Porsche Opens Its Doors To Pure Electric Drive With The Taycan

Well, when word of its first all-electric model was mooted, those “purists” dusted off their pitchforks and got going once again. All that was in vain though as the Taycan was released and has made its way to our shores.

Malaysia gets the full range here in the form of the base Taycan 4S before the “Turbo” badging is tacked on for the Taycan Turbo and Taycan Turbo S; the latter two of which don’t actually have any turbos in case you were wondering.

Porsche is adamant that its all-electric sports sedan doesn’t compromise on any of the performance that’s synonymous with the brand and the figures certainly concur with those claims.

The flagship Taycan Turbo S can generate up to 751hp in overboost mode with a monstrous 1,050Nm of torque that drives it to the century mark from a standstill in just 2.8-seconds; on par with its Formula E counterpart, the Porsche 99X.

Meanwhile, the Taycan Turbo drops a still impressive 671hp and 850Nm of torque for a 0-100kph time of 3.2-seconds.

Even the Taycan 4S isn’t lacking any speed. It hits 100kph from a stop in 4.0-seconds flat and tops out at 250kph; just 10kph slower than the Turbo trims. As for power, the 4S gets 523hp though it can be bumped up to 563hp with the optional Performance Battery Plus (price TBA) that must be ordered from the get-go and can’t be retrofitted down the road.

Performance Battery Plus is standard on the Turbo and Turbo S. Essentially, it’s a larger capacity 93.4kWh pack and can conduct higher currents, thus speeding up the charging process as well.

Sprints and horsepower aside, the cardinal numbers of an electric vehicle are always with regards to range. Here, the Turbo S has a claimed 412km of juice while the Turbo can get you a little further at 450km. The base 4S has just 407km but that climbs to 463km with the Performance Battery Plus pack.

Being the flagship trim, the Turbo S gets Porsche Ceramic Composite Brake (PCCB) as standard, together with carbon trim on some exterior bits. LED Matrix Headlights are standard for both Turbo trims with the 4S making do with LED Headlights.

All Porsches are created equal; except in performance, hence the Taycan will come with the same complimentary and comprehensive four-year maintenance and warranty programme offered for all Porsche cars here. As for the battery, there’s an eight-year warranty. Customers can opt to extend both the vehicle and battery warranties for up to fifteen years.

Every Taycan includes a 22kW Porsche Mobile Charger Plus and the Porsche Home Energy Manager. For the latter to be installed, a home charge check will be performed to determine if the installation would be viable due to variables in power availability as well as the type of homes of Taycan owners.

Just as quick as we’d expect a Porsche to be, owners would undoubtedly expect it to charge just as hastily. To address that, Porsche has made the Taycan the first production vehicle with a system voltage of 800V instead of the usual 400V for electric cars.

Simply put, this allows the Taycan to be charged in just 36 minutes with the 175kW direct current (DC) chargers from the high-power charging network for a range of over 400km across all models. Home charging would be with the traditional alternating current (AC) charger of 11kW.

Direct current (DC) high performance chargers have also been installed across the Porsche dealer network nationwide. This will allow Taycan owners taking delivery in the first quarter of 2021 access to the 175 kW DC chargers.

Remember the days when a leather interior was considered premium and cost more? Well, now you can get an entire leather-free interior fitted as standard for the Turbo S and Turbo with it being optional for the 4S.

Last but certainly not the least, we come to pricing. The Turbo S goes for RM1,195,000 while the Turbo will set you back RM999,000. Interestingly, the 4S starts at just RM725,000; making it a bargain when lined up against the Panamera.