Tesla to bring Model S to Nürburgring race track, presumably to beat Porsche Taycan

Elon Musk announced that Tesla is bringing a Model S to the Nürburgring race track next week – presumably to beat the time set by the Porsche Taycan.

Before launching the Taycan earlier this week, Porsche brought a prototype of its first all-electric car to the Nürburgring-Nordschleife racetrack.

The performance electric sedan completed the notoriously difficult 20.6 km track in seven minutes and 42 seconds — claiming the “fastest four-door, all-electric sports cars” record.

Porsche had previously bragged about the Taycan being track-ready and capable of maintaining a high-power output for a long period of time, which is useful to get a good time on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife racetrack.

The German automaker specifically said that the Taycan would be better than Tesla’s vehicles at sustainable power output.

Now Porsche has unveiled the full specs of the Taycan and the inevitable comparison with Tesla’s Model S shows that the latter still has an important lead.

But that’s not enough, Tesla is now also looking to prove Porsche’s claim of better sustained power output wrong.

Musk tweeted that Tesla is going to bring a Model S to the Nürburgring-Nordschleife racetrack:

Model S on Nürburgring next week

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 5, 2019

The CEO didn’t specifically say that it would be to beat Porsche’s recently established record, but he made the announcement right after commenting on the Porsche Taycan.

He joked about Porsche using ‘Turbo’ as a trim name for an electric car.

We have never seen the latest version of the Model S try a best lap time on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife racetrack.

Earlier this year, we saw a Tesla Model 3 Performance complete a nine-minute lap on the Nürburgring racetrack, but it was on a public driving day, and there was a lot of traffic on it slowing them down.

Also, Porsche had the Taycan driven by a professional racecar driver.

Electrek’s Take

I believe that Tesla can beat Porsche’s time, but it isn’t likely to be by a significant margin.

Either way, I find it interesting that Tesla is even trying to prove that the Model S is better. I’d thought that they would let the specs talk.

It would be interesting to see if Tesla also ends up trying to show them wrong by completing 30 consecutive 0-200 km/h runs and a faster 0-90-0 run.

I’d be surprised if Porsche didn’t do the same tests with a Model S P100D first to be sure they could beat the results, but it’s not impossible.

What do you think? Let us know in the comment section below.