The Porsche Taycan has entered the record books, earning the title of longest drift with an electric vehicle.
Dennis Retera was behind the wheel of the record-setting Taycan at the Porsche Experience Centre in Hockenheimring in Germany, where he’s the chief instructor.
Retera did 210 laps on the 200 metre-long drift circle in his rear-wheel drive Taycan without the front wheels ever pointing in the same direction as the curve.
In total, Retera spent 55 minutes drifting and covered a total of 42.171km with an average speed of 46km/h. We imagine he was a bit wobbly stepping out of the car.
Nobody had attempted the Guinness World Record for longest EV drift before so it’s a fresh title.
“When the driving stability programmes are switched off, a powerslide with the electric Porsche is extremely easy, especially of course with this model variant, which is driven exclusively via the rear wheels,” said Retera.
“Nevertheless, it was also very tiring for me to keep my concentration high for 210 laps, especially as the irrigated asphalt of the drift circuit does not provide the same grip everywhere. I concentrated on controlling the drift with the steering – this is more efficient than using the accelerator pedal and reduces the risk of spinning.”
The attempt took place at the irrigated driving dynamics area at the Centre, which opened a year ago and also includes an off-road course. Porsche operates six other PECs globally and will open its eighth in Italy next year.
The rear-wheel drive Taycan was introduced in China earlier this year but has yet to be confirmed for Australia, where all Taycan models will use all-wheel drive.
It’s available with either a 79.2kWh battery pack and 300kW electric motor or a 93.4kWh battery and 350kW electric motor. Both have a 0-100km/h time of 5.4 seconds.
While there was no prior record for longest EV drift, other cars have ended up in the record books for feats of drifting.
Fastest vehicle drift
The fastest vehicle drift was set by Masato Kawabata in a Nissan GT-R Nismo at Fujairah International Airport in the United Arab Emirates on March 3, 2016.
He reached a top speed of 304.96km/h while drifting.
Longest continuous vehicle drift
Two drifting records were broken on December 11, 2017 in Greer, South Carolina: longest twin vehicle drift and longest vehicle drift.
The latter was completed by Johan Schwartz in an F90 BMW M5 and took eight hours, the M5 travelling a total of 374.17km.
The record attempt required a second M5 to get close and refuel the record-breaking car on the fly.
That second M5, a previous generation F10, was driven by Matt Mullins with Matt Butts tackling the refuelling duties. The two vehicles drifted in tandem for a total of 79.26km.
Other records that have made the books include Alastair Moffatt’s for tightest 360 degree drift into a parallel parking space – just 99cm – which he accomplished on July 10, 2019 in the UK behind the wheel of an Abarth 124 Spider.
MORE: Porsche Taycan news and reviews
MORE: Porsche news and reviews
