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Porsche Taycan review
1 year ago
The base Taycan now comes with the 105kWh Performance Plus battery as standard
So let’s look at it. First things first: it costs £88,200 which is, wait for it, £101,000 less than a Turbo GT wearing the same body. Second, it has 429bhp, which strikes me as not inadequate, especially as it will propel the car from rest to 62mph in 4.8sec. And I’m old enough to remember a time when you’d need a very special Ferrari to beat that. Like an F40.
It also has a claimed range of 416 miles, which probably means something like 330 miles, the best of any Taycan and pretty damn decent by any EV standard. Remember too that, just like the ritziest Taycan these days, it can charge at up to 320kW (if you can find a bloody charger that will deliver it…) meaning a 10-80 per cent charge time of just 18 minutes, even with the big Performance Plus battery which is now standard.
"Not once did I find myself craving more power; instead I spent my time enjoying its poise, its accuracy, the gorgeous fluency of its steering and the fact that, despite it being a four-door EV, it felt every inch the proper Porsche to me, electric motor or not"
But really what I like most about it is the way it drives. It weighs 80kg less than the next-lightest comparable Taycan because it doesn’t have a motor at the front or the need to drive its front axle, and almost a quarter of a tonne less than its heftiest sibling. And it is terrific. Not once did I find myself craving more power; instead I spent my time enjoying its poise, its accuracy, the gorgeous fluency of its steering and the fact that, despite it being a four-door EV, it felt every inch the proper Porsche to me, electric motor or not.
And if you don’t want to buy new, a quite understandable view across most of the EV landscape right now, there’s some very tempting stuff out there. I’d go for a post-facelift 2024 model year car, because it has a bigger, more efficient battery, faster peak charging potential, far greater range, more power and air suspension as standard. And you’re looking at paying around £65,000 for such a car, about what you’d pay for a new Genesis GV70 SUV.
This strikes me as value, as does the fact that Taycans can charge at Ionity public chargers (or Porsche centres) for just 39p per kWh, just 7p more than the average price charged for electricity at home and less than half what you can pay on the motorway without such a facility. Just bear in mind that the deal, while transferable to new owners, is valid only for the first three years of the car’s life, after which you need to pay a subscription fee to keep it going.
Porsche won’t thank me for saying it, but this is the best Taycan I’ve driven: it’s the lightest, has the greatest range, the best handling, is by far the most affordable and has more than enough real-world performance. And as the Taycan has always been my favourite performance EV (I have to qualify that now, thanks to the Renault 5), that makes this the best of the best. At least so far as electric cars are concerned.
Porsche Taycan
Powertrain:
Rear mounted electric motor, 105kWh battery
Transmission:
two-speed, RWD
Power:
429bhp
Torque:
310lb ft
Weight:
2165kg (DIN)
Power-to-weight:
198bhp/tonne
0-62mph:
4.8sec
Top speed:
143mph
Range:
416 miles (WLTP)
Price:
£88,200
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