Taycan notes

I recently had a drive in a Porsche Taycan. Despite what I have read about the car and the fact that it is indisputably a very impressive engineering achievement, I have to question if it is a sports car. It is very one-dimensional compared with what we currently perceive as being sports car material, with a real lack of emotional connection. Surely the primary goal in a sports car is to have that connection.

Are all sports cars going to be forced to go down this route now? Readers of and writers at evo already lament the loss of a manual gearbox; when you also remove any noticeable gearchanges and a meaningful engine soundtrack, the vehicle becomes more of a mode of transport rather than a thing to enjoy. Does this future have to be a formality?

Electric propulsion is well suited to the vast majority of vehicles on our roads in the future. However, electric isn’t suitable for HGVS or sports cars. So why is there so much focus on electric as the panacea for almost all future modes of transport? Could more diversification be the better option, with hydrogen allocated to HGVS, electric to mainstream and luxury cars, synthetic fuels to sports cars, and even the retention of diesel for agricultural or other limited vehicles?

The public mindset has already changed enough to ensure mass take-up of electric cars. Indeed, with electric and hybrid sales already gaining traction, is the proposed 2030 ban really necessary? Perhaps sports cars could be temporarily carved out of the legislation, allowing more time for the further development of synthetic fuels. The pollution from sports cars during this period would be negligible and the extra cost of synthetic fuels would ultimately be absorbed by enthusiasts as an acceptable price to pay for the retention of our hobby as we currently know it.

Surely the complete abandonment of the internal combustion engine isn’t absolutely necessary to achieve our environmental ambitions.

Neil Patten