If you’re like me, then much of your childhood involved comparing cars’ 0-60 mph times. This was the measuring stick used to compare performance of various cars, and it was always exciting when a new car (especially if it was an affordable one) could sprint to 60 mph under 6 seconds. The “0-60” standard has been indelibly scratched into my automotive psyche, which is why I think it’s worth writing this article about the new 0-60 mph record, because it is bonkers.
When I was a kid, 0-60 times in the 7s were considered OK for everyday cars. Front-drive machines like GTIs and Dodge Caliber SRT-4s were hitting low 6’s, and big America V8 machines like the Charger R/T and Mustang GT were in the 5’s. Pretty much only expensive cars — M3s, C63 AMG Mercedes, Challenger SRT-8s, Mustang GT500s, Audi R8s — could do 0-60 mph in the 4s. And the 3s were hallowed ground reserved for only the best of the best — Dodge Vipers, Ferraris, Corvette Z06s and ZR1s, Lamborghinis, and the like. That’s one of the reasons why the Nissan GT-R was such a big deal when it came out in 2008 — it could do 0-60 in 3.5 seconds at a fraction of the price of its competitors!
In 2008, when I was a rising senior in high school, there were no 2-second cars. Well, not really. Look at Car and Driver’s list of quickest cars of 2008, and you’ll see the Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano at 3.3 seconds to 60 mph, the Nissan GT-R also at 3.3, the Corvette ZR1 at 3.4, the Viper ACR at 3.4, and the Porsche 911 Turbo at 3.5.
Then came a big gap.
In terms of 0-60 mph times, was more than big. It was huge, gargantuan, enormous, tremendous — whatever word you wanna use. But it was more than big.
Then, after this colossal chasm came the Bugatti Veyron, which could do 0-60 mph in 2.5 seconds.
The Veyron truly was in a league of its own, and it’s for this reason why I consider it the greatest car of all time. No, it’s not the best, but in terms of just engineering brilliance, the Veyron is, at least in my eyes, the GOAT. It made over 1000 horsepower from a boosted W16 engine, it had 10 radiators, it had a dual clutch automatic transmission, it had active aerodynamics — all this back in 2005! And I recall seeing a prototype in the streets of Berlin 2003!
The Veyron was simply larger than life. And yet, 20 years later, even it has been thoroughly displaced from the Mt. Rushmore of quickest cars for sale in the U.S. That’s because, when it comes to sheer quickness, electric cars cannot be defeated.
Even normal, run-of-the-mill EVs can do 0-60 MPH in the 4-second range as long as they have all-wheel drive. The Hyundai Ioniq 5, Tesla Model Y, and Mustang Mach-E will all do it, and the sports versions of those cars will hit 60 in the 3s. More importantly, the 2s are no longer sacred ground — plenty of EVs can do 0-60 in just a couple of seconds.
Check out Motor Trend’s list of quickest cars, and you’ll see the Audi e-Tron GT at 2.9 seconds, the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N at 2.8, the Rivian R1S Quad Max at 2.6, The Tesla Cyberbeast and Rivian R1T matching the Veyron at 2.5, the Porsche Taycan in 2.4 seconds, the Lucid Air Sapphire in 2.2, and the Tesla Model S plaid at 2.1 seconds to 60 mph.
That’s just wild.
Today, though, Motor Trend’s Christian Seabaugh wrote this headline: “Record Setter! 2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT Weissach Sets New 0–60-MPH Mark.”
“From a standstill. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe the sensational 2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT Weissach, MotorTrend’s new undisputed 0–60-mph champ,” Seabaugh writes before getting into the good stuff:
The new 2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT Weissach launches from 0 to 60 mph in just 1.89 seconds (2.10 seconds without our standard 1 foot of rollout). That’s 0.05 second quicker (with rollout; 0.04 without) than the second-quickest car we ever tested, a slightly heavier non-Weissach Taycan Turbo GT, and 0.18 second quicker than our previous 0–60 champ, a pre-production Tesla Model S Plaid, which hit the mark in only 2.07 seconds. (That latter figure, if you can believe it, was a disappointment to Tesla; the quickest production Model S Plaid we’ve tested needed 2.24 seconds.)
Holy shit.
1.89 seconds! Out of a production car!
Granted, it’s not cheap starting at over $230,000, and it doesn’t have a rear seat. But what it does have is 1,019 horsepower and 914 lb-ft of torque available for launches. The Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package sends all that grunt through a two-speed rear transmission and single-speed front reduction — and through some wide Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RS Elect NF0s — allowing the car to not only break all sorts production EV records at famous racetracks around the world including the Nürburgring and Laguna Seca, but now firmly hold the designation of 0-60 GOAT.
1.89 seconds. Wow!
Top Image: Porsche
I literally said “Whoooooah” for about 41 seconds when I read that number.
I can’t imagine doing 2 seconds 0-60 on public roads. My Corvette does 4.5 and there are situations where that’s too fast. I’ve done 3 seconds on a rollercoaster, and that’s a rush even on a fixed track with very few environmental variables. I’m not positive I’d be okay with that in the real world.
I guess the good news is most people don’t seem to actually do this, at least around me. I never see a Tesla pull away from a stop light in a way that makes me think they’re using this crazy acceleration. Maybe because they got tired of replacing tires as often as they replaced oil in their ICEs? 🙂
I have an issue with marketers slapping “turbo” on an EV. Words have meanings, people!!
Turbo as a term of speed or quickly has been around for quite a time now.
I remember seeing blenders with turbo features on them
And “turbo” sunglasses were a thing!
At least a blender has some high-speed whirling blades that somewhat resemble a turbo. Maybe Porsche is referring to their high-speed climate control fans.
Old computers sometimes had a turbo button as well
You must not remember the turbo button found on many Intel 486 computers.
Can anyone explain why rollouts are allowed? This test quotes a 1 foot rollout, and I think I’ve seen a test that was something like a 5 mph rollout. In either case, why would you be able to denote something as a 0-60 mph time when it’s actually a 4-60 or 5-60 mph time?
Unless I’m misunderstanding what a rollout is?
it has to do with timing methods
It feels like we’re chasing the wrong metric. Is horsepower the cheapest thing to produce and sell now? I think peak auto occurred about 20 years ago. Today’s cars provide ever less sensory interaction, there are almost no manual transmissions remaining, each generation gets heavier with worse steering feel and softer suspensions, buttons with their reassuring clicks and resistance are disappearing . . .
Arbitrary examples of the worsening car landscape: Mercedes has given up on artful dashboards and stuck up four or five cheap looking tablets to serve as a simulacrum of instrument panels. And I’ve read that their new EV CLA weighs as much as their S-class . . .
And here I am excited with my Chevy Bolt that looks like a Sonic/Aveo can do 0-60 in 6.3s lol I always laugh when bigger cars do not expect that from a small car that looks generic.
My 96 Trooper is like an interstellar spaceship in that you spend half the voyage accelerating and the other half decelerating.
It is not proper to toss petrol-fuelled Bugatti Veyron into the mix with BEV. Both have completely different technologies for propelling the vehicles. You don’t see the car comparison tests putting petrol and diesel vehicles together for testing very often.
When the statistics show the low percentage of BEV catching fire as compared to the petrol-fuelled vehicles, they put all of the vehicles together regardless of what type. If you separate the statistics by BEV and petrol-fuelled vehicles, you will see that BEV has higher incidence of catching fire. The separate statistics aren’t always talked about in the leftist/liberal mainstream media because that would doom the sales of BEV when people find out how high the incidence of catching fire is amongst the BEV. Not to mention the catastrophic environmental damage from the batteries. Los Angeles found out the hard way after the recent fire: many of burn-down BEV had to be treated as hazardous waste and must be specifically treated and removed.
A study by AutoInsuranceEZ, using data from the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, found that gasoline vehicles experience about 1,530 fires per 100,000 vehicles, hybrids see 3,475 per 100,000, while BEVs come in at 25 per 100,000. That’s not a typo, your statements are in fact just plain misinformation.
Now, do BEV fires burn differently? Absolutely. They can be harder to put out due to thermal runaway in lithium-ion batteries, and yes, disposal after a fire is more complex. But that doesn’t mean BEVs are more likely to catch fire in the first place.
As for the “leftist/liberal mainstream media” supposedly covering up BEV fire risks—if that were true, why do BEV fires make headlines every time they happen? If anything, the media loves sensationalizing them because it grabs attention. Meanwhile, the thousands of petrol car fires each year barely get a mention.
What do the fires have to do with top speeds?
If any diesel cars had the acceleration to put them in this list, I doubt you’d get any objections to them appearing here. A car is a car. EVs win for pure acceleration on straightaways, and better engineering and battery technologies will probably give them an edge in the corners someday, too.
”When I was a kid, 0-60 times in the 7s were considered OK for everyday cars”
This kinda statement is still mindboggling to me, having grown up in the 70’s and 80’s.
Personally, I will never not consider a car that can do 0-60 in 7 seconds quick.
I know for a fact that, mixing in with traffic on normal roads, 13 or 14 seconds is still perfectly acceptable, and might actually make you one of the quicker cars out there, since most drivers are slow and inattentive and don’t come close to using anywhere near the actual potential of their vehicles.
I’d say most people, even in Teslas, tend to attempt merging onto 65mph highways at 40 because they don’t want to use the full ramp for some reason, or leisurely stumble through an intersection and gradually get up to 60 over the next couple of miles
This. 1000x this. It’s fucking infuriating..
Ugh, it’s terrible.
“I’m driving 35 in a 40. Safety first folks!”
Turn onto entrance ramp
“I will continue at 35 because this is just another road. No need to be hasty.”
Then blindly enter interstate at 35-40, following the entrance lane to the very end, pretending that their turn signal gives them right-of-way, and then gradually accelerate to 65 over the course of the next 2 miles, causing backups, swerves, near misses, etc.
“These other people are so unsafe. Look how they’re speeding!”
AGHHH I hate these people. So many of them here!
Yeah, exactly. A new Equinox should not be left half a mile behind a conservatively driven mid ’60s econobox after the light turns green, but, if the driver is playing with a phone in his/her lap, that’s exactly what happens
Exactly. I daily drive a 95 K2500 4×4 with the 5.7l. It fully loaded down with a utility box and tools so it probably does 0-60 in like 16-17 secs. Heck, even slower with the plow blade on it. I have never had a situation merging into to traffic that I thought “More power would make this safer”
Realistically even in the late 90s most cars on the road weren’t touching the 7s. If you opted for the bigger motor in some widely available sedans, sure. At least by that time “sports” cars were mostly in that range, having caught up a bit to the bubble-era mid-90s Japanese cars.
It’s mindboggling having grown up in the ’80s and ’90s in the US. Sub 100 hp cars are still common in Europe and elsewhere. Our most recent overseas rental was a Skoda Fabia with the 94-hp version of the 1.0L I-3 turbo VW engine coupled to a 5-spd manual. Over the week we drove it (in hilly Andalucia, Spain), the average fuel economy was around 45 US MPG, and it got 50 on its return voyage driven on flat roads.
It was about the same size as our ’14 Mazda3. Given the choice, I’d certainly consider purchasing one (or an Octavia wagon), because it was a very nice car that would suit me just fine on my daily commute.
What Car’s review states:
Could you imagine any US-based reviewer daring to utter anything like that?
When I was a car-obsessed child in late 60s/early 70s Vancouver, I considered anything under 10 seconds to be quite quick.
The fastest car I ever owned was a 2000 VW Golf VR6 (European version, with 4WD and 200 bhp) – this did 0-60 in 7.2 seconds, which I enjoyed deploying occasionally.
From a Car & Driver review of the new 1984 Corvette: “ It is hands-down the fastest American automobile, capable of 140-mph top speeds, 0-to-60 times under seven seconds, and 15.2-second quarter-mile forays at 90 mph. In fact, these figures qualify the Corvette as one of the half-dozen fastest production automobiles in the entire world”
That is the 80’s I remember. Back when factory V8s struggled to make 200 hp. This Corvette ran 0-60 in 6.7 seconds and made 205 hp. A 1984 Camaro Z28 only made 190 hp.
I think you left the most impressive part out of the Veyron: it was supposed to be as comfy and easy to drive as Golf. Not sure how close that was, but still very impressive. It’s really was a moon program of Volkswagen.
I can confirm that they are as easy and comfy to drive as a Golf, the bit that gets left out is they cost roughly as much as a Golf. To service. every six months. Without being serviced they will not start, just a message that tells you to have it done!
I think it’s part of the cool factor. And the tyre cost. I think it was 20k€ a set, wonder if wheels are under 100k per set. Getting second set for winter tyres and all that.
As others have said have pointed out, that is an average acceleration of 1.447155 G.
Never mind the torque, how the hell do the tires and pavement work to get 1.447155 G or more of traction? Is it accelerating harder at 30mph because of possible downforce?
Drag slicks, prepared track surfaces, and exhaust pipes that point up do a lot of the work on dragsters, but none of that is applicable here, is it?
The heavy batteries help.
Or, the wheels are spinning at 60mph even though the car is barely moving. I mean, how is “60mph” determined?
They use GPS if I recall correctly. If they went off pure gauge or OBD, it could easily be manipulated by manufacturers in kind of a subtle Dieselgate way.
Well, it’s a ridiculous time to be alive. That my ’17 Accord V6 can roast both front tires from a standstill, break traction again when the AT shifts to second and chirp them again shifting to 3rd (admittedly on all-season tires) and get to 60 in under 6 seconds, is pretty crazy/impressive.
The times these cars, today, are posting is crazy and far more than I need.