Just three months after announcing its SU7 Ultra Prototype track-special race car, Xiaomi — best known for its smartphones — has stunned the automotive world by setting an extremely fast lap time at the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife. The Xiaomi SU7 Ultra Prototype completed the lap in just 6 minutes and … [continued]
Xiaomi, the world’s second largest smartphone maker, recently launched its electric sportscar, the Xiaomi SU7 sedan. Now, the company has just announced it will soon attempt a fast lap at the Nürburgring Nordschleife using a dedicated SU7 track-ready prototype. Xiaomi’s founder and CEO, Lei Jun 雷军, today (July 19th) held … [continued]
Respected German publication Auto Motor und Sport is reporting that the Tesla Model S Plaid prototype has been hand-timed lapping the Nordschleife in 7 minutes and 13 seconds, according to the outlet’s local source. Adjusting for race-compound tires, this puts the Tesla around 19 seconds ahead of the Taycan Turbo’s 7:42 lap time reported by Porsche in August. It’s also faster than every gas-powered 4-door series production car ’round the ‘ring.
Despite Porsche’s recent ambitious claims to have engineered an electric vehicle with uniquely repeatable performance, Bjørn Nyland has just demonstrated that the already-on-sale Tesla Model 3 has long since been capable of repeatable performance.
Whilst seemingly irrelevant to everyday driving, the ongoing competition between Tesla and Porsche over EV performance supremacy is quickly demonstrating that fossil sports cars are becoming obsolete — an important symbolic milestone for the EV revolution which will have repercussions in higher volume segments. If Porsche wants its Taycan to keep pace with the Tesla Model S Plaid, Porsche will have to allow it to outperform the company’s current flagship Panamera combustion sedan. And that will only highlight the inferiority of fossil vehicles.
A Tesla Model S prototype currently testing at the Nürburgring Nordschleife has been informally timed lapping the circuit in 7:23. The stopwatch timing was made by a correspondent of the German publication Auto Motor und Sport. The Tesla did have have the advantage of using race compound tires, but that doesn’t account for the almost 20 second advantage over the Porsche Taycan’s publicized lap time (7:42). The Tesla also looks to have the potential to surpass the track performance of every gasoline saloon, save limited production specials from Jaguar and BMW.
Proving the superior performance of electric vehicles, a prototype Tesla Model S with “Plaid powertrain and chassis” has broken the outright 4-door sedan lap record at the famous Laguna Seca Raceway, in a time of 1:36.555. Elon Musk has confirmed that this version of the Model S will go into series production around a year from now, and the same powertrain option will also be made available for the Tesla Model X.
Nico Rosberg, 2016 Formula One champion, and huge fan of electric vehicles (EVs), has offered to pilot the Tesla Model S that Tesla is sending to the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Elon Musk has accepted the offer. This is a perfect fit for EV publicity and advocacy.
Elon Musk has picked up the gauntlet thrown down by the Porsche Taycan — the Tesla Model S will record a lap time at the Nurburgring Nordschleife at some point next week. Will the Model S beat the Taycan’s 7:42 lap time?
Despite not surpassing some of its combustion peers over the full lap of the Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit, a recently released onboard lap video shows that the Porsche Taycan has effectively outperformed its Panamera sibling (and the BMW M5 and M5 Competition) over the twisty first half of the course. This indicates that on the vast majority of the world’s race circuits, where mid-speed corners dominate over high speed straightaways, the Taycan will be able to lap faster than the Panamera and similar 4-door saloons, such as the BMW M5.
