The sight of the immobile Tesla Model S being lapped by the Porsche Taycan – that must’ve hurt Elon Musk a lot.
The arrival of the Porsche Taycan all-electric luxury sedan made Elon Musk restless. The man really wants to beat the new EV on all departments and take back the Nurburgring lap record which the Germans took away from the Tesla Model S.
For the past few days, Tesla Model S prototypes have been attacking the Green Hell and one of them even clocked a 20-second faster lap time than the Taycan. Mind you, that’s an unofficial figure and the Model S in question was a heavily modified prototype with “Plaid” powertrain and a host of other upgrades. Still, things were looking extremely positive for the industry’s most successful EV manufacturer.
Things seem to have changed a bit recently as their main prototype broke down at the Ring during Industry Pool. Which means that there were other manufacturers testing their cars on the Ring when the Model S prototype pulled over to the side of the Nordschleife track. To rub salt into the wound, a Porsche Taycan was present when the debacle happened and the German EV passed the motionless Tesla as the latter was being loaded on to a tow truck.
Though it’s not new for test vehicles to encounter issues when posed with a challenging environment, the whole incident may turn out to be an embarrassing episode for Tesla. And that’s purely because of the Taycan’s presence. But the Model S may have the last laugh as the data collected from the testing sessions indicates at the prototype’s capability of matching the unofficial 7:20 lap time calculated by bystanders.
Porsche may also be preparing to strike back with the Taycan Turbo S which has superior performance compared to the lap record-holding Taycan Turbo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EM4EvDRObj0
Source: Talea Media