What Car? journalists Neil Winn and Doug Revolta have set a new world record for the most countries visited in 24 hours in an electric car. The unmodified Porsche Taycan (Performance Battery Plus) chosen for the challenge required seven charge stops at ultra-rapid 350kW Ionity chargers along the 1199-mile journey across 14 countries.
Aside from these brief charge stops, the pair drove the Taycan non-stop for 24 hours from the Netherlands to Serbia, passing through Belgium, Luxembourg, France, Germany, Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Italy, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary and Bosnia in that order.
Both drivers faced numerous challenges in their 24-hour driving adventure including rush hour traffic in Luxembourg and a perilous border crossing in Hungary, but this didn’t stop the pair from maintaining a moving average of 61mph. The largest proportion of their time (just over four hours) was spent traversing Croatia as the crescent-shaped country abuts Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia and Serbia. This contrasts rather starkly with the 10 minutes it took to cross the tiny principality of Liechtenstein.
Calculating average charging times and driving speeds, and adjusting for traffic and border crossings, What Car? had initially estimated to make it as far as 13 countries in the 24-hour period, but such was the progress of the duo that they managed to include Hungary in the final tally – taking the total to 14.
Neil Winn, Deputy Reviews Editor for What Car?, said: “The European road trip has an electric future. Our epic journey has shown that the rise of electric cars doesn’t mean a mega-mile cross-continental holiday is off the cards.
“I knew before we set off that everything would need to go perfectly for us to achieve the initial goal of travelling through 13 countries in 24 hours. So you can imagine our surprise when we decided to do 14 because we were so far ahead of time.
“We believe this achievement is a world record. It’s impossible to get timed records officially verified on public roads, but during our research we didn’t find any documentation of other electric adventurers who have managed more countries in 24 hours.”
Steve Huntingford, editor of What Car? said: “We hear a lot from our readers about electric car charging problems, range anxiety and general trepidation over long-distance journeys in some electric cars. But this outstanding record-breaking run shows that the European road trip should live long into the electric future.
“This is not the end of the journey, though. What we’ve shown is that a premium car using one of the fastest but most expensive charging networks can do journeys like this. We still need many more chargers in many more locations, all offering rapid charging speeds and rock-solid reliability – along with a broader choice of long-range electric cars for all budgets. We’re not there yet, but What Car?’s road trip shows that we are well on the way to stress-free cross-continental holidays in electric cars.”
What Car? EV record in numbers
14 Countries visited
1199 Miles covered
7 Charging stops
61mph average speed
24 Bottles of water
12 Bags of crisps eaten
9 Petrol station sandwiches eaten
12 Cups of coffee consumed
2050 Photos taken
Porsche Taycan (Performance Battery Plus)
Price: £79,604
Engine: Electric motor
Power: 375bhp (469bhp in overboost)
Torque: 263lb ft
Gearbox: 2-spd automatic, RWD
Battery Size: 83.7kWh (usable)
0-62mph: 5.4sec
Top speed: 143mph
Official range: 316 miles
CO2/tax band: 0g/km / 2%
