Ah, electric cars. Quietly and gently bumbling around our towns and cities, helping people to commute with less of a drain on their wallets and their environmental consciences. Laudable, of course, but EVs aren’t for true enthusiasts, surely?
Something tells me someone might beg to differ...
Porsche would beg to differ, and to prove the point, it’s just set a Guinness World Record with the Taycan electric saloon - the fourth such record to be held by this car. Now, you’d have to say that this is a bit of a niche record, but it’s a record, nonetheless. It’s not the tallest building nor the oldest person, and not even the fattest horse. No, it’s the Guinness World Record For The Longest Continuous Vehicle Drift On Ice By An Electric Vehicle. Or the LCVDOIBAC as we shall henceforth refer to it.
So, how long did the Taycan have to drift for to set the LCVDOIBAC record?
That would be 17.503km, amounting to 132 laps of a 59-metre circular track carved out on a frozen Finnish lake. That’s 17.503km, non-stop sliding sideways and looking through the side windows. The record (that’s the LCVDOIBAC record, remember) took 46 minutes to set.
Well, actually it took a bit longer than that, really. You see, this wasn’t Porsche’s first try at setting the LCVDOIBAC record. The first attempt was on the January 14, but that one was foiled by “difficult external conditions” according to Porsche Experience instructor Jens Richter, who was behind the wheel: “Under the extreme continuous load of the drifting Taycan, the ice track deteriorated faster than expected. We therefore had to abort the first attempt after around 11 kilometres.”
How did Porsche reset for the second attempt?
For the second attempt, Richter and the Porsche team switched the Taycan’s tyres for versions with shorter ice spikes, and decided to make the drifting run after dark, so that lower temperatures would preserve the ice surface. That’s right - Richter was going to endlessly drift a €160,000+ Porsche on a frozen lake for 45 minutes, in the dark. Don’t tell us this wasn’t intrepid...
With the 45 minutes or so completed, and the 17.503km covered, Richter and Porsche had blown the old EV ice drifting record out of the water. Errr... out of the ice, beating it by a full three kilometres.
“With our new Guinness World Records title on ice, the Taycan has once again proven its sideways driving qualities," said Richter. "And this time even with all-wheel drive. The fact that the Taycan GTS can be controlled so well even under extreme conditions speaks volumes for its excellent chassis and balanced performance.”
Where did all this happen?
The LCVDOIBAC record attempt took place at Porsche’s ‘Arctic Centre’ in Levi, in the north of Finland, around 150km inside the Arctic Circle. The Taycan GTS was unmodified, and the tyres used were standard Michelin ice tyres with 1mm spikes. The attempt was made under the supervision of an adjudicator from Guinness World Records, and the Taycan was fitted with a special GPS monitor which not only tracked distance and speed, but also the driver's actions such as steering wheel movements, accelerator and braking, and the G-forces acting on the vehicle.
Carl Saville was present as the official Guinness adjudicator and it was he who presented Richter and Christian Lehwald, Managing Director of the Porsche Arctic Centre and Head of Porsche Experience and New Platforms at Porsche, with the official award for setting the record.
“Our experiential marketing approach involves always trying out unusual things. In the Porsche Arctic Centre, we find exceptionally good conditions for drifting on ice. With the new Taycan GTS, we have one of the most powerful electric vehicles on the market. So, we were pretty confident that we could break the world record with this combination and accepted the challenge.” said Lehwald.
The LCVDOIBAC is far from the only Guinness World Record held by the Porsche Taycan. In 2023, Porsche set another Guinness World title with the Taycan Cross Turismo along the Xinjiang-Tibet route. At 5,573 metres, the car set the greatest altitude change by an electric car.
Meanwhile In 2021, racing driver Leh Keen accelerated a Porsche Taycan to 165.1km/h in an exhibition hall in New Orleans, Louisiana. He thus set the record for the fastest speed driven by a vehicle in an enclosed building. And in 2020, Porsche Experience instructor Dennis Retera drifted exactly 210 laps in a Taycan at the Porsche Experience Center (PEC) Hockenheimring, covering 42.171 kilometres in 55 minutes.
Is there a way I can take part in all this?
Yes, there is. You can actually go and experience the Porsche Arctic Centre for yourself, as the car maker uses it as a driver training and experience centre for those looking to brush up on their winter driving skills, and indeed to just have some fun flinging sports cars around in the snow. The Centre even features track layouts designed by legendary Formula One track architect Hermann Tilke. Just don’t expect to set a new LCVDOIBAC record yourself... [Ed: Or be able to pronounce that.]