In the world of action films, car chases are a staple, almost always done with gasoline-powered cars. However, with more and more electric vehicles (EVs) on the road, it was only a matter of time before someone tried to film a car chase scene with an EV. That someone was director Christian Gudegast, and the car was a Porsche Taycan. In the newly released film Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, Gudegast and his team made movie history by creating the first-ever car chase scene with an electric vehicle.
In the original Den of Thieves, also directed by Gudegast and starring Gerard Butler and O’Shea Jackson Jr., an iconic scene features Jackson’s character, Donnie, driving a Mustang GT through an industrial section of Los Angeles. Donnie shows off his skills; weaving in between 18-wheelers and pickup trucks but miraculously never hitting them. The scene showcases LA’s gritty underbelly and a quintessential American car, seamlessly integrating the real-life backdrop into its narrative.
That film’s newly released follow-up, Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, takes place in Europe and captures the essence of the European underworld through the cars used by the film’s characters. Gudegast’s search for the right getaway car, once again piloted by Donnie, led him to the Taycan, an all-electric sports sedan.
THE COLLABORATION
Porsche was immediately on board with the project. “Porsche doesn’t do this very often, if ever,” says Gudegast, on getting the storied car manufacturer involved with the production. “But when we first reached out to them, they just immediately jumped in and were all-in from the beginning.”
All told, Porsche ended up providing five individual Taycans to the production – each one outfitted for a specific purpose. While the hero car we see on-screen looks similar to a stock Taycan, the other four are very different. One of the cars had to have its driving controls re-mounted to the roof, which according to Gudegast, has been done with other movie cars before, but never with an all-electric one. The cars used for filming stunts were also tuned and outfitted with performance tires, suspension, and braking systems.
“It was a huge engineering task, and we couldn’t have done it without Porsche,” says Gudegast.
Porsche’s engineers worked closely with Gudegast’s team to make the car chase scene possible. “They completely re-outfitted all these cars for us, which is crazy. It took months, and months, and months, and the head engineer for North American Porsche was there, and all the guys from Stuttgart went down there.
Gudegast says that on an average movie, the director might go watch the picture car getting worked on a couple of times, yet on Den of Thieves 2: Pantera, he and the other members of the cast and crew were far more involved, routinely going down to the warehouse to see the Taycans being modified. “We’re all gearheads, right,” says Gudegast, describing how he and the film’s crew would sometimes spend Friday nights cracking open cold ones and watching the engineers work.
A CHASE UNLIKE ANY YOU’VE EVER HEARD BEFORE
From the outset, Gudegast and his team knew that because this car chase involved an electric vehicle, it would sound a lot different than the roar of the internal combustion engines moviegoers are familiar with hearing in movie car chases.
He wanted to keep the Taycan’s sound authentic. “We didn’t want to do anything fake. It’s because people are familiar with electric cars now, and there are a lot of Taycan owners out there. We wanted to keep it real.”
To that end, Gudegast and his sound team worked with Porsche, who recorded the Taycan’s engine sounds at their facilities. “They recorded tons of stuff off their engine,” says Gudegast, sharing how the Porsche team took recordings of the Taycan at different speeds and in different environments. In addition, foley artist Steve Baine took recordings of the Taycan engine in various settings that matched the locations of the movie’s chase scenes. Using both the recordings created by Porsche and the recordings made on location by the film’s crew, a sound effect you can feel in your chest was achieved.
THE STAKES GET HIGHER
Gudegast wanted to shoot this groundbreaking car chase in a way that made it look like the actors were actually driving the cars. To achieve this, they had to put the controls of the car on the roof. Gudegast explains that to shoot an actor in the driver’s seat of the car, they would also need room for the car’s actual controls and the camera.
The stunt drivers were able to pull off some amazing feats, drifting around hairpin turns on winding mountain roads that featured sheer drops just off the side. One particularly difficult turn, when the Taycan collided with a wall, came off perfectly. “The driver did that in one take, and literally, if he missed that turn…” Gudegast pauses, alluding to the sheer drops. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to do it. Let’s think of something else.’” But the stunt driver was adamant, says Gudegast. “He rehearsed it a thousand times and did it in one take – it was just unbelievable.”
The car chase in Den of Thieves 2: Pantera marks a groundbreaking moment in action cinema, representing the first time an electric vehicle has been featured in a high-octane, major action sequence. By embracing cutting-edge automotive technology and pushing the boundaries of traditional stunt filmmaking, director Christian Gudegast and his team have redefined what’s possible in the genre, proving that electric performance cars can deliver the same adrenaline-pumping thrills as their gasoline-powered counterparts.
Watch the film Den of Thieves 2: Pantera in theaters now.
