Soldato
After a couple of weeks of arranging things and making sure everything was aligned, earlier today I called into my local OPC where I got to spend about 2.5 hours looking at, talking about and finally driving the new Porsche Taycan 4S. Here's something of a review, or at least a commentary of my thoughts.
First of all - the dealership experience. Even in this Covid-19 world, things were very good. I know they are trying to sell cars but in the lead-up to today everything has been like clockwork, calls responded to on time, commitments met etc etc. They seem really committed to selling these cars and want them to do well. Everything up to this point has represented their brand and car extremely well. BMW, Mercedes and Tesla would do well to pay attention to this.
So, the car. It is a 70-plate Taycan 4S in Volcano Grey Metallic with the optional 20-inch Sport Aero wheels. The car I tested did not have the Performance Battery Plus specified, meaning it is the 79.2kW/h variant putting out 429hp (522 with Overboost). It has the extended leather interior and a few other options like the Porsche Electric Sport Sound - more on that later...
I think the Taycan is one of those cars that is particularly sensitive to colour. In some of the colours, it looks absolutely "right" and in others it looks quite chunky and out of proportion. I am a big fan of blue cars, my M2 is in Long Beach Blue and I've had a number of blue cars over the years but I think for this car the Gentian and Frozen blue colours don't work. I would have to see a Neptune Blue car in the flesh before ordering, but I think it is safest to buy in black or one of the greys.
I know looks are subjective but I think from most angles this is a really good looking car, especially compared to the Teslas it is competing against.
The interior of the car looks great and feels very solid everywhere. I couldn't find any areas of obviously sketchy build quality and there are certainly absolutely no interior squeaks/rattles/creaks or any other source of unwanted noise. The wheel feels quite small but that fits with the whole ethos of the car - it feels small around you without being claustrophobic. The exterior dimensions of the car seem to just melt away when you sit inside - amazing considering it is just shy of 5m long and 2m wide. Contrasting this with my F06 640d GC which is almost identical in size and the difference is vast in terms of how the car feels. You are constantly aware that the 6 is a big car, whereas the Taycan really only reminds you of the size when you look over your left shoulder to check your blind spot and you realise there's a lot more car behind you than you think!
The dash and centre display screens I found to be extremely clear - much better than MBUX is in the A Class at least and much much higher quality than BMW's iDrive. They are bright, high resolution and very readable although my only complaint about the dash is that the screen's extremes are quite hidden by the wheel so to see those parts you have to move your head about a fair bit. A minor niggle perhaps, but a niggle nevertheless. The edges of the main dash screen are augmented with a series of buttons. The ones on the left control headlights and so on, while the ones on the right control things that aren't taken care of automatically like the suspension settings, ride height, TC and a customiseable button to do whatever else you might want there. The iPad-like lower middle console is also clear but slightly frustrating to use while driving. The third screen does everything you'd expect from an infotainment/car info perspective with a lot of overlap between it and the dash screen - for example you can display navigation maps in either or both screens. Buttons are big and obvious everywhere but when you're driving along I found I needed to look at what I was doing more than I would have liked for basic functions. There are absolutely no physical vent controls for example - to adjust the direction of the airflow you must move around little circles on the screen. Awesome when parked, irritating if not impossible when moving.
Rear space is passable. I am 6ft tall and I wouldn't want to sit behind the driver's seat for any length of time really. Little people and children would be totally fine, as would shorter journeys for taller people. The boot is pretty big for a car like this although with it being a saloon, the actual boot aperture is predictably poor. You'd fit lots of regular sized bags etc in there but forget about anything bulky getting past the opening even if it would otherwise have fitted in the boot.
How does it drive?
I wanted to sum this up in a single word but I can't. It is both absolutely ballistic but also completely serene. It might not have the numbers on paper to make my M2 feel totally pedestrian - but it does. Performance is on tap at all reasonable (and tbh, unreasonable) road speeds in sufficient quantities to make you laugh out loud. Two car overtakes are a breeze. Three car overtakes are also a breeze but the speedo will make you gulp as you pull back in. It does this in a way that always feels totally effortless, as if despite your foot being buried in the carpet there is more potential there than you've been granted access to. An almost endless power potential feeling as you rush toward the horizon. I've owned some quick cars and I've driven plenty of pretty fast things over the years and yes some of those are significantly faster than this car but the Taycan is in a class all by itself for the way it goes about the speed - and this is the slowest version.
Yes, it is electric - so there is no ICE-generated drama and noise. I've driven a Tesla S (though not the new Performance Ludicrous+ model) and a few other EVs before and was always somehow slightly disappointed at how the overall experience left me a little bit cold but this isn't like that. Punching it off a roundabout the car feels absolutely alive and involved. Any request for a change of direction, accelerating or not is met with a steering precision and feel you'd expect from a car with 1000Kg less weight and absolutely not at all like a Tesla. It feels like an event to drive this thing, make no mistake. It doesn't have a symphony of petrol and metal whizzing away nearby. True enough. But this car somehow makes ICE cars feel antiquated, like technology has moved on and left them behind. The optional Porsche Electric Sport Sound attempts to add some excitement back in with a strange sci-fi hum/whine as you drive around. I liked it in a way but I turned it off and didn't miss it. Probably one to turn on if you're out for a drive on some twisty B roads but for everyday driving I think it would be an annoyance.
In summary then, I really enjoyed driving this car. It feels like a proper car built by people who know how to build proper cars that happens to be electric rather than a weird eco-hippie thing or a badly built technology experiment.
I am genuinely considering ordering one in the near future, although I need to have some serious thinking time on the options list as the price gets pretty bonkers extremely quickly if you're not judicious... I have no doubt that the electric future is here and it is going to be absolutely fantastic.
First of all - the dealership experience. Even in this Covid-19 world, things were very good. I know they are trying to sell cars but in the lead-up to today everything has been like clockwork, calls responded to on time, commitments met etc etc. They seem really committed to selling these cars and want them to do well. Everything up to this point has represented their brand and car extremely well. BMW, Mercedes and Tesla would do well to pay attention to this.
So, the car. It is a 70-plate Taycan 4S in Volcano Grey Metallic with the optional 20-inch Sport Aero wheels. The car I tested did not have the Performance Battery Plus specified, meaning it is the 79.2kW/h variant putting out 429hp (522 with Overboost). It has the extended leather interior and a few other options like the Porsche Electric Sport Sound - more on that later...
I think the Taycan is one of those cars that is particularly sensitive to colour. In some of the colours, it looks absolutely "right" and in others it looks quite chunky and out of proportion. I am a big fan of blue cars, my M2 is in Long Beach Blue and I've had a number of blue cars over the years but I think for this car the Gentian and Frozen blue colours don't work. I would have to see a Neptune Blue car in the flesh before ordering, but I think it is safest to buy in black or one of the greys.
I know looks are subjective but I think from most angles this is a really good looking car, especially compared to the Teslas it is competing against.
The interior of the car looks great and feels very solid everywhere. I couldn't find any areas of obviously sketchy build quality and there are certainly absolutely no interior squeaks/rattles/creaks or any other source of unwanted noise. The wheel feels quite small but that fits with the whole ethos of the car - it feels small around you without being claustrophobic. The exterior dimensions of the car seem to just melt away when you sit inside - amazing considering it is just shy of 5m long and 2m wide. Contrasting this with my F06 640d GC which is almost identical in size and the difference is vast in terms of how the car feels. You are constantly aware that the 6 is a big car, whereas the Taycan really only reminds you of the size when you look over your left shoulder to check your blind spot and you realise there's a lot more car behind you than you think!
The dash and centre display screens I found to be extremely clear - much better than MBUX is in the A Class at least and much much higher quality than BMW's iDrive. They are bright, high resolution and very readable although my only complaint about the dash is that the screen's extremes are quite hidden by the wheel so to see those parts you have to move your head about a fair bit. A minor niggle perhaps, but a niggle nevertheless. The edges of the main dash screen are augmented with a series of buttons. The ones on the left control headlights and so on, while the ones on the right control things that aren't taken care of automatically like the suspension settings, ride height, TC and a customiseable button to do whatever else you might want there. The iPad-like lower middle console is also clear but slightly frustrating to use while driving. The third screen does everything you'd expect from an infotainment/car info perspective with a lot of overlap between it and the dash screen - for example you can display navigation maps in either or both screens. Buttons are big and obvious everywhere but when you're driving along I found I needed to look at what I was doing more than I would have liked for basic functions. There are absolutely no physical vent controls for example - to adjust the direction of the airflow you must move around little circles on the screen. Awesome when parked, irritating if not impossible when moving.
Rear space is passable. I am 6ft tall and I wouldn't want to sit behind the driver's seat for any length of time really. Little people and children would be totally fine, as would shorter journeys for taller people. The boot is pretty big for a car like this although with it being a saloon, the actual boot aperture is predictably poor. You'd fit lots of regular sized bags etc in there but forget about anything bulky getting past the opening even if it would otherwise have fitted in the boot.
How does it drive?
I wanted to sum this up in a single word but I can't. It is both absolutely ballistic but also completely serene. It might not have the numbers on paper to make my M2 feel totally pedestrian - but it does. Performance is on tap at all reasonable (and tbh, unreasonable) road speeds in sufficient quantities to make you laugh out loud. Two car overtakes are a breeze. Three car overtakes are also a breeze but the speedo will make you gulp as you pull back in. It does this in a way that always feels totally effortless, as if despite your foot being buried in the carpet there is more potential there than you've been granted access to. An almost endless power potential feeling as you rush toward the horizon. I've owned some quick cars and I've driven plenty of pretty fast things over the years and yes some of those are significantly faster than this car but the Taycan is in a class all by itself for the way it goes about the speed - and this is the slowest version.
Yes, it is electric - so there is no ICE-generated drama and noise. I've driven a Tesla S (though not the new Performance Ludicrous+ model) and a few other EVs before and was always somehow slightly disappointed at how the overall experience left me a little bit cold but this isn't like that. Punching it off a roundabout the car feels absolutely alive and involved. Any request for a change of direction, accelerating or not is met with a steering precision and feel you'd expect from a car with 1000Kg less weight and absolutely not at all like a Tesla. It feels like an event to drive this thing, make no mistake. It doesn't have a symphony of petrol and metal whizzing away nearby. True enough. But this car somehow makes ICE cars feel antiquated, like technology has moved on and left them behind. The optional Porsche Electric Sport Sound attempts to add some excitement back in with a strange sci-fi hum/whine as you drive around. I liked it in a way but I turned it off and didn't miss it. Probably one to turn on if you're out for a drive on some twisty B roads but for everyday driving I think it would be an annoyance.
In summary then, I really enjoyed driving this car. It feels like a proper car built by people who know how to build proper cars that happens to be electric rather than a weird eco-hippie thing or a badly built technology experiment.
I am genuinely considering ordering one in the near future, although I need to have some serious thinking time on the options list as the price gets pretty bonkers extremely quickly if you're not judicious... I have no doubt that the electric future is here and it is going to be absolutely fantastic.
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