The Guinness World Record for the longest drift by an electric vehicle has been beaten! The achievement has been set by none other than the Porsche Taycan, according to an announcement by the automaker earlier this week.

The record breaking attempt took place at the Porsche Experience Center at the Hockenheimring track in Germany. The Porche Taycan was being driven by Dennis Retera, who managed to complete 210 laps around a 200 meter skidpad. Taking 55 minutes, the vehicle drifted for the equivalent of 26.2 miles.



The attempt took place under the supervision of Guinness World Records judge Joanne Brent. A local, independent surveyor was brought in to measure the skidpad. A GPS system, yaw rate sensors, and a camera on the track’s control tower were all used to measure the vehicle’s movement. Porsche even brought in Denise Ritzmann (engineer and drifting champion) to certify the stock nature of the vehicle.

The Taycan was in a rear-wheel drive mode, since it’s easier to drift with RWD than all wheel. While technically a pre-series vehicle, the model used in the attempt is already on sale in China. Whether the rear wheel edition will be made available in the United States remains a mystery.

While impressive, it still doesn’t even compare to the overall record for drifting. The current Guinness World Record was achieved in 2018 by the BMW M5, which drifted for 232.5 miles. That’s nearly ten times as many miles as the Taycan’s attempt. The biggest restriction for electric vehicles (and part of why its a separate category) is because the BMW was able to be refueled while in the middle of the attempt. This was done by having a second vehicle drift up next to it and pouring more fuel into the tank without stopping. Since electric vehicles take notably longer to recharge than gas fuel cars, they couldn’t apply the same technique.