached incorrectly.
This electric sports car has been making news due to a range of technical features. It has two exceptionally efficient electric motors on the front and rear axles and therefore features all-wheel drive (providing power to all the wheels). This all-wheel drive and traction control systems operate significantly faster than conventional systems. An example of this is that if one wheel has more slip, the electric motors regulate it within a fraction of a second. Taycan is the first production vehicle with a system voltage of 800 volts as opposed to the usual 400 volts in electric cars, which enables consistent performance.
A pre-series Taycan has also showcased the car’s efficient performance for 26 successive times on an airport runway, by accelerating from 0 to 200 km/h. The average acceleration figure from the timed runs was under ten second and so the difference between the fastest and the slowest acceleration runs was merely 0.8 seconds!
