Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Let’s Talk About Porsche Taycan!”.
I’M just really excited hey what is up guys mkbhd here, and so this morning i sent out a tweet that got a little traction may have ruffled some feathers. I was comparing the highest end: tesla model s to the highest end brand, new porsche, taekon, turbo s and uh. Let’S just say, i’ve ran out of characters like doing the whole. Lineup thing requires a lot of spaces and so there’s just tons of characters wasted by using the space bar. So i didn’t really get to say as many things as i wanted to say, but i sent it anyway, but there’s much more to the comparison between those two cars. So that is what this video is.
Let’S talk about that new porsche take-hand, so it’s been teased forever in prototypes and concepts, but earlier today, in a majestic international collaborative event, porsche finally, officially unveiled to take and their first fully electric sports car they rolled it on the stage they went over. The official numbers, the specs, the inspiration behind it, what it was capable of what they think it’ll be good at and how much work they’ve put into this over the past couple years to make it just as good as their other combustion engine cars the whole deal. So naturally, i’m watching this and as a car enthusiast, but more of specifically an electric car person, i’m sort of naturally benchmarking, the numbers in my head against.
You know, let’s be real: the gold standard for electric cars right now, which is the tesla model s. So on stage they talked about things like range numbers, their acceleration performance, top speed and then features, and of course, we get to see the design and the interior and much more and there’s also a ton of little things. Just intangibles really. That were also not talked about, and i didn’t expect them to compare themselves to tesla on stage they’re, of course, comparing it to the rest of their cars, but there’s a lot to unpack.
So, first of all, there’s actually three versions of this car. There’S the tacan. The taken turbo and the takon turbo s, and before you ask no, there are no actual turbos in this car turbo requires exhaust and this car doesn’t have turbos, but they couldn’t get away from the name. So that’s that’s the name.
The baseline take-hand starts at 150. 900 and the highest end take on turbo s will start at 185, 000, so pretty premium. So the key specs when you think about daily driving an electric car. This is something that always comes up is two main things: one: the range: how far can you go on a charge and two charging, so how fast does it charge and where can you charge and so with every new electric car that comes out? These are always the first two things i look at.
You got ta nail, those two things and then the rest will follow. If you don’t get those two things, then you’re sort of working at an uphill battle against the rest of the electric car world. Now, personally, i’ve been waiting for a while now for another electric car to come along and actually start shipping that competes with what tesla’s doing in those two things, whether it’s from a new company, a new startup in rivian or an old company from audi or porsche Somebody’S got to get those two main things right and then do the rest. Well, so along comes the porsche tai.
Can we all know porsche porsche’s done an incredible job with cars for a very long time now the taican is their first electric vehicle. They bring it out on stage and they give us the numbers so the take on every version of it will have a 100 kilowatt hour battery same as the high-end tesla model, s 93.4 kilowatt hours of which will be usable and that’ll. Give you a 280 mile range, that’s what they said on stage, which is pretty good. It’S not i mean i think 300 miles right now is about the benchmark, for what you’d want out of a higher priced one, and this is a a really highly priced one. So you’d want it to be over that, but 280 miles is pretty good, but it’s the charging technology that was particularly impressive on stage. They talked about peak charging power of 270 kilowatts, which is even higher than tesla model, 3’s highest end peak charging rate of 250 kilowatts so as real fast and then here’s how it breaks down against the rest of the spec for spec compared to the highest end.
Teslas that are already on the road and trust me. I know specs aren’t the whole story for a car, but here’s how the specs line up as far as what you’re getting for your money so for starting price, the highest end. Tesla starts at 105 000 for performance version that take in 185, 000, so both expensive, of course, one clearly more than the other, but very premium for your 0-60 time.
Electric cars have been killing this, but your tesla is 2.4 seconds 0-60 taken 2.8 seconds, not a huge difference on paper 0.4 seconds, but for people who have driven these cars. You know the difference between 2.8 and 2.4 is kind of crazy and then for top speed. The take-hand 161 miles an hour, the tesla 163 miles an hour, basically the same they’re electronically limited they don’t go much higher, but that’s fine, but what’s fascinating, actually is the porsche.
Has a two-speed transmission, i’m assuming an automatic transmission and i don’t think that’s anything. I’Ve seen in an electric car before, but the low ratio is for your launches and for getting off the line quickly and then at a certain point, you switch to the second gear for your higher speed. That’S pretty interesting and then peak charging rate the take on 270 kilowatts model s which doesn’t go as high as the new model. 3. Chemistry. 200.
Kilowatts. So that’s an impressive difference and i’ll say: that’s that’s going to get you about 80 of your battery. In 20 minutes of charging, i love that so pretty comparable in a lot of ways, but that’s just numbers on paper. They also have a lot of things to compare that are not on paper, like i happen to think they’re, both pretty damn good-looking cars, the tesla, of course, i’ve been driving for a while. I wrapped it i’m pretty biased. I love it.
The new tacon looks pretty familiar to porsche, but with some new design cues, it’s got kind of the same shape as the panamera with a little bit of 911. It’S a bit smaller. It has the quad led daytime running lights, which look dope, and then it has those arrow slots down to the side of the headlights on the front of the wheels which of course, also kind of make it look like it’s crying in a way.
But i don’t mind that at all i think it looks clean. The big bar tail light at the back that i originally liked a lot, but andrew also introduced mixed feelings to me when he says they look like a lincoln mkz, which is not so hot. But i like the bar anyway, and i think they look nice when it’s turned on especially at night and then, of course, those white wheels.
So if you get the turbo s that high end version will have the 21 inch wheels with the body matching color. I’M a big fan of that stormtrooper look plus the take-hand has a regular trunk, not a hatchback, but it’s still a pretty big trunk and it has a front trunk and then nothing too crazy. As far as aero, just a clean design like you’d, expect from porsche, then the interior. So i haven’t seen this in person yet, but this is exactly where you’d expect porsche to really shine. They’Ve always had high quality materials and used tons of metal and leather and buttons and switches. It’S always been like the opposite of a tesla interior.
For this they’ve done a bunch more screens, you still have a bunch of knobs and buttons on the steering wheel, but then they have four other screens on the interior of the car and not too many buttons, but they do keep it classy. With a little analog clock in the middle there to each their own, of course, i think they’re sort of taking some cues from existing electric cars. I personally really like the minimal interior of my tesla, where you just have the giant screen. The only buttons are on the steering wheel, windows and mirrors and the hazard lights. But again, this is a sort of a hybrid between the two, but where i really think these cars start to separate themselves is everyday driving versus track driving to me, the tesla seems to have the advantage right now in everyday driving, just logistically and the porsche with Track driving: here’s why the tesla model s has the longer range, but it also has the supercharger network, and i’ve mentioned all these little intangibles that aren’t on the spec sheet before this is one of them. I go on road trips, all the time for the sports.
I play and what i do: new york city to philadelphia and back this past weekend for ultimate frisbee or new york city to providence, rhode, island and back for that 5g video. You guys might have watched recently and never once along the way, with the 300 plus miles of range and the superchargers, all tons of them along the roads and highways and rest stops and malls. None of the times that i ever really have to think about. Am i going to make it to the next charger, or am i going to have to charge that’s the beauty of an always growing supercharger network? It would have been sick if the porsche could have used tesla’s supercharging network.
That would have been awesome and i even think they’ve tried to allow that in the past, tesla’s made the thing open, but no one seems to want to take them up on that, so the porsche take-hand will not use the superchargers and on the model, s is Also, a bit of a bigger car, the hatchback is a ridiculous amount of room in the back. I also happen to see a picture of someone sitting in the back of the taycan and it did look a little bit cramped. I don’t know if someone’s 6’3 can try it out and see what it seems like, but little things like that sort of add up and then on top of all that, there’s autopilot which you may not ever use. But for me in traffic, it’s a lifesaver. So put these things all on top of each other and there’s just a lot of everyday driving things that i think stack up in favor of tesla, but for people that really care about driving and tracking their car. I have almost no doubt that the porsche is going to drive better than the tesla. Now it might not ever beat the tesla off the line in a straight line: a drag race 0 to 60, but porsche made constant references throughout their whole presentation about driving this car around a track, doing laps, pushing it around a circuit just like they would, with The rest of their normal gas cars, the porsche, is actually 5 200 pounds so like two and a half tons, it is actually heavier than the tesla, which is already super heavy, but porsche’s been excellent at driving dynamics, specifically in sports cars for so long now that I feel like they’ll be able to cancel that out. They also bragged about their record-breaking nurburgring lap time of 7 minutes and 42 seconds when tesla doesn’t even have an official time because pushing the car at 100. For that long will start to overheat and limit power and on stage they drop the spec that they can launch their car quote many times before power, limiting they didn’t really say how many times as many times, but that’s one of their key advantages is repeat: performance Extended use the reason it can do this is because it runs on an 800 volt architecture, which is double the normal 400, which lets it use, thinner, wires and less cooling and push the same high power, but run cooler. Now, of course, these are all things that the new tesla roadster two-door intends to fix according to elon by the time it comes out in maybe 2020, but that will definitely be more of a track car with less focus on everyday driving.
But hey, maybe that’s another comparison we’ll do some day, but right now we’re working with what exists, but look here’s my bottom line about the take-hand. It got my attention because to me it looks like tesla’s best competition yet and that’s important. I think a lot of people when they saw this came out sort of got in their camps like i’ve, been driving a tesla long enough to know that people, car people either hate tesla or love tesla like there isn’t really much of an in-between, and so when They saw this come out and they see a comparison with the tesla. They probably think all this piece of masterful german engineering will just destroy this american piece of plastic and garbage. That’S really the way some people think but look there’s room in the electric car market for more than one premium sedan, and i’m just like that. We finally finally have some sort of choice, because we know that competition back and forth between these two companies makes better products, and then we win so the comparison on paper.
Whatever it’s fun, i will still keep looking at and comparing you know those key metrics of electric cars when they come out. You know range performance. How these things charge, but uh to say, like one, is definitely better than the other or one especially when you say that the headline killer, the tesla killer – that’s just that’s unnecessary. I actually think it’s fair to say: tesla really pushed porsche into working this hard on this first electric car of theirs.
In the first place they knew that they had to get their foot in the door and put a good car out and actually compete. So i’m happy, we got this and i’m excited for the many future high-end electric cars that will follow. It mix up the market a little bit.
I guess now we just got to see how it drives right porsche. You think what i’m thinking autofocus episode. Yes, yeah! Maybe we’ll see anyway, thanks for watching catch, you guys the next one peace .