Oliver Haslam·

Tesla Sets Speed Record At Germany’s Nürburgring Race Course Thanks To Model S Plaid

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced that a Model S Plaid has completed a full lap of the infamous Nürburgring Nordschleife in a time of 7:30.909.

That’s a record for a production electric vehicle and beats the Porsche Taycan’s time by nearly 12 seconds.

Production cars have been using the Nürburgring for years, all trying to best each other as they try to complete the long and twisty track as quickly as possible. A full lap at the German track is around 13 miles.

Of course, while this will give Tesla bragging rights over Porsche in this instance, it means little to people who are buying the cars and driving them on the roads. This is very unlikely to be the last of the story, with Porsche likely to want to re-run its own car to achieve an improved time.

The time is a record for a production electric car, but as Electrek points out, it’s competitive across the board.

The 2020 Porsche Panamera Turbo set a 7:29.81 last year on the same longer configuration, which puts the Model S just 1 second behind the 4-door model from one of the world’s most respected racing marques. At the time this was a record for a production full-size car (also known as “E-segment” in Europe or “executive car” in the UK), but later that year the Mercedes AMG GT63 S set a 7:27.80 lap time. A second means a lot in racing, but on such a long lap as this, these times are virtually identical.

Now all eyes will be on Porsche to see what it can come up with.

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