Autograph Porsche Taycan: Without sense and fast

The first impression: laugh! The vents under the LED headlights give the impression as if the make-up of the wine had run down from the weeping.

The manufacturer says: Everything is new and still the same. For Porsche boss Oliver Blume, the Taycan is doing a balancing act: The first real electric car of the brand is the first Porsche of a new era, he says, and at the same time it is a typical Porsche. Passionate, powerful and incredibly fast.

The latter proved the car already on the Nürburgring. "A lap time of 7:42 minutes makes him the fastest electric four-door car in the world," rejoices Taycan project manager Stefan Weckbach. The actually antiquated car quartet posturing apparently also counts in the new electric world. Promptly Tesla boss Elon Musk was incited and managed a model S in the Eifel to chase Porsche off the best time again. The result is not known yet.

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Porsche reports that there are already more than 30,000 interested parties for the Taycan. And that at a quite sporty price. First, the starts at more than 150,000 euros. But there are all sorts of novelties: The hitherto unique 800-volt electrical system, the so far unrivaled in electric cars two-speed gearbox, which allows extreme acceleration in first gear and in the second high speeds, and the special windings of the copper coils in the engines. For the first time, the wires are not round but rectangular, Weckbach explains. They are bent into hairpins and welded at the ends. Although this is complex in manufacturing, but allows you to pack the wires more tightly and get more copper on the coil and correspondingly more power from the engine.

We noticed that: hissing off - who sits in the new top model Taycan and carelessly puts his foot on the accelerator pedal, experienced an acceleration that even the current 911 can not offer. In the "overboost mode", the two engines together produce 560 kW, which equates to 761 hp. At the same time hit 1050 Nm of torque and catapult the far more than two-ton cars in 2.8 seconds from 0 to 100. Who can stand his ground, has 260 km / h on the clock a little later and drives the vast majority of competitors off easily , This is really Porsche, just not so emotional. Even the - by the way extra charge - sound generator, which filters away unwanted tones and amplifies pleasant frequencies, can not replace the sound of a six-cylinder boxer.

Although the Taycan really feels like a sports car for the driver, because you really seem to sit directly above the road and not over a huge battery pack. The focus of the Taycan is lower than a 911 GT3, also makes the rear-wheel steering the huge car surprisingly handy. If you could probably do it the way you wanted, you might actually feel some kind of soulmate with the 911. On the test tracks through Norway and Sweden at a maximum speed of 120 km / h one would expect the Taycan to be almost like the luxurious and spacious version of the electric Smarts. Because quicker than Knirps the electric prototype is not here on the road.

At the same time one experiences in the Taycan the departure into a new time. Not only because the drive, with all the strength, comes across so soundly sober, but because Porsche has completely turned the interior of the car. The start button is indeed left of the steering wheel and between the individual driving modes you change with a small wheel on the wheel. But otherwise there are almost no touch buttons instead of buttons, the shift knob is a stub in the dashboard and even the hitherto always placed in the visual axis tachometer is history - welcome to the spaceship Taycan. It almost seems ironic that Porsche offers a bit of wood veneer as a decoration on request.

On the one hand, Porsche is in attack mode with the Taycan and wants to reach as many new customers - preferably of course Tesla. On the other hand, the car is an extremely defensive car. "We consciously placed the Taycan in a gap in our portfolio in order to lose as few own customers as possible," says Weckbach.

Take a look inside the Porsche Taycan - with our 360 degree photo:

The 4.94 meter long Taycan therefore not only looks like a midfield 911 and Panamera, he is also a compromise inside. Unfortunately not a good one. At least not for the backbencher. While the passengers in the first row are more comfortable than in the other series, the rear end is comparatively tight. The feet are the least problem because the battery in the floor of the car around them makes a bow ("Fußgaragen", says Weckbach). But for the knee it is already close, the approach is scarce and requires a certain flexibility, the roof comes pretty close to the head and for a touring sedan, the luggage capacity with 81 front and 366 liters behind volume rather modest. But at least for Porsche has a solution soon: end of next year, the Taycan comes as a cross-Turismo. The offers a bit more ground clearance, will look a bit more rustic and offer more headroom in the rear and more trunk volume.

You have to know that while some export markets get the Taycan already in these days, German customers have to wait until the beginning of 2020 for the electrical first from Zuffenhausen. The Taycan is manufactured at the headquarters of the brand, in a new factory that was built into the old parent plant during ongoing operations. Offered are initially the variants with the irritating designation "Turbo" from 152.136 euros or "Turbo S" from 185.456 euros. The basic performance of both engines is identical with 680 hp, only when overboost there are differences. For the turbo Porsche calls 680 hp and a sprint value of 3.0 seconds, in the Turbo S it is the mentioned 761 hp and 2.8 seconds.

Both cars initially use the same battery that Porsche-Mann Weckbach calls the "Performance Akku Plus". The storage capacity is 93.4 kWh and ranges according to WLTP standard in Turbo for 450 and Turbo S for 412 kilometers. In practice - and this is in addition to the dense network of stores another advantage of a maiden voyage in Scandinavia - creates significantly more than 300 kilometers. When recharging the Taycan remains true to the claim and is also one of the fastest. Thanks to the 800 volt technology, the batteries are at best charged from five to 80 percent in less than 25 minutes.

We will not forget that: how overdeveloped the Taycan is. This applies to gadgets such as the electrically opening tailstock or the fan nozzles, which can only be adjusted via the touch screen. And that goes for the drive on the whole. Because as fascinating as it is to scare a 2.3-tonner from 0 to 100 in less than three seconds, without having to sacrifice performance over and over again and keep the top speed of 260 km / h for minutes, it is so frustrating also that one can hardly retrieve this potential. Because neither on the maiden voyage in Norway is that allowed, nor in the US or China, where most customers are expected. In this discipline, too, the Taycan is a typical Porsche: meaningless abundance.

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