FIRST DRIVES
With rear-wheel drive and up to 469bhp, is this new entry-level Taycan our kind of EV? Well, it’s complicated…
This month: a rear-drive Porsche Taycan, a 2-litre Toyota Supra and a V8-engined Bentley Flying Spur
NOT A TURBOCHARGER IN SIGHT. REAR… erm, rear-motored. Rear-wheel drive. Up to 469bhp with overboost and 90kg or more lighter than the four-wheel-drive versions. This is it. Porsche’s take on a purist EV. Or at least a purist EV supersaloon. It’s called, simply, the Porsche Taycan. Prices start at £70,690, a £12,890 saving over the 4S and almost half the price of the headline-grabbing Turbo S, and it still rips along at quite a pace in all its spooky silence. Or accompanied by an haunting sci-fi plasma-y warp-drive soundtrack should you switch on the (optional) Electric Sport sound. Driving EVS is a very simple business. Explaining their performance potential and various battery options is not. So here goes… That 469bhp figure is largely misleading. In fact, the Taycan produces 322bhp, has a range of 268 miles and can charge at a rate of 225kw. That allows the battery to charge from 5 per cent to 80 per cent capacity in just 22.5 minutes. Cool in theory, but no such chargers actually exist in the UK and the vast majority of public networks are made up of the ironically named ‘fast chargers’, capable of just 7-22kw. This is a rapidly evolving scene but it’s worth bearing in mind. Anyway, back to the
performance. Select Launch Control and an ‘overboost’ facility ups power to 402bhp. So, 99.9 percent of the time the Taycan has 322bhp to push 2050kg.
Underwhelmed? Do not fear, because here are some more numbers. (Wow, writing about EVS is fun. Hang on… just grabbing a coffee, my eyes are sooooo tired. Right, that’s better.) Select the Performance Battery Plus option for £4049 and you get a two-deck 93.4kwh battery (up from the standard Performance Battery car’s single-deck 79.2kwh). This adds 80kg in weight, but power increases to 375bhp, the range jumps to 301 miles and you can charge at a rate of up to 270kw. Well, you can’t. But you could. If you see what I mean. And so configured the Taycan produces 469bhp when Launch Control is selected. A 469bhp, rear-drive Porsche that seats four at a price of £74,739 sounds highly tempting, doesn’t it? Even if that statement is only half true.
It looks tempting, too. Maybe not in Coffee Beige Metallic, admittedly. But there’s no denying the Taycan is a striking design and manages to look futuristic without going too far down the science fiction route. Next to a Panamera, or indeed any other ICE saloon that could be deemed a rival, it’s a clean, lithe and exciting-looking four-door. Does an EV architecture free-up designers to let their imaginations run wild or simply expose how safe and evolutionary car design has become? It’s hard to be certain and a philosophical debate makes no difference to customers. Simply put, the Taycan is genuinely desirable and the sales results bear this out. In 2020 it was Porsche’s second best-selling model after the Macan here in the UK.
Just think about that for a second. Porsche reached more people with its new EV than it did with the Boxster, Cayman and 911. We once rued the day that Porsche had become an SUV company that happened to sell sports cars. Maybe soon it’ll be an EV powerhouse that builds the odd flat-six. Of course, much of this is down to the rush to have the Very Latest Thing amongst Porsche buyers in particular (I haven’t yet met a Taycan owner who doesn’t own several other cars, a situation which rather betrays its environmental credentials), but it’s a trend that’s even caught Porsche by surprise. The UK is the second biggest market behind the US, beating even the domestic market and Ev-centric China. The new entry-level car
‘The Taycan, initially at least, feels as much Porsche as it does EV’
could further swing the sales balance in the Taycan’s favour.
Okay, let’s cut to the chase. Is it any good? Judged not just as an EV but as a powerful, sporting saloon and as a Porsche. The answer is a resounding yes. And a devastating no. With a few grey areas in between. There’s no question it’s deeply impressive, handles with a composure that belies its size and weight, that it has enough performance to entertain and is a stunningly complete and capable car considering it’s Porsche’s first full EV. And the loss of two driven wheels does nothing to detract from that and, in the right circumstances, might even add to its appeal.
Yet it’s the Porscheness that’s the problem. Efficiency and capability are important parts of the Porsche formula that has always chimed so precisely with this magazine, but character, feel, charisma and creating a sweet spot where the driver feels fully immersed in the act of driving are the attributes that have formed the true basis of our special bond. Replicating that level of involvement is a tough ask for any heavyweight saloon car, even tougher when there isn’t a barrel-chested V8 or similar to inject some natural acoustic character. The Taycan, brutally speaking, doesn’t make the cut.
Familiar Porsche qualities are a part of the mix, however. The Taycan’s damping has a fabulously oiled precision to it, the steering responds very quickly, yet the body control and the relationship between all four corners of the car ensure that you immediately feel absolutely on top of driving this car quickly and with a measured smoothness. There’s a really broad operating window, too. In many cars the steps between various drive modes are subtle to the point of invisibility, but the Taycan notably sharpens up as you up the ante to Sport and Sport Plus modes. So much of the EV experience still feels all new, but the Taycan, initially at least, feels as much Porsche as it does EV.
It’s not fast, though. Our test car is equipped with Performance Battery Plus but even so the acceleration feels swift and sustained rather than the sort of blow-your-mind stuff that has become an EV specialty. I couldn’t care less for sub 3-second potential usually, but when you take away that one party trick the EV experience is even less engaging. I’m surprised to write this but I actually found the strange Electric Sound feature added a bit of fun to an otherwise smooth but deeply forgettable power delivery.
So what about this rear-wheel-drive purity? Well… this is where those shades of grey come in. It’s hard to be fully conclusive because the Taycan can be equipped with a number of chassis upgrades and our test car didn’t feature perhaps the crucial ingredient. So what we have here is a Taycan with standard 19-inch wheels and plump sidewalls, the Performance Battery Plus, Adaptive Air Suspension including PASM dampers (£1527), and rear-axle steering with variable-assistance Power Steering Plus (£1650), but not including the Torque Vectoring Differential (£1052). So we have the most responsive chassis set-up but perhaps lack the