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Porsche sent its Taycan EV cross-country to claim a 'charging time' record

It was plugged in for 2 hours, 26 minutes and 48 seconds for an LA-to-NY trip.

Porsche/ROBIN TRAJANO

A standard 2021 Porsche Taycan has broken the Guinness World Record for the shortest charging time to cross the United States in an electric vehicle. It only needed a cumulative charge time of 2 hours, 26 minutes and 48 seconds to cover a 2,834.5-mile drive from Los Angeles to New York. While the record it broke is highly specific, there was a previous holder: A Kia EV6, which had to be charged for 7 hours, 10 minutes and 1 second to make a similar, but just slightly longer, trip from New York to LA.

Wayne Gerdes, known for his efficiency driving and for coining the term "hypermiling," was behind the wheel for the record-breaking journey. Hypermiling, as you may know, involves the use of adjustments and driving techniques to maximize the vehicle's fuel use. Porsche told Engadget that Gerdes drove normal speeds and sometimes even went faster, depending on the charge level, for the duration of the trip.

As for the vehicle itself, it was equipped with the company's Performance Battery Plus, which has a higher gross capacity than the base battery option, and Adaptive Cruise Control. For the attempt to be recognized by the Guinness World Records, every mile of the journey had to be filmed and the vehicle's GPS had to be tracked.

Gerdes said that the first time he charged a Taycan on a 350KW charger, its battery levels went from 6 to 82 percent in just 22 minutes. He relied on Electrify America's CCS DC fast charging network for the trip, since the company is a partner for this attempt. Porsche first revealed the Taycan electric sedan in 2019 and started making deliveries in 2020. The automaker has released several variants since then, including the category-blurring Cross Turismo EV.