Porsche Taycan sets Nürburgring EV record

Electric-car bragging rights at the Nürburgring are weirdly important — and not just for ego. The Nordschleife is where carmakers go to prove a machine can do speed, stability, cooling, and repeatability all at once. Porsche just grabbed that headline back. On May 7, a Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package and a new Manthey Kit lapped the full 20.832-km circuit in 6:55.533, putting it back on top of the production electric executive-car class. ### What actually changed? The big change is not a brand-new Taycan. It’s a track-focused upgrade package. Porsche and Manthey took the existing Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package and added aero, chassis, wheel-and-tire, and software tweaks aimed at one thing — making the car faster and more consistent on a hard lap. Porsche says this is the first time it has offered a Manthey kit for an electric sports car, and orders open in June as a retrofit for existing Taycan Turbo GT Weissach cars. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### Who did Porsche beat? The immediate target was Xiaomi. In June 2025, the production Xiaomi SU7 Ultra set the Nürburgring record for electric executive cars at 7:04.957. Porsche’s new 6:55.533 lap is 9.424 seconds quicker, which is a massive gap on a lap where gains usually come in scraps. That means the preliminary framing was basically right on the rivalry, but the exact class matters — this is the production electric executive-car record, not some all-EV absolute crown. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### Why does the class matter so much? Because Nürburgring records are split into buckets, and those buckets can get confusing fast. Xiaomi also has a much quicker SU7 Ultra prototype lap — 6:22.091 — but that run belongs to the prototype/pre-production category, not the production executive-car class Porsche just reclaimed. So Porsche did not beat Xiaomi’s wildest number. It beat Xiaomi’s official production-sedan benchmark in the same category. (nuerburgring.de) ### What is Manthey actually adding? Manthey is Porsche’s go-to name for circuit-focused upgrades, especially for GT cars. Here the package centers on more downforce, revised suspension tuning, a reworked wheel-and-tire setup, and software changes that improve power delivery. Basically, Porsche is saying the Taycan’s hardware was already there, but the car needed a sharper track toolset to turn that potential into a record lap. (nuerburgring.de) ### Why use Lars Kern again? Because he’s Porsche’s Nürburgring specialist. Kern also set the earlier Taycan benchmark in a pre-series car at 7:07.55 back in early 2024. That older lap already showed the Turbo GT was serious. This new run chops another 12.017 seconds off Porsche’s own 2024 time, which helps show how much of the gain came from the Manthey package rather than a whole new generation of car. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### Is this just marketing? Yes — but not “just” marketing. A Nürburgring lap is a compressed stress test. If an EV can survive that pace with stable power delivery, grip, braking, and thermal control, that says something real about the platform. And Porsche is clearly using this lap to make a broader point: Chinese EV brands can show up with huge speed, but Porsche still knows how to turn a fast sedan into a polished track weapon. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### So what’s the bottom line? This was Porsche’s answer lap. Xiaomi landed a real blow in 2025 with the SU7 Ultra, and Porsche came back with a more focused Taycan rather than a clean-sheet replacement. The smart part is that the record car is tied to an actual customer kit, not a one-off science project. That makes the message much stronger — Porsche is selling the comeback, not just celebrating it. (newsroom.porsche.com)