The Porsche Taycan, like our Finnish Detroit
editor, handled the Arctic quite well.land. It spoiled the mood for me, but it’s a
matter of personal taste.
There are two times when braking is no
fun: on ice and snow, and in EVs where
the regenerative capability makes the
brakes grab and grip abruptly. Not so with
the Taycan. Most of the speed is scrubbed
with regeneration rather than the brake
system, but braking was smooth and
effective, even down a snowy hill.
Once we arrived at the Porsche
Experience Centre in Levi, it was time to
play on the test tracks. I was given keys
to a Taycan and told to drift it under a
number of scenarios. When in doubt,
accelerate. Don’t look at the snowbanks,
and you won’t end up in them. It was the
definition of a winter wonderland.
We started with a slalom course and
made our first run in Sport Plus with
Porsche Stability Management (PSM)
activated. Instructive. When the back end
starts to swing out, the traction control
rights it time after time. PSM effectively
acts as the fun police, but the nice kind.
It’s exactly what you want on the road,
especially if there’s oncoming traffic or
the roadsides slope down to a ditch.
But the point of the day was to turn
off PSM and find the car’s happy place:
sideways with wheels spinning. The
rear-wheel steering is incredibly precise.
The anti-roll system kept the car planted
on slick turns and kept the shiny side
up—even on pure ice and in flat light that
made the narrow sides of our figure-eight
exercise hard to discern. The Porsche was
undaunted even when its driver was not.
The slightest throttle starts the
slide, and fast hands can keep it going.
Too much, and it’s donut time, kind of
glorious in a safe environment like this.
No snowbanks were harmed.The quiet is eerie. In an electric car on
remote roads in the land of a thousand
lakes, all you hear is the thwack of icy
pellets flung off the 20-inch Goodyear
non-studded winter tires. Porsche
does enhance the motor sound. It put
the motor on a dyno, recorded it, and
highlighted certain frequencies. The
soundtrack didn’t disturb the serenity
of the postcard scene, though, with trees
groaning under the weight of the snow.
That is, until you change drive mode to
Sport Plus and the augmented artificial
whirr sounds like a spaceship about to
The final exercise was a matter of
drifting around a pair of circles, big and
small. There was lots of room to play with
the throttle as the last vestiges of snow
were rubbed off, leaving nothing but ice.
Hoot and holler.
Range wasn’t an issue. We drove all
morning and recharged during lunch. An
800-volt fast charging station can take the
battery from 5 to 80 percent charge in just
over 20 minutes under normal conditions.
Cold wasn’t an issue, either, because the
batteries can be pre-conditioned (heated
or cooled) to make them receptive to a
quick charge. Waste heat from the motorsAPRIL 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 71