VW crushes EV lap record at Nurburgring

Almost exactly a year after smashing the EV record at Pikes Peak, Volkswagen’s ID.R broke another barrier by setting a new EV benchmark around the Nurburgring-Nordschleife.

With Romain Dumas at the wheel, the Volkswagen averaged 128.6mph around the 12.9-mile, 144-turn layout and sliced more than 40s off the EV record set by the Chinese NIO EP9 in 2017 to cross the line in 6m05.336s – the second-fastest lap of the ‘Ring ever.

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The ID.R underwent a raft of mechanical changes, focused mostly on thermal management, to transform it from high-elevation mountain-climber to Stefan Bellof-beater. The German’s 6m11.13s lap, set in 1983 in a Porsche 956, remained untouched for more than three decades before Porsche and Timo Bernhard rolled up with the Le Mans-winning 919 Evo and chopped off more than a minute to set the current outright record at 5m19.55s.