The Porsche Taycan (pronounced tie-can) will be
available in three variants and priced from US$ 90,000 in the United States,
according to an email sent to The Drive’s Alex Roy from a ‘Porsche Global Brand
Ambassador’.
The story goes that would-be customers are in the
midst of signing up in order to place deposits on the company’s first fully
electric sports car, with Roy being one of them. In the email, the EV’s three
variants include the base Taycan, Taycan 4S and Taycan Turbo. The last name may
appear peculiar to some, and just so we’re clear, the all-electric car will
certainly not feature a turbocharger.
The use of ‘Turbo’ is more in the interest of
variant designation as the range topper rather than the performance enhancer
associated with internal combustion engines. In fact, turbochargers are already
present in many Porsche models today, but you don’t see the company attaching
the ‘Turbo’ name to all of them.
In terms of pricing, the base Taycan will start in
the low USD 90,000, while the Taycan 4S retails in the high USD 90,000.
Meanwhile, the Taycan Turbo is priced over USD 130,000, and all these prices are
before options have been added. Based on this information, the Taycan is actually more expensive than
its rival, the Tesla Model S, which starts at USD 65,000 for the 75D variant and
tops out at USD 122,000 for the P100D.
Porsche previously stated that the Taycan would get
two permanently synchronous motors (PSM) that provides a total system output of
over 600 PS. The zero to 100 km/h sprint is claimed to be
under 3.5 seconds, while the run to 200 km/h is below 12 seconds.
The EV is capable of providing a range of 500 km on
a single charge (NEDC), and with fast charging on its 800-volt system, 100 km
of range is available after just four minutes of charging. This level of
performance is likely related to the Taycan Turbo, but we’ll have to wait for
an official reveal to confirm this.
