Tesla Model S breaks Laguna Seca lap records, says Elon Musk

Tesla CEO Elon Musk says that they broke the fastest lap record for 4-door vehicles at Laguna Seca racetrack, and they are going to release a video about it soon.

Following the recent launch of the Porsche Taycan, Musk appears to be on a mission to show that Tesla’s vehicles are still the highest-performance EVs available today.

Last week, he said that Tesla would bring a Model S to Nürburgring race track — right after Porsche established a new 4-door electric car record at the track.

Musk confirmed this morning that the Model S is at the track in Germany, but it sounds like they won’t be able to try for a record.

The CEO said:

But we probably won’t try for best lap time this week, as we need to review & tune Model S thoroughly for safety on Nürburgring, especially Flugplatz section

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2019

While they couldn’t get things done in Germany, Tesla tried for its own record at home at the Laguna Seca racetrack.

Musk said that they broke the fastest lap record for 4-door vehicles:

Model S just set record for fastest 4 door ever at Laguna Seca, video tmrw

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 11, 2019

Laguna Seca has become somewhat of a proving ground for electric vehicles in recent years.

Last year, the record for the fastest production EV lap has changed hands several times.

Cameron Rogers first captured it by racing a standard Model 3 RWD with and without mods at Laguna race track, and he did a record lap at the track with his new Model 3 Performance in September.

Later, Jaguar announced that their I-Pace set a “production EV lap record” at the track, and funnily enough, Lucid’s development team beat the record with a Tesla Model S P100D.

The EV startup later beat the record with their own vehicle, the Lucid Air, but the vehicle is not considered a production vehicle.

So a Model S P100D driven by Tesla’s development team ended taking the Laguna Seca production EV record after all.

Then Rogers did a 1:41.2 lap in his Model 3 Performance to claim the record again — however, the car had an aftermarket suspension.

It will be interesting to see where Tesla’s new record stands between all those different records.