Crown

Not sure who you wrote this for but clearly does not apply to me. EV is not for everyone, at least yet. Tesla is just one brand, it just happen to be the best today, it might change...

I am really excited to see and drive a Taycan with the idea to purchase one for my own use.  It is a likely replacement for my Panamera as a daily driver.

Comparisons to Tesla models is part of the purchase decision and I am fully familiar with their model range because our family has purchased 3 of them already.  I am really interested to see how they compare since Tesla is my point of reference in the real world.

I find it quite strange that comparisons of the Taycan to Tesla products are somehow considered out of bounds for discussion here.  Since other Porsche products (GT cars?) are routinely compared to Lamborghini, McLaren, Ferrari, Alfa, etc., I can't fathom the apparent hate for Tesla or for those that have a favorable impression of Tesla cars.  Are BMW M3 owners run off the site for making comparisons to Caymans?

If the VW group had not just made a mega-investment into BEV tech, I can imagine that this board would still be denigrating BEVs as non-involving, pedestrian appliances unsuited to fandom.  Now, however, there seems to be a bit of emotional instability regarding the proper tone and manner to compare BEVs to our current love of 9k rpm motoring.  But since VW/Porsche/Audi, et al have just now jumped into the fray, one must confront the fact that they started behind the trend setter in the category, which is Tesla.  I'm cheering for both sides.  Tesla keeps getting better (from personal experience) and I hope Porsche can do better yet.

I'm flabbergasted by the level of Tesla-hate that oozes out of my screen on this site and the vitriol that that pours forth from any mention of Tesla that isn't a condemnation.  What on Earth is going on here?

--

Mike

918 Spyder + 991.2 GT2 RS +Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid +  BMW Z8 + BMW 3.0 CSi + Bentley Arnage T

Mike, the Tesla v. debate has taken on a strange life here on Rennteam.  While I find fault with the some aspects of the cars, the company's business model, and especially with Elon Musk-I still believe he is not the person to take Tesla to a more sustainable position-I am realistic in that EVs will be part of the motoring landscape in a few short years.  Regulations in the EU, China, and California, for example, demand wide scale acceptance of EVs to meet carbon emission standards.  

I can understand, especially given your EE background, why you would gravitate towards an EV.  I, on the other hand, have a ME/AAE background and still enjoy tinkering with all mechanical type vehicles.  Occasionally, I am prone to take the odd pre-war MG out of the garage for a spin in the countryside.  

Can we please have the Taycan thread back? And make another one for everyone who wants to bash/praise a Tesla?

Don’t get why we are still talking about a family car brand in this sportscar forum...

997.2 4S / BMW X5 40e / Donkervoort GT 

spudgun:

Can we please have the Taycan thread back? And make another one for everyone who wants to bash/praise a Tesla?

Don’t get why we are still talking about a family car brand in this sportscar forum...

 

Well said.

⇒ Carlos - Porsche 991 Carrera GTS

"First ride: Porsche Taycan development prototype" (Autocar)

by Andrew Frankel

(14 April 2019)

"So what do you want to do now? We could go and do some doughnuts,” says the chassis engineer with ill-disguised hope in his voice. Out here in the frozen wastes of northern Sweden, it seems almost obligatory to scribe some circles in the snow. Which is how I find myself rotating at impressive speed in a Porsche Taycan, at least until it rumbles what we are up to and starts flashing rude messages at its driver. 

“It’s the same in all our four-wheel-drive cars,” sighs Christian Wolfsried, Porsche’s handiest hand on the Taycan programme. If I understand correctly, the front and rear axles have a bit of a pow-wow, figure out they’re being asked to do dramatically different things, rapidly conclude the driver is a lunatic and then shut the show down. 

I mention this episode now because it seems that Porsche’s intention when inviting me to Lapland in the first place was to reiterate the fact that despite the Taycan being powered by electricity alone, it remains above all a Porsche. 

This is the stage in the proceedings at which I become sufficiently uncomfortable to feel the need to issue a hygiene notice. I have not driven the Taycan, I have merely sat next to someone driving the Taycan. Can I tell you that what I felt that day had everything to do with the deftness of its chassis and nothing whatever to do with the evident skills of its driver? Of course not. And even if I could, would I be able to accurately estimate how behaviour on a frozen lake and roads covered with snow translated to what most of you recognise as more conventional conditions? Not with any confidence. 

The good news is that you will now be spared the ghastliness of reading an entire story of impressions, only to realise at the last that the author has not driven the car, only by an absence of reference to steering feel. Besides, there is still plenty to be learned and plenty to be said, not least because by Porsche’s own estimation, the Taycan is its most important new car, certainly since the Cayenne transformed the business beyond all recognition in 2002, and quite possibly since the 1963 launch of the model that became known only sometime thereafter as the 911. 

The first surprise is how small the Taycan feels. Because it’s a four-door car and because you know there’s a more off-road-oriented ‘Cross Turismo’ version coming, you mentally file it somewhere between a Panamera and a Macan. Or at least I did. But that’s not how it feels. No official dimensions have yet been issued but, based on what is known from the Mission E concept from which it is derived, the car is around 4.85 metres long, compared with well over five metres for the Panamera. Its wheelbase is far shorter too – not 911 short, of course, which only manages occasional rear seats and positions its engine outside the wheelbase, but short enough that with four-wheel steering it changes direction with startling alacrity. 

Behind the wheel, it feels far closer to a 911 than a Panamera. The driving position is low, the centre console rising up commandingly beside you. As a result, it is very much a car you sit in, like a sports car, rather than on, like a family car. And that is entirely deliberate: Porsche knows it has a job on its hands convincing the world that electric cars and sporting cars are not diametrically opposed objectives, and if it can create the ambience of a 911 it will have gone some distance towards nailing that challenge. And even in the disguised prototypes in which I travelled, I can say with certainty that this at least has been achieved. 

So Christian and I head out into a blizzard. As far as I can see, it’s a complete white-out, as disorienting as flying a light aircraft through cloud, but he pretty much lives up here over the winter and does not let such trifles bother him. A barely discernible track has been cut into the snow so he goes to work, apparently guided by bat-like sonar. 

Would you be surprised if I told you the Taycan sounded like it had a cross-plane V8 under the bonnet? Me too. It hasn’t and it doesn’t. Porsche is big on authenticity and it sounds like an electric car because that’s what it is. The strategy will be to engineer out as many of the whines and whirrs of these very early prototypes so there is as little sound as possible. It’s “the luxury of silence”, as one Porsche person put it to me. I expect we’ll hear rather a lot of that particular soundbite in the near future. Oddly enough, therefore, there will be an additional and optional ‘sound pack’ customers can choose, but more of that later.  

The car I’m in is the top-of-the-range model but the truth is that it has snowed for much of the night and a Fiat Panda 4x4 would probably be able to spin all four wheels on the surface that has been left, so at least half of the 600bhp-plus at Christian’s disposal is superfluous to our needs.  

No matter. The car feels spectacularly composed with all of its electronic safety equipment turned on. I get Christian to do a full-bore standing start and the car just accelerates away as if on Tarmac, and not at all slowly. Put it this way: an original Boxster on a dry road would have no chance against this thing on snow. In Sport Plus mode, the car maintains the same direction but sashays somewhat as it does. Turn it all off and, were Christian not there to correct it, it would draw a semi-circle in the snow very quickly. It’s good to know that, even in these risk-averse, increasingly electrified times, at Porsche ‘off’ still means ‘off’. 

Then the track starts to wind. Porsche deliberately keeps it as narrow as possible because the engineers don’t want discrepancies caused by drivers taking different lines. The engineers all keep note of who has to call how often for the Cayenne tow truck to dig them out of the drifts. Christian has only binned it once all winter; some of his colleagues are in double figures. 

As speeds rise, so the Taycan becomes ever more balletic as my driver delights in showing me the angles it can not only reach but from which it can also be easily recovered. He says because of the way the motors mete out their power and the fact that the Taycan has the lowest centre of gravity of any Porsche, it is the easiest to drift of the entire bunch. And just to make the point, when we reach an enormous circle cut into the ice, he does a few laps at high speed with the nose pointing directly and unwaveringly at the circle’s centre, chatting away as he does. 

Even so, if the business of getting any kind of impression from a passenger seat is hard, it’s harder still on a frozen and featureless lake where the ice is three feet thick. So after lunch I head out onto the roads with Bernd Propfe, who is project manager for the whole Taycan platform, which, while it will be adapted and adopted by Audi for its E-tron GT (and possibly by Bentleyfor an electric car of its own), is an entirely Porsche-led project. 

Out here, where nothing is simulated, the Taycan remains unprovoked by its driver. All the systems stay on: it is entirely possible an elk might wander out into the road and they tend not to give way. The surface is compacted snow and ice. It is not a place to mess about. 

And yet we go fast: there’s a Taycan ahead and another behind, and our convoy is somehow proceeding across this pretty hostile terrain at a pace that is not so much impressive as borderline befuddling. We’re on winter tyres, of course, but nothing out of the ordinary and certainly not studded. It’s not just a comfortable way to get about, out here it’s comforting too, because the composure of the car is totally reassuring. If I’d not already done all the work on the lake, I’d have presumed Propfe and his chums had gone mad; in the event, I just sit back, relax and enjoy the show. Ironically, the only drama comes when we reach a bridge offering the sole stretch of dry Tarmac for miles around. He knows it’s coming so slows to a crawl before pinning his foot to the floor. And even though there are well over two tonnes of Taycan to accelerate, it gathers momentum at a rate that suggests the 3.5sec 0-62mph sprint claimed for the Mission E concept that begat the Taycan is now looking very conservative. 

Sadly, however, there is not much more I can tell you, other than it will seat four average-size adults in reasonable comfort, but if there’s a tall one in the back, he or she will likely feel a little short of room. A Panamera is substantially more spacious. 

The remaining pieces of the puzzle won’t now be slotted into place until September, when the Taycan is formally unveiled and drives begin ahead of cars being delivered to owners before the end of the year. What can I say with certainty now? That if a huge diesel-powered SUV can credibly call itself a Porsche, so can a compact electric four-door coupé like this. It’s smaller than you probably think and feels smaller even than it is and, so far as I could tell, lighter too. On low-grip surfaces, it is not only agile but also tolerant of the most preposterous of provocations. 

But it felt also like a car with a proper story to tell, one I’ve only been able to provide in patchy outline here. If it can find that sweet spot where it combines something of the practicality of a Panamera with the ambience of a 911 and a relevance to the world as it is today, I think Porsche could really be onto something here. 

It’s a big ask, and I don’t yet know the answer. But the indications seen so far – and they can be no more than that – are good.

Link: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/features/first-ride-porsche-taycan-development-prototype

Thanks for the article!

Exactly what I want to read in this thread.

Tim

2010 997.2 GT3RS;  2008 Cayenne Turbo;  2006 911 Club Coupe;  2016 911 GTS Club Coupe;  2015 Macan S
 

Thank you! 

997.2 4S / BMW X5 40e / Donkervoort GT 

Thanks!

I’m disappointed with its sheet metal compared to the Mission E concept.

Great to be back on topic. This article however was already commented here before. Specifically it does not address the important questions of the range and the price of the Taycan. And it does not have any real critics. As such, this can only be taken as an infomercial. The journalist was so happy to be invited there to try a prototype that he did not dare writing anything bad or controversial 

Anyway I am just glad VW and especially Porsche started to embrace EV because it is a simple, efficient and elegant solution for the future of transportation. California has mandated solar panels on roof of new constructions which in the long run will solve the grid and pollution problem.

Oh really!?!  I posted the link to that very article a few days ago.  It was your response about how inferior the Taycan is-range, autonomous driving, etc.-plus a couple of other commentators including the newbie that derailed the Taycan thread.   Go back about six pages to see my posting of the Autocar link about the Taycan drive and your handiwork.  

The Taycan will be inferior in range, acceleration, efficiency and autonomous driving, these are pretty much facts. What is your point?

RC, moderators, anyone!!!  Please discontinue/change/ban this thread.  

SciFrog:

The Taycan will be inferior in range, acceleration, efficiency and autonomous driving, these are pretty much facts. What is your point?

The Tesla is cheaper. The Porsche is the superior car. Families with lower income buy Tesla. The other buy Porsche.

BTW: This is the Taycan thread. Please post Tesla related stuff in the Tesla thread. Many thanks!

The only car he mentioned was a Porsche.

Past-President, Porsche Club of America - Upper Canada Region

OK, seriously people, we are all adults here. Everyone please move on from this point forward. 

The Tesla people please tone down the 'trashing' of the Mission E. It is not out yet, final spec isn't announced, and same with pricing. Everything is still basically speculation. The only possible known attribute will be judgong from Porsche's track record, the car won't be spectacular on paper but it iwpl over achieve, jsut like nay other previous Porsche product. Even that is possibly a speculation but it's an educated guess.

And the Porsche defenders should also tone down the replies, myself included. I am hoping this will be a crease fire, Tesla people will tone down the the boasting and the Porsche people will push back less and ends hostility.

Mithras:

The only car he mentioned was a Porsche.

Good joke 

Please just make a new Tesla thread, it looks like some members on this sportscar forum can use one. 

997.2 4S / BMW X5 40e / Donkervoort GT 

Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo racking up the miles in testing...

A new body style for Porsche's yet-to-be-revealed Taycan electric sport sedanhas been spotted in prototype form.

The car is the production version of the Mission E Cross Turismo conceptPorsche rolled out at the 2018 Geneva International Motor Show.

The production version will be known as the Taycan Cross Turismo when it makes its debut sometime in 2020. We should see it arrive in showrooms later that year as a 2021 model. The regular Taycan debuts in September at the 2019 Frankfurt International Motor Show.

The Taycan Cross Turismo is a rugged, high-riding wagon, known as a soft-roader in automotive parlance. It isn't clear if Porsche is planning a standard wagon option for the Taycan, akin to Porsche's Panamera Sport Turismo wagon.

It's possible we see both given Porsche's penchant for launching multiple derivatives of a single product line. A Taycan Targa is also rumored to be in the works.

As for the Taycan Cross Turismo, its performance should be similar, if not identical to the Taycan sedan. This means potential buyers can look forward to at least one version, possibly classified a Turbo, to offer over 600 horsepower and 300 miles of range. 

An 800-volt electrical system will also enable an 80-percent charge in 15-20 minutes, when using a 350-kilowatt charger. Note, those exhaust tips you see on the prototype are dummy units to fool onlookers. The car features an electric powertrain consisting of a battery in the floor and an electric motor at each axle.

Porsche looks to have a winning formula in the Taycan. The automaker originally planned to build 20,000 examples per year but surging demand has led it to double capacity.

Production of Porsche's electric cars will take place at a new facility set up at the automaker's main plant in Zuffenhausen, Germany. Porsche is planning to recruit 1,200 staff and invest close to $7 billion for its various electric car programs running through to 2022. Already confirmed is an electric next-generation Macan.

Link:  https://www.motorauthority.com/news/1121620_2021-porsche-taycan-cross-turismo-spy-shots

Hearse?

Spyderidol:

Hearse?

Colours seem to make quite a difference to the Sport Turismo, like with the Panamera...

I believe the expectations for performance for the Taycan are mainly based on the existing product portfolio. While we do not know what the figures will be, we can make safe assumptions based on other products they offer and the prices they offer them at.

Once you know the price/performance of current models, you can draw conclusions about the Taycan. If the Panamera Turbo starts at $150K, then you can't give the same performance in the Taycan for the same or less since it would cannibalize sales of the former.

This is why people generally believe the Taycan variants will be a combination of underwhelming and overpriced. The Taycan needs huge straight line acceleration, but at what price can they really offer it?

keithw:

This is why people generally believe the Taycan variants will be a combination of underwhelming and overpriced. 

If they believe that about a Porsche my guess those "people" are neither familiar with Porsche nor the target audience for the Taycan... 

⇒ Carlos - Porsche 991 Carrera GTS

crayphile:

MKSGR:

This forum will not tolerate inappropriate posts, including but not limited to, analogies to Third Reich etc. 

I did not see this, presumably because it has been deleted. It is,of course, completely out of order.

I missed this as well. Got to say I don’t understand how things got so out of hand so quickly here. Come on guys, let’s all just get along....

I heard that Porsche are planning a broad range of Taycan models... 

...the remote control model by Playmobil should be a complimentary gift with every order!  

keithw:

I believe the expectations for performance for the Taycan are mainly based on the existing product portfolio. While we do not know what the figures will be, we can make safe assumptions based on other products they offer and the prices they offer them at.

Once you know the price/performance of current models, you can draw conclusions about the Taycan. If the Panamera Turbo starts at $150K, then you can't give the same performance in the Taycan for the same or less since it would cannibalize sales of the former.

This is why people generally believe the Taycan variants will be a combination of underwhelming and overpriced. The Taycan needs huge straight line acceleration, but at what price can they really offer it?

That's the Tesla playbook that you read from. Sorry but that doesn't apply to Porsches, in case you haven't noticed, Porsches are not about straight line accelerations but going fast around corners, something any Tesla cannot do, safely. They just don't mix with corners period.

Spyderidol:

Hearse?

Just my thought  Color and camouflage does not help.

2017 991.2 Carrera 4 GTS | GT Silver Metallic - The GT3 Killah!
2013 Audi S3 | Glacier White

MKSGR:

SciFrog:

The Taycan will be inferior in range, acceleration, efficiency and autonomous driving, these are pretty much facts. What is your point?

The Tesla is cheaper. The Porsche is the superior car. Families with lower income buy Tesla. The other buy Porsche.

BTW: This is the Taycan thread. Please post Tesla related stuff in the Tesla thread. Many thanks!

Again, coming from a moderator I find this post totally unacceptable on many levels. It is degrading, condescending and discriminatory.

I am officially requesting for MKSGR to be demoted or at least reprimanded. Nick is trying to do the right thing in the other thread at least. But what is written above is simply disgusting.

SciFrog:

MKSGR:

SciFrog:

The Taycan will be inferior in range, acceleration, efficiency and autonomous driving, these are pretty much facts. What is your point?

The Tesla is cheaper. The Porsche is the superior car. Families with lower income buy Tesla. The other buy Porsche.

BTW: This is the Taycan thread. Please post Tesla related stuff in the Tesla thread. Many thanks!

Again, coming from a moderator I find this post totally unacceptable on many levels. It is degrading, condescending and discriminatory.

I am officially requesting for MKSGR to be demoted or at least reprimanded. Nick is trying to do the right thing in the other thread at least. But what is written above is simply disgusting.

Furthermore, my previous post was back on topic and it was CGX that brought back the old comparaison. Yet a moderator dares to say I am not the one on topic whereas he should have directed his comment to CGX.

I have said it here before, RT has a huge moderating issue currently and despite Nick trying to put everything back in line, things are not changing. This place has already lost one longtime member this week and soon more will follow if things are not dealt with properly.

I have always seen RT as a much larger and interesting exchange place than sport cars. You already banned politics, if you ban EV and everything that has to do with the future of automobiles in general, this will greatly diminish this interest of some here. This group of people is getting older and their interest in sport cars, especially in todays more and more restrictive environment on the road, is fading while younger people simply do not care as much for cars and driving anymore. The world is changing yet some here just want to stay in their bubble. It is their prerogative, but it is not their place to denigrate the rest of us.