Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “The electric Porsche Taycan is ready to take on Tesla”.
(, energetic music ), Hey everybody., This is Sean from the Verge and I’m standing in front of Porsche’s. First eclectic car the Taycan. Now we’ve known about this car for a few years, but today we’re actually gon na’, spend about five hours, taking it on a road trip outside of Los Angeles, to really get a sense of what it’s all about.. So, let’s go. (, energetic music, ), [ Sean ], So one of the first things you notice when you sit down in the Taycan, is that it’s just full of screens..
The sort of crown jewel of all of that is this big boomerang-shaped display up behind the steering wheel.. I actually really really like it.. It’S probably my favorite thing about the car, so far. Everything is crisp and sharp..
Then we have the main information touch screen in the center of the dashboard and that’s where all the infotainment stuff happens. This is where CarPlay happens. There’S no Android auto on the Taycan. Just so you know., And then there’s this touch screen in the center console, which is for climate settings and some other car settings, and things like that., What’s interesting about this center console touch screen is that it has haptic feedback..
It has also a little bit more give to it. So there’s a sort of funking, that’s happening like a little buzz, that’s happening to give you some feedback and let you know that your taps are being registered.. So all the haptic feedback on this center console is nice.
In theory, it’s not really doing a lot to help me solve the problem of not really knowing exactly where I’m tapping.. It also doesn’t help that I’m still not familiar with the infotainment system and everything and I’m sure you could get more used to it. (, energetic music ).
So electric cars are relatively quiet., But what Porsche did it created? This thing called the Electric Sport Sound.. It is a $ 500 add-on to the Taycan., So a 150,000 or 180, some thousand plus $ 500, and this is the result. I actually kinda like it.
It’s louder than I expected. Ready, ( car, accelerating ). It’S this very futuristic, smooth ( car, accelerating ), almost like sing-songy sound., It’s kinda wild.
For 500 bucks, it better be., All right! So we are at about the half-way point. We’ve driven for about two hours, now., The car’s down to 52 % battery 121 miles.. We actually don’t have the full EPA estimate for range. So it’s you know mid-to-high 200’s right now, based on the European model., Maybe a little bit less when the EPA finally releases its range figure..
The best part about this drive is that the rest of it is going to be almost completely through this really twisty mountain road, with lots of elevation changes, which is wonderful because everything we’ve talked about up until now is really all about, like the ( mumbles ) Of the car and the technology that you’d use every day., But this is ultimately a performance car, a sports car with how fast it is, and that’s what a lot of the people who are gon na’ be buying. This car are really going to be buying it. For. – And this is gon na’ – be a good chance for us to put some of that performance to the test., All right, ready, Zero to 60 in three seconds.: Oh ( laughing ) ( car, accelerating ) ( laughing ), Oh man., Yeah, that’ll move ya’., [, Sean ] Tesla’s, similar, like launch mode, definitely is as powerful as this..
There is something about this one though.. What Porsche did is it put a two-speed gearbox in this one, almost specifically for those moments where you’re taking off from zero, so that there’s one gear dedicated to getting you off the line as quick as possible., I have not felt something that snaps like that. Even in another electric car.
That was really wild., ( upbeat music, ) Porsche has spent a lot of time actually working with electric motors.. This may be its first electric car, but Porsche has spent years putting electric motor technology into its motor sports division and then transferring that to the road with some of its hybrid cars like the Porsche Panamera S E-Hybrid., And so all of that is really coming together. Here in the Taycan as the first electric car from Porsche built to perform like crazy., So this car has got the lowest center of gravity out of any Porsche ever made, which is great because that means that it’s a little bit easier to make it through. These turns than it normally would be in a car that weighs over 5,000 pounds..
The battery being all across the floor, like is the case in a lot of E-V’s, means that it’s just gon na’ settle right. Wherever you wan na’ put it., You have to be a little careful on the breaks because the breaking isn’t rock-solid like you would expect in a super car or something built for the track.. But the weight kind of helps you out with that.. But breaking is not. What’S fun about this car., What’s fun is hitting the accelerator and going fast and that works pretty well.
( playful music ). So we’ve made it to nearly our final destination.. We are clearly in a big-box parking lot, getting some charge from the electrify America chargers, which is the network being built out by Volkswagen, which is Porsche’s pairing company.. We came out of the mountains with about 24-ish percent of the battery left after a good, solid, four plus hours of driving and in just under 20 minutes, we’ve just added 50 % of the battery back to it, and that’s not even reaching the full sort of Charge rate this thing can take., For whatever reason we’re not getting it from the charger right now.
In the mountains. I was working the car pretty hard and at one point got the battery down to about low 70 miles and low 20 % battery capacity. But the good thing is that we were coming down out of the mountains, so the car was regenerating a bunch of energy back into the battery and for a good 45 minutes we didn’t lose any range. Everything we were using to go fast. We were making right back up by going right back downhill. Big picture.
A lot of people aren’t going to own this car., It’s a very expensive car.. This wasn’t even the most expensive spec by any stretch of the imagination. And even the cheaper version. That’S going to be coming out that is slightly under the performance. Capabilities of this is still gon, na’ cost around $ 100,000.. So we’re talking about cars that are at or even in some cases more expensive than the other best performing electric cars on the market..
A lot of people have asked me who I think this car is for, and you know it’s for people who want to own a Porsche and maybe wan na’ change up how that Porsche is powered.. That’S basically the simplest way to put it.. This is not necessarily something people are gon, na’ run out and buy, because they wan na’ feel a little bit better about the environment..
This is something that people with the money to buy a top-tiered Porsche are going to buy, and the good thing is that it feels very much like a car that makes no sacrifices compared to other Porsche’s.. As for the really big questions like is this better than a Tesla, I can’t really answer those after just five hours in the car.. What I can tell you for sure, after driving this car today, is that we’re gon na’ be asking those questions for a very long time. Thanks everybody for watching. Make sure you like and subscribe..
If you’re really curious about Tesla – and you haven’t seen our video about the Gigafactory last year, we had a whole big feature on what they’re doing out in Reno Nevada. The batteries, the electric cars and the future of the company. Go check it out. .