► Porsche Taycan GTS long-term test
► We live with the Sport Turismo wagon
► Read month 3 here
A few years ago, I was working for a PR agency when Porsche conjured up a stunt involving the recently announced rearwheel-drive Taycan and asked our firm to help out. Chris Harris, who you’ll know from the TV as a very handy wheelman, was asked to try to break the world distance record for drifting an electric car on the wet circle at then Porsche Experience Centre at Hockenheim.
Harris did bag the record, but only just, and I’m not breaking any confidences here to say he struggled. His skills weren’t deserting him, it was just that he wasn’t used to the nuances of drifting an electric car. The grip levels weren’t consistent around the circle and he was using too much power to maintain the angle of slip.
A plan B was called for: Porsche being Porsche, it didn’t want to just break the record, it wanted to smash it to the point that it could claim bragging rights for the foreseeable, the EV equivalent of a flag at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Step forward Dennis Retera an instructor at Porsche Hockenheim; a man whose quiet demeanour sits at odds with his unbelievable car control. Chris had done 18 laps. Dennis jumped in and did 210 laps as easily as if he was taking his kid to school, equivalent to 42.171km across 55 minutes.
Staggeringly, this was his first ever attempt at that sort of distance: ‘We did a test before but for that I was only using 25 per cent [charge]. We tested at a lower percentage just to see how that affected the state of charge. I did it one more time and basically that was it. I never did such a long stint before the record.’
To those of us watching, it was almost comically underwhelming as the car kept circulating with barely a murmur. Combustion-engined drifting is all about noise and smoke, the fanfare of the sideways, whereas the Taycan was gliding around the test track’s wet surface like a swan on a lake. Sleeping babies make more noise.
Dennis languidly sat with one hand on the wheel (more on the shortly – it wasn’t arrogance), making the minute adjustments needed to keep the rear tyres going faster than the fronts and calmly waiting for the battery to run out. His relaxed demeanour was at odds with the person counting each lap, who was desperately trying to concentrate and not lose count or indeed nod off in an oddly boring drift session.
During a chat afterwards, Retera told me he was actually disappointed not to make the hour mark. ‘When I look back, my personal aim was one hour exactly. And I didn’t score that. Even one hour one second would have been nice.’
So what was his secret? The steering input is key. Whereas in a combustion car you can afford to control the yaw angle with the throttle, doing so for a record-breaking run would drain the battery too quickly. Instead, expert Dennis used a combination of steering angle and throttle to get the slide going and then maintained it mainly on the steering input.
Only small tweaks to the accelerator were required as he let most of the adjustment come from the steering. That’s why he did it one-handed – not to show off, but because he could be more precise with a small steering input.
Scroll forward a few years and it’s my turn. With Dennis’s advice ringing in my ears and Ben McLoughlin of the Silverstone Porsche Experience Centre sat next to me, here’s my chance to see how easy it is to drift an electric car. And 10 minutes later, and with some excellently committed understeer under my belt, it’s safe to say that neither Harris nor Retera is under any threat. The initial snap sideways is easy thanks to the surfeit of power, and catching it is no trouble, but maintaining it proves more difficult.
The torque ploughs into the front tyres and it’s easy to get that horrible graunching feeling from the front rubber, as opposed to the smoother squeal of the rears.
Being four-wheel drive, our Taycan GTS requires yet another tweak to the technique, especially on the dry skid pan we’re on today. Doubtless Dennis would adapt it if he was seeking another record, but I actually steer less than I’d imagined I would because the Porsche Traction Management is constantly juggling the flow of torque between front and rear tyres. That’s where the main area of control comes from – the power. It’s better to use the throttle and PTM to maintain the drift, rather than the steering like Dennis did.
Naturally, this isn’t efficient like his method. Ham-fisted me gets through miles of range in a few short minutes because my inputs are too violent and sudden – Retera’s nuance is notable for its absence. But a few practice laps later, I finally get the hang and it’s incredible how tuned in it feels.
All of a sudden I look in the right direction and it eases all the panicked arm twirling that I was doing. You’re aware of the mass and direction of travel of the back end, but not focused on it – by looking ahead, you smooth out your steering and throttle inputs. It becomes strangely natural.
Is it easier being in an electric car? Definitely – the instant reaction of the throttle makes it more easily adjustable. But I still Google world’s longest understeer afterwards, just in case I can bag my own record.
Logbook: Porsche Taycan GTS (month 4)
Price: £111,200 (£126,486 as tested)
Performance: 83.7kWh battery, e-motor, 510bhp, 3.7sec 0-62mph, 155mph
Efficiency: 2.93 miles per kWh (official), 3.28 miles per kWh (tested)
Range: 301 miles (official), 248 miles (tested)
Energy cost: 13.0p per mile
Miles this month: 1114
Total miles: 16,887