What Car? has set a new record for the most countries visited in 24 hours in an electric car, after driving a Porsche Taycan across 14 countries throughout Europe.
The unmodified Porsche Taycan (Performance Battery Plus), piloted by What Car journalists Neil Winn and Doug Revolta, travelled a total distance of 1199 miles.
The team stopped seven times to charge the car using an ultra-rapid 350kW Ionity charging point.
The pair drove 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 were faced with a number of challenges during the record attempt, including rush hour traffic in Luxembourg and a border crossing in Hungary. Still, the team managed to maintain a moving average of 61mph.
Just over four hours of the journey was spent travelling across Croatia as the country neighbours Slovenia, Hungary, Bosnia and Serbia. In contrast, the team spent just 10 minutes crossing the tiny principality of Liechtenstein.
The Move Electric sister brand originally estimated to make it as far as 13 countries in the 24-hour period, but the duo managed to make good progress and managed to travel to Hungary taking the final tally to 14.
The electric car record set by the two What Car? duo was only one sort of the outright car record, set by journalist Andrew Frankel in a Bentley Continental GT in 2018.
Commenting on the trip, deputy review editor, Neil Winn 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.
“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.”
What Car? editor Steve Huntigford added, ““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.”