Forget About The Nürburgring – The 2020 Porsche Taycan Looks Best In Its Natural Habitat

The Porsche Taycan is undoubtedly one of the most important new cars launched not only in 2019, but in recent years.

As Porsche’s first mass-produced electric vehicle, the Taycan holds special significance both to the German carmaker and the EV market. That was obvious during its world debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show last week when Porsche announced that the Taycan set a record lap on the Nürburgring Nordschleife for “four-door, all-electric sports cars.”

The 7:42 lap was set with a Taycan Turbo, the “base model” that pumps up to 671 HP (680 PS) and 627 lb-ft (850 Nm) of torque on overboost.

What this means is the Taycan could be even quicker on the “Green Hell” in Turbo S guise, which goes up to 750 hp (761 PS) and 774 lb-ft (1,050 Nm), although given that this function is not available for more than 2.5 seconds at a time, after which both the versions produce 616 HP (625 PS), it’s not clear by how much.

Also Read: 2020 Taycan Is All-Electric, All Sports And (Thankfully) All Porsche

Tesla CEO Elon Musk didn’t like that the Taycan set a new record on the Nordschleife and sent two Model S chassis prototypes packing the “Plaid” three-motor powertrain to the ‘Ring. Yesterday we heard that the souped-up Model S likely shaved around 20 seconds off the Taycan’s time, but no official confirmation has been released yet.

Even if that turns out to be true, the Taycan’s record still stands, as the two Model S prototypes dispatched to the Nürburgring are far from being production models — unlike the Porsche. Regardless of which car is quicker round the world’s most challenging racetrack, it looks like Nürburgring lap times will continue to remain relevant in a post-ICE world as automakers vie for bragging rights (and sales).

Anyhow, Porsche knows that its customers won’t buy its latest model to pound the ‘Ring but use it in the real world, day in, day out, and chose Norway as the place to kick off the international media drive event of the Taycan.

No fewer than 18 cars were available for journalists from China, the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, France, Switzerland and Norway to sample on Scandinavian roads. Besides Norway, the test route also took the convoy to Sweden and Denmark on September 17 and 18, and the gallery right below shows the 2020 Taycan in its natural habitat: the real world.

To better identify the two trim levels, keep in mind that the blue car (Gentian Blue Metallic) is a Turbo while the white (Carrera White Metallic) and green (Mamba Green Metallic) ones are Turbo S models.