Yahoo Autos The Porsche Taycan Turbo GT's Insane Speed Goes Beyond Its 0-60 Time
Earlier today, Porsche's GT line expanded to include an EV. Naturally, that Taycan Turbo GT is quick to 60 mph and has a massive top speed for a battery-electric car. Those things have been done before, and in both benchmarks the car is beaten by some more affordable options. What really makes the Turbo GT unique is its performance on a race track, which is head-and-shoulders above any other series production EV ever sold. Two claimed lap records, one at Laguna Seca and one at the Nürburgring Nordschleife, can be used to contextualize just how quick it really is.
Laguna Seca's long history of professional racing and recent history as a benchmark track for lap records makes it a useful point of comparison for just how fast the Taycan Turbo GT actually is on a track. At 1:27.87, the new Taycan is comfortably faster than the previous records for both a production EV and a modified EV. It is three seconds faster than the in-race record for a GT4 race car on slicks, and three seconds behind the in-race record for a GT3 race car on slicks. The only faster-known laps by production cars are from the ultra-specialized Czinger 21C and the McLaren Senna, and the Senna's lap from a 2019 MotorTrend test is only two-tenths of a second quicker than the Taycan variant.
The 'Ring lap of 7:07.55 is impressive, too. The Nordschleife is particularly difficult for an EV, with long straightaways that require maximum power for extended periods and a lap more than three times as long as the average race track leaving little time in between runs to cool the car's powertrain from all that exertion. Despite those limitations, the fast Taycan is not only the fastest four-door EV but the fastest four-door of any sort to ever lap the track. It also matches up well against some of Porsche's best sports cars: The Taycan Turbo GT is two seconds off the last-generation GT3 RS, three off the current GT4 RS, and twelve off the current base GT3 that won our 2022 Performance Car of the Year testing.
Laguna Seca and the Nordschleife are two very different circuits, one a high-speed circuit stretching over 13 miles and another a lower-speed course winding through 11 corners in just two miles. On both, the Taycan Turbo GT easily grades out as both the fastest series production EV ever and the fastest series production 4-door ever. It is closer to hypercars and the rest of Porsche's line of GT-badged supercars than it is to its competition, making it one of the most impressive feats in engineering ever available at a car dealership. All of that speed comes with four doors, zero tailpipe emissions, and, if an owner wants, a massive fixed rear wing.
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