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number of other perform-
ance cars, both electric and
liquid-fuel, to see whether
the electric Taycan truly
possesses what the com-
pany calls “Porsche DNA.”
(This writer, after a high G-
force passenger seat ride
with a professional driver
around Porsche’s Atlanta
test track, predicts thumbs
up from reviewers across the
board.)
Long-term, customer de-
mand for the car will tell the
tale.
The market for expensive
performance sports cars is
tiny: 0.1% of cars sold in the
U.S., according to Edmunds.
So even if buyers love it, and
40,000 are sold around the
world every year, the Taycan
will serve Porsche as an im-
age leader, not a massive
profit generator. Porsche
now makes most of its mon-
ey with the Cayenne SUV
and the Macan crossover.
Porsche has marked the
Macan crossover for its next
all-electric treatment. By
2025, Porsche says, half the
vehicles it sells will be hy-
brids or full electric.
By selling 40,000 cars a
year for prices nearing
$200,000 each, the company
can make some money while
maintaining a less-than-
mass-market mystique.
“In terms of profits, this
will not be the linchpin of
their future,” said Jessica
Caldwell, automotive mar-
keting analyst at Edmunds.
“Now, what’s the trickle-
down strategy? How do you
materialize the Taycan into
a larger business for your-
self?”
How quickly buyers will
switch to electric cars, espe-
cially in the United States,
remains unclear. But in Eu-
rope, Porsche’s home terri-
tory, strict emissions re-
quirements, sweetened with
varying incentives in coun-
try after country, are forcing
the issue.
There won’t be a lack of
choice. Dozens of EV models
are slated to hit global mar-
kets over the next several
years. The Polestar 2, a Volvo
offshoot, will compete head
on with the Tesla Model 3 be-
ginning next spring. Michi-
gan-based Rivian plans to
sell unusual-looking pickups
and SUVs and charge a bun-
dle for them, perhaps by late
2020.
There will be no shortage
of lower-priced commuter
cars, either. Hyundai sells
the Kona, and Kia the Niro.
Henrik Fisker, the famed
Los Angeles supercar entre-
preneur, is working on a
$40,000 all-electric SUV.
Volkswagen Group,
which includes VW, Porsche
and Audi, is making a major
push into EVs. Audi is al-
ready selling the e-tron SUV.
VW comes out with an all-
electric crossover in 2020, a
hatchback in 2021 and the
I.D. Buzz, a modern version
of the classic VW microbus.
The Taycan — simulta-
neously unveiled at Niagara
Falls, in Germany, and in
China — comes in two mod-
els, named the Turbo and
the Turbo S. Which provokes40,000 cars a year. In Califor-
nia, customer delivery be-
gins in December. If Porsche
makes and sells 40,000 cars a
year, the Taycan would top
911 sales, which hit 35,573
worldwide in 2018.
The Taycan rockets from
0 to 60 in 2.6 to 3 seconds,
with a range estimated at
close to 240 miles. (The Envi-
ronmental Protection
Agency has yet to release of-
ficial U.S. government range
figures.) Most readers of this
article won’t be able to afford
one. There are two models,
with base prices at $150,000
and $185,000. (A less power-
ful sub-$100,000, single-mo-
tor version is rumored to be
in the works.)
At those prices, the Tay-
can has few, if any, direct
competitors. Porsche is hop-
ing to sell most of its Taycans
to buyers who’ve never
bought an electric vehicle
before.
If it steals sales from an-
other electric car model,
that will be the Tesla Model
S, the four-door luxury elec-
tric sedan that put Tesla on
the map in 2012. The S took
the world by storm, but it
hasn’t been given a major
body refresh in seven years
and no longer is the hot new
thing. Model S sales topped
out in the last quarter of 2018
and have declined since then
as attention has shifted to
the less-expensive Model 3.
(Its performance is regularly
enhanced with over-the-air
updates and occasional me-
chanical improvements.)
Still, the top, Perform-
ance version of the Model S
outperforms the Taycan in
range (345 miles) and a 0-
to-60 time (2.4 seconds), at a
cost of $100,000 to $120,000.
Porsche executives be-
lieve that performance-ori-
ented drivers interested in
going electric will gravitate
to the Taycan because of the
famed track-worthy driving
dynamics the company has
been perfecting since Ferdi-
nand Porsche began build-
ing race cars in the 1920s.
Stefan Weckbach, the com-
pany’s vice president for
electric-drive cars, is so con-
fident that the Taycan holds
a unique position in the
marketplace that he calls it
“the world’s first fully elec-
tric sports car.” (Tesla fans
would counter that the com-
pany’s first vehicle, a small
Lotus body attached to a
Tesla battery drivetrain
called the Roadster, was the
world’s first.)
There’s the latest hot new
toy factor to consider too.
“I really think Mr. Musk
did a fine job of showing the
[big auto companies] that
this electric thing could hap-
pen,” said Danny McKenna,
owner of McKenna Porsche
in Norwalk. “People wanted
that Tesla parked in their
driveway. Now, they’ll want
that Porsche parked there.”
Outsiders will test those
assumptions. Car & Driver,
Road & Track, Motor Trend
and the rest of the car enthu-
siast magazines will be
putting the Taycan up
against the Model S and a
the question “How can a car
be called Turbo if a tur-
bocharger is an internal
combustion power booster
with no relation whatsoever
to an electric drive train?”
“That was a big discus-
sion internally,” Weckbach
said. Porsche decided to
stick with Turbo as a brand
name to indicate top per-
formance. “We decided it’s
worth transferring the herit-
age of internal combustion
engines to electric vehicles.”
Before Taycan devel-
opment began in 2015, the
company considered mak-
ing electric versions of the
Cayenne, the Macan, or the
Boxster two-seater, but de-
cided if it was serious about
an electric future, it would
have to build an electric car
from scratch.
The Taycan is equipped
with two permanent-mag-
net motors that together
produce 625 horsepower. An
“overboost” mode is one ele-
ment that distinguishes the
Turbo and the Turbo S.
From a standing start, over-
boost can power out with 680
and 761 horses, respectively.
(The word Taycan, as
Porsche tells it, derives from
ancient Turkic and means
“spirited young horse.” The
historic Porsche crest has a
horse on it, in prance mode.)
Unlike electric cars on the
market now, the Taycan has
a two-speed transmission,
with a higher gear for high-
way cruising. That boosts ef-
ficiency and range, accord-
ing to the company.
Also unusual, for now, is
the way regenerative brak-
ing works. In electric cars,
when the driver lifts her foot
off the accelerator, the mo-
tors reverse to add more
juice to the battery while aid-
ing deceleration. This cre-
ates a halting feel in the ac-
celerator pedal, and the car
as a whole, that takes getting
used to. To preserve a more
traditional feel, Porsche’s re-
gen system turns on only
when the brake pedal is
pressed.
The four-seaters’ silhou-
ette sports a classic Porsche
look, which was heretofore
possible only in rear-engine
cars such as the 911. Because
the battery fits along the
car’s bottom, Porsche de-signers could pencil in a flat
hood with a “flyline” roof
that angles toward the back.
Viewed from above, the Tay-
can has a thin waist and a big
booty. Seen from the street,
it looks aggressive. (Porsche
uses the term 4+1 to de-
scribe the seating — mean-
ing, in the real world, you
could cram in a kid, or a
small office colleague on a
quick lunch trip for falafels.)
Porsches that fit four or
more — the Cayenne, the
Macan, the Panamera —
have needed to put an engine
up front to fit all the people
in. As good-looking as they
may be, their design can’t be
called classic Porsche.
Taycan’s aerodynamics
are even better than the 911’s,
Porsche says, based on a co-
efficient drag factor of 0.22.
The car’s teardrop-shaped
headlights are the result of
air scoops that channel part
of the airstream along the
side of the car and out the
back. A rear spoiler rises and
falls depending on one of
four drive-mode settings
and on the vehicle’s speed,
which tops out on the track
at 162 mph.
The front trunk, a.k.a. the
“frunk,” is big enough to hold
a carry-on bag, the company
said. The back trunk can
handle two golf bags or six
carry-ons.
The interior is filled with
digital technology. That
challenged designers to
maintain the company’s
classically clean look while
modernizing the cockpit.
“We didn’t want it like a tele-
vision screen glued onto the
middle of the dash,” said Ivo
van Hulten, head of interior
design.
There are three screens
(upgradable to four, if a buy-
er chooses a passenger-fac-
ing touchscreen option).
There are few buttons or di-
als. Essential driver informa-
tion is displayed on the
curved instrument cluster,
directly in front of the driv-
er’s eyes; the digital read-
outs take the form of the 911’s
round, analog gauges. A re-
duced view can be chosen
that only displays essential
driver information, such as
speed and road signs.
Another 10.9-inch screen
sits in the middle of the dash,for infotainment and naviga-
tion. A similar 8.4-inch info-
tainment screen sits in the
console.
Apple’s Music app is built
directly into the car’s elec-
tronics, so no fiddling with
CarPlay is necessary. (Why
not Android? Porsche says
80% of its customers are
iPhone users.)
The battery pack forms a
“skateboard” on the bottom
and gives the car a low center
of gravity. Porsche adjusted
the battery layout to add
some extra foot room for
rear passengers in the cozy
back cabin. For those who
care (and many high-end EV
buyers do), the batteries are
made by LG Chem in the
pouch style.
Like any EV, the Taycan
will confront a shortage of
public charging stations.
Porsche gets an indirect
boost from the diesel cheat
crisis that hammered
Porsche’s parent, Volks-
wagen Group. As part of a
settlement with the U.S. and
California governments,
Volkswagen is spending $2
billion to build a nationwide
charging network called
Electrify America that has
270 stations and plans a total
of 600 stations by the end of- (Porsche’s 190 U.S.
dealers will also be equipped
with fast chargers.)
Although Porsche own-
ers will do most of their
charging at home, the com-
pany says — most Porsche
owners live in stand-alone
houses with garage space for
chargers — the Electrify
America stations will in-
clude at least one fast char-
ger to take advantage of the
Taycan’s so-far-unique 800-
volt technology. Porsche
says that can take the bat-
tery from 5% full to 80% full in
22.5 minutes. (The stations
will accommodate most
electric car brands.)
Tesla doesn’t offer
charge-time comparisons,
though some independent
reports say Tesla’s 80%
charge time is more than
twice as long.
The car is also equipped
with a thermal management
system linked into the navi-
gation app that can cool the
battery to optimal tempera-
ture for fast charging upon
arrival at the charge station.
Porsche believes thermal
battery management sets it
apart from other manufac-
turers, at least for now. The
company invested in custom
semiconductors to more effi-
ciently link up the battery,
the motors and the cooling
system depending on driv-
ing conditions.
“These high-perform-
ance semiconductor
switches are expensive, but
with broader use, the costs
should come down,” said Jo-
achim Kramer, Porsche di-
rector of power electronics.
One result: more oppor-
tunities for power-punch
driving without dramati-
cally reducing range. The car
can do 10 zero-to-60 sprints
without exhausting battery
power, which, if true, would
be unmatched by any other
EV carmaker. Although 10-
in-a-row shenanigans will in-
terest only a few Porsche
owners, the capability trans-
lates into more spirited driv-
ing on roads and race tracks,
with less range anxiety.
The Taycan assembly
plant is in Zuffenhausen,
Germany, near Porsche (and
Mercedes-Benz) head-
quarters in Stuttgart. Zuf-
fenhausen is packed with
Porsche history. It’s where
the original Porsche 356 was
built, and later, the 911, which
is still crafted, partly by
hand, in Zuffenhausen to-
day.
The Taycan plant is
brand new, erected on the
site of the old Porsche Muse-
um. The electric motors are
built in a separate plant and
shuttled to the main factory
on a 900-meter conveyor
belt.
The four-floor factory
was built to be “future ready”
with robotic material
haulers that drive them-
selves, said Bernd
Würsching, director of e-ve-
hicle assembly, utilizing ro-
botic material haulers that
drive themselves. Taycan
bodies descend from an up-
per level to the floor below to
be bolted by robots to the
battery drive train.
Finished cars head
toward the “monsoon” sec-
tion for leak and wind test-
ing, and then they’re driven
on rollers indoors to see if the
build is tight enough to han-
dle bumpy roads.
The car ended up heavier
than Porsche would have
liked, at more than 5,000
pounds. That’s mostly be-
cause of the battery, but
Porsche also added some
steel body elements for pas-
senger protection.
“What’s important is that
the driver and passengers
can exit the vehicle without
harm,” said Steffen König,
the Taycan project’s car
body director.
Porsche says it spent
many engineering hours
working to prevent battery
fires. “The battery modules
must not touch in any crash
situation whatsoever,”
König said. “You know all
those YouTube videos, the
footage of burning cars. We
want to make sure we are not
one of those videos.”Porsche Taycan zips into its electric future
[Taycan,from C1]
THE PORSCHETaycan, charging at the automaker’s U.S. headquarters in At-
lanta, flies from 0 to 60 in 2.6 to 3 seconds. It boasts a 240-mile estimated range.