2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.
"If you're looking for a high-performance electric car with a six-figure price tag, this is the best option."
-
Packed with technical features
-
Immediate performance at any speed
-
More practical than you think
-
Very quiet in normal driving
-
Modest electrical range
-
Regenerative braking can be adjusted
Porsche made a name for itself by building high-performance, high-octane cars for the road and the route, not for drivers who want to reduce their carbon footprint. Although company founder Ferdinand Porsche dealt with hybrid technology at the end of the 19th century, the automaker's reputation is intertwined with the combustion engine. It began to unravel this egg when it entered the hybrid segment in the 2000s, and it chose an additional level of separation when it launched the Taycan, its first mass-produced electric car, in 2019.
Can a Porsche be electric? Or does one fly into the teeth of logic with a battery instead of a gas tank? I traveled to Stuttgart, the home town of the German company, and borrowed a Taycan Turbo S to find out.
Design and interior
Visually, the low-powered electric sedan from Porsche hardly changed when it switched from the sensational Mission E-Concept presented at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show (back when the Frankfurt trade fair was still an issue) to the Taycan presented in 2019.The company's design language is more futuristic , but still looks unmistakably like a car that has grown in the same family tree as the 911 and the Panamera.
The rear doors of the design study, which were hinged on the back, remained on the drawing board for safety and packaging reasons. They are terribly expensive and not very practical to build. Ask Lincoln if you don't believe it.
Ronan Glon
Inside, the Taycan feels just like a Porsche. Look elsewhere if you want wide, velor-upholstered seats and a sky-high seating position. The cabin has a 2 + 2 layout with plenty of room for the front seat passenger, but headroom in the rear is somewhat narrow due to the sloping roof line.
Fit and workmanship are almost perfect throughout the cabin – anything else would be alarming considering the Turbo S is priced at $ 185,000 – and the Taycan is more practical than its sleek lines suggest. It carries back 12.9 cubic feet of your belongings and 2.8 cubes in the "frunk", which offers enough space for a few bags of groceries or a briefcase. The charging cable is usually located here.
Technology, infotainment and driver assistance
Fittingly, the first series-produced electric car from Porsche is the most modern model to date. It has a curved digital 16.8-inch instrument cluster with individual displays that can be configured using buttons on the steering wheel. There's a 10.9-inch touchscreen for the infotainment system, an 8.4-inch screen with additional features just below, and a fourth screen on the right side of the dashboard, but it can only be used when the car detects that someone is sitting in the passenger seat.
In other words, there are as many screens in the driver's line of sight as there are cylinders in the engine compartment of a Boxster. The number of functions packed in the dashboard is gigantic and it takes a while to find out which functions do what. Everything is where you expect it to be, but Porsche hasn't attached a volume control to the dashboard. While the driver has one on the steering wheel, the front passenger must use the touchscreen on the center console. This becomes an unnecessarily cumbersome task if there is something in the cup holder directly behind it.
Ronan Glon
Apple CarPlay compatibility is standard, but Android Auto is not available. This could change soon.
Lane Keeping Assist, traffic sign recognition and adaptive cruise control are available. These functions are driving aids – they do not make the Taycan autonomous in any way, but they are useful on long journeys and work as indicated.
InnoDrive technology, which is similar to steroid cruise control, is a $ 3,610 option that should be standard when you consider that the Turbo S has a supercar-like price tag. It is a data-driven function based, in part, on information sent by the various sensors in the vehicle to calculate the best driving strategy for a particular route. It detects when the road is wet, for example by analyzing the feedback from the stability control system. Maps are also considered to determine when there is a hill for which it needs to accelerate or a curve for which it needs to slow down to ensure that passengers do not feel like they are on a roller coaster. InnoDrive is about three kilometers ahead of the driver, Porsche told me.
Experience driving
Good enough, it doesn't cut in Stuttgart.
While there are tamer, cheaper variants of the Taycan, the Turbo S is the flagship that shows what Porsche is capable of in the area of electrification. It is based on a 93.4 kilowatt hour lithium-ion battery that drives two electric motors (one per axis). This configuration is hardly unusual in the world of electric cars because it offers all-wheel drive across the street. However, it is noteworthy that the rear engine shifts via a two-speed gearbox for better performance.
Ronan Glon
The maximum output reaches a confusing 750 horsepower and a torque of 774 pound-feet. However, these numbers are only under your right foot when a temporary overload function is activated. The drive train delivers 613 horses under normal conditions, which is sufficient. It takes 2.6 seconds to reach 100 km / h from a stop. So it's good before you read this sentence.
Porsche has installed the ignition on the left side of the steering wheel for decades. It's a habit it picked up on when pilots started big races (like the Le Mans 24 Hours) by running from the pits to their car. You could turn on the engine with your left hand and shift into gear with your right hand. Although the Taycan doesn't have a key, Porsche has attached the on / off switch to the left of the instrument cluster to honor the tradition.
However, there is no need to press it. It turns on automatically when it is determined that someone has put the keychain in their pocket behind the wheel. If you move the small gear selector switch down, the Taycan switches on without the slightest clink or noise and creeps forward in complete silence. It's as quiet, quiet, and stress-free in the city as you'd expect from an electric car. The adaptive air suspension filters out the cobblestones that line the streets in small German towns, and the relatively light steering at low speeds makes maneuvering easier. There's a 360-degree camera that shows how far the corners are from things waiting to take an expensive stab, like concrete barriers.
Ronan Glon
Quaint towns with quaint houses and bakeries selling delicious pretzels made me feel like I was driving the Taycan through a postcard, but Germany – and the car – offer more than just crawling around looking for a snack. I left Neckarsulm (where NSU once made cars and where Audi now makes cars), pointed the Taycan's low nose at Stuttgart, and waited for the sign indicating that there is no speed limit to see how it is at the other end of the driving spectrum. And to my surprise, it's smooth, quiet and stress-free again, even at 250 km / h, which is close to the top speed of 250 km / h.
There is obviously no motor, so the only noise comes from the tires and the wind, and it is possible to have a conversation without raising your voice. To remove the engine from the high-performance equation, every squeak and rattle that the exhaust normally hides had to be suppressed. I spoke to some of the engineers who worked on the project, and they all told me that calming down at 250 km / h was much easier said than done, especially because adding extra sound absorbing material weighed it down the Taycan would have increased and its range reduced.
What impressed me the most about the Turbo S is the way it accelerates from 100 to 155 mph, for example. Or if you are outside of Germany, from 50 to 80 miles per hour. It is always on, the power is always on and there is never the slightest hint of delay. It's a performance approach that would require colossal displacement to be achieved with combustion technology, and it's one of the most exciting aspects of the driving experience.
Ronan Glon
On side streets, the Taycan feels like a Panamera in the sense that it is a large, heavy car that hides its weight well. It is equipped with all-wheel steering, so that the rear wheels turn slightly in the opposite direction to the front wheels at a speed of up to 48 km / h. You can feel the difference when driving on a street that looks like a cooked piece of spaghetti. It is nimbler than its size and weight. Above 30 miles an hour, the rear wheels turn again (very lightly; this is not a forklift) in the same direction as the front wheels to increase stability.
If I could travel back in time and participate in the development process, I would choose a more pronounced energy recovery effect (or at least add an option that allows the driver to turn it up if he wants to). With some electric cars and a handful of plug-in hybrid models, you rarely need to touch the brake pedal to slow down or gradually come to a stop. You just take your foot off the accelerator and the engines do the rest. In the Taycan, the regenerative braking system is extremely powerful (Porsche told me that it can slow the car down to 0.4 G), and the brake pedal always feels constant , but driving with a pedal is not possible. Although the brakes are bitten very hard (they have to stop a £ 5,200 rocket that travels about 160 miles an hour), I would appreciate the opportunity to pedal them on back roads.
Range and charging
Much has been said in the US about the range of the Taycan and not much of it has been positive. It received a 192 mile rating from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which is low and does not qualify for coveted long distance status. In the European Union, where all cars go through a test cycle called WLTP, the Turbo S has received a more usable 256-mile rating. In the real world, which neither of the two test methods reflects well, the range of the Taycan depends on a variety of factors, including the outside temperature, whether you're using the air conditioner, and whether you're spending more time on the freeway or on the freeway city. Your mileage will vary.
I spent about 40% of my time on the freeway, 40% on back roads and 20% in cities, including some of Stuttgart's best traffic jams, and the Taycan consumed an average of 23.7 kilowatt hours of electricity to travel 62 miles. This number makes it more efficient than the distance estimate it has received on both sides of the pond. It was pretty warm and I had the air conditioning on throughout the trip. I could have done better and I could have done it much worse. No two drivers are identical, no two rides are exactly the same, and the bottom line is that the Taycan has a lot of range.
Ronan Glon
Charging speed is just as important as range when driving an electric car every day. The Taycan is compatible with a quick charge of 350 kilowatts, with which the battery zaps with a range of approx. 100 km in approx. 4 minutes. Another question is whether you live near a 350-kilowatt charger. If not, the battery will be charged by a slower station.
To find out, tap the navigation menu on the touchscreen and ask it to call up a list of the charging stations in your area. It organizes the results by distance (the closest ones are listed first), specifies the number of plugs in a specific location, notes the charging speed and even shows you how many are currently occupied in the Rea-Time. This extremely useful function makes driving an electric car considerably easier.
In the U.S., the Taycan comes standard with three years of unlimited 30-minute quick charge sessions at Electrify America stations. There are over 400 chargers across America, and many more are planned.
How DT would configure this car
I would start with Dolomite Gray Metallic and keep the standard 21-inch alloy wheels for a more understated look. I would skip the screen in front of the passenger and add the InnoDrive technology above, although it's not cheap.
Our opinion
The Taycan is more than spaetzle cooked in a Tesla-flavored sauce. It looks, drives, and feels like a real Porsche, no matter how you approach it – and Holy Moly has a price like one. Don't be fooled by the unflattering range estimates that driving every day or being unable to trip on the road is impractical. In order to live with the Taycan, you have to change your habits. However, this is the case with every electric car, regardless of range, performance and price.
Porsche found out the electrification, which is a relief when you consider that the Taycan will no longer remain the only battery-powered model. There's a more spacious variant with the Cross Turismo emblem and an adventure-friendly car body around the corner, and the next-generation Macan, which is slated to launch in the early 2020s, will be completely electric. The upcoming E-Tron GT from Audi, which is slated to take cover in 2020, will be closely related to the Taycan under the skin.
Should you get one?
Yes. If you are looking for a high performance electric car with a six digit price, this is the best option.
Editor's recommendations