Designed to be electric at the start

THE Taycan is Porsche’s first electric vehicle and the car that’s finally giving Tesla something to worry about.

The German car maker reckons its American rival isn’t a rival at all though, because it has a different ethos – but for now, they’re the only electric executive cars about.

The Taycan is considerably more expensive, however.

It’s also a big deal because when Porsche tries something new, it tends to succeed.

When it launched the Cayenne, the idea of a premium sports car maker doing an SUV was madness. Now it’s the firm’s best-selling model.

So with the Taycan in the UK for the first time, we see if the Turbo S – the top-spec, top performance version – has that special Porsche something.

Not just Porsche’s first electric vehicle, this has been designed to be an electric vehicle from the ground up.

So there’s no cramming of batteries and electric motors into engine bays – instead the powertrain has been integrated into the body to give a low and sleek silhouette, while the batteries being under the floor helps give the Taycan the lowest centre of gravity of any Porsche.

It is also the first production vehicle from any car maker to use an 800-volt system voltage, twice the typical amount for an EV, which has benefits at the charging pump. Using a DC fast charger, Porsche reckons you can add up to 60 miles of range in just five minutes, while charging from zero to 80% of the battery’s capacity takes about 22 minutes in ideal conditions.

With peak charging power of 270kW and a maximum battery capacity of 93.4kWh, range anxiety is surely a buzzword of the past.

It looks like a spaceship, sounds like a spaceship and accelerates like one, too. It handles like a sports car but emits no harmful gases, and you can fit three of your mates and their luggage inside to boot.