A 2021 Porsche Taycan has officially broken the Guinness World Record for shortest charging time to cross the continental United States in an electric vehicle, spending only 2.5-hours charging across the 4,500-kilometre journey.
Driving coast-to-coast across the continental United States is a bucket-list item for many people and Wayne Gerdes, already a multi-Guinness World Records title holder for efficiency and electric vehicle range, recently set out to break the title for shortest charging time to cross the US in an EV.
As electric vehicle charging is not as quick as fuelling a combustion car, and trips therefore takes longer, one focus for electric vehicles doing the drive is often on reducing charging time.
Gerdes’ journey, which took him from Los Angeles to New York City and covered a total of 4,561.6 kilometres, resulted in just 2 hours, 26 minutes, and 48 seconds worth of EV charging – smashing the previous record of 7 hours, 10 minutes, and 1 second.
“Comparing charging performance from of variety of EVs, I have driven to date, the Taycan sets the bar,” said Gerdes.
“The first time I charged on a 350kW charger, 6 to 82% occurred in just 22 minutes,” he said, without noting what top charge rate the car actually achieved (the Taycan to our knowledge is still limited to 270kW max charge rate, and the press release on the matter did not state if the vehicle used in the record-breaking drive was modified or not, although we note an image shared to press states 251kW.)
To ensure he was able to secure the Guinness World Record title attempt, Gerdes had to note every stop with independent witnesses for each and every charge. Every mile was filmed, GPS tracked, and accounted for before being certified by a panel of adjudicators before the record attempt could be accepted.
Gerdes completed the journey in a 2021 Taycan equipped with the Performance Battery Plus as well as “nice to have” luxury items such as the Premium Package, Adaptive Cruise Control, and Porsche Electric Sport Sound.
The record attempt was undertaken as part of a partnership between Gerdes, Porsche, and the Electrify America Charging Network.
According to Gerdes’ own announcement, the record attempt was conducted over “the course of 6-weeks late last fall” and included visits “to more than 80 Electrify America Charging locations and attached to over 200 individual 350kW charge points in 22-states.”
Plotting the route across the continental United States was done using Plug Share and the Electrify America app and, for the majority of the trip, Gerdes was able to utilise Plug-and-Charge.
On completing the record-breaking journey, an understandably tired but elated Gerdes explained, “I’m proud and honestly a little surprised to have set the new benchmark by such a margin. The Taycan performed even better than expected.
“Its performance, comfort and road holding were excellent, but the standout metric alongside the charging capacity was its efficiency. I’m grateful to both Porsche for supporting me and to Electrify America’s network, which made it possible.”
Joshua S. Hill is a Melbourne-based journalist who has been writing about climate change, clean technology, and electric vehicles for over 15 years. He has been reporting on electric vehicles and clean technologies for Renew Economy and The Driven since 2012. His preferred mode of transport is his feet.