Introduction

This article is part of the series of Nico's Porsche Taycan Experience.

Driving the Porsche Taycan

So after all the hiccups, is it actually making sense to drive a Porsche Taycan at all? Don't you pay a lot of money for not driving?

Let's have a look at this...

The steering

So there is one thing, or maybe two, that are really, really good about the Taycan. With really good I mean as good as not comparable to most other cars.

The steering is one of them. It is so precise, I'd claim that you can drive into a corner and steer exact with 2-3cm range. It is so precise. It is a lot of fun. You can even try driving around small stones on the road.

The (lack of) weight

Now obviously if you are coming from a sports car direction, you HAVE to ask about the weight (more than 2'000 kg!) of the car. It handles surprisingly light. This is probably mostly due to ...

The electric drive train

The drive train is amazing. The model I am driving is the Turbo S, which has around 1000 nm of torque and a couple of hundred kW power. The power provided by this, makes the weight almost completely invisible to the driver, if there weren't...

Corners

Corners. That one thing you like to drive when you drive a Porsche. That's something I can confirm: a Porsche might be fast on the straight, but it's real fun is driving corners. And the Taycan with it's precise steering and impressive power train is no exception.

Corners are taken light and grip on the tyres is impressive - I still hear a friend of mine saying that this lateral g force should not be possible without flying out of the corner.

It comes however at a cost...

Tyres

The tyres wear out. Fast. Really fast. Getting 10'000 km on one set of summer tyres is not easy. Something like 5'000 to 7'000 km might be more realistic if you are in a mountain region like me.

In the first year I needed 3 full sets of tyres, 2 times for summer, 1 time for winter. In the second year, due to me traveling outside of the country it was only one set of summer tyres and one set of winter tyres.

I hear from some people that they can manage 15'000 km or more on their tyres, but I think that is the exception.

Matter of fact, when I talked to Pirelli about the lousy endurance, they were surprised the tyres lasted more than 5'000km. It's the PZERO for summer, in case you are wondering.

Consumption

So from a tyre perspective, the Taycan is just "eating away" the rubber. When it comes to required electricity, it is never as efficient as other EVs. In my experience, the consumption ranges from somewhere of 20-30kWh per 100km on moderate driving.

You can empty the whole battery within 98km, if you constantly drive 260km/h, resulting in around 80kWh/100km. Not great, is it?

However, let's put that in context, a gasoline sports car doing similar speed, would also consume around 40 liters of gasoline per 100km, which would be significantly worse.

Staying at the ICE car comparison, driving around 1000km highway (which I frequently do), used to cost me around 400 Euro. With the Taycan, I spent around a third to a quarter, maybe 100-150 Euro for the same distance.

So if you are somewhat conscious about the environment, any EV will be better than it's ICE equivalent. If you want something that compared to other EVs is very efficient, it's not the Taycan.

Uphill

The Taycan I drive is a AWD car and obviously all Taycans are electric. I live in the middle of the Swiss mountains. Going uphill, is shockingly fast. So fast that nobody else expects you to be. Motor bikers who are trying to overtake in the inner corner on an uphill road are prone to almost hit you, trying to get into your lane even though they are much slower, at significantly lower weight.

Recuperation

This is one of the topics that the Taycan is doing better than any other EV. I know this is controversial, but as a technician, there is no doubt.

Wait, what I am talking about here at all? Two steps back...

Normally EVs have recuperation on by default. Which means if you lift the "gas pedal", the car slows down and uses the energy from the electric motors to charge the battery.

Now, the Taycan does not do this by default. It can be enabled, but there is a good reason not to: coasting is actually more efficient than recuperating.

Let me rephrase this for some of you who are puzzled now: not taking energy back is better? It is. Let's look at in detail.

Case 1: recuperation on

So you accelerate your car to a certain speed, let's say 50km/h. And then you lift your foot and you regain some energy back, but you slow down. So if you are driving a fixed length distance, let's say 1 km and the car slows down you have to accelerate again, you lose energy twice.

Case 2: recuperation off - coasting

If on the other hand you accelerate to 50km/h and then coast downwards from there without breaking, you don't lose any energy and thus you are more efficient.

The coasting is similar to driving in neutral in an ICE car.

Breaking = recuperation

Now the important thing is that when you actually hit the brake pedal, the car first recuperates (around 270kW, iirc) and only after the electric motors cannot slow you down further the brakes are being used.

This is highly efficient and also very intuitive.

I know that everyone who is loving 1 pedal drive might dislike this part strongly, but for everyone who wants to have a relaxed foot (lifting does not equal getting much slower), it is so much more convenient.

Breaking

When it comes to breaking after recuperation, that is another very strong feature of the Taycan. The brakes are amazing. The car I drive comes with the ceramic brakes, but even the regular steel brakes are quite impressive.

Noise

EVs are silent and almost impossible to hear, right? Wrong. The Taycan has active loud speakers to add sound on the road and into the cabin. Even if it did not, the electric motors are very well audible in the inside. First time driving a Taycan is like "is it supposed to be that loud?".

That both can be seen as a feature, however there is more.

Rattling, squeaking

In the car I am driving the doors often rattle, the head rests make loud sounds, the middle display is randomly beeping (like once per week), the windows are squeaking when you open or close them, depending on the outside temperature.

Other noise sources

I'll come back to this in another article in detail, but the fan can be very loud, the wheels can "click-clack" while taking a corner (and I am not referring to noise caused by the Ackermann effect).

Again more on this later, but don't expect the Taycan to be reliably quiet.

Summary

Overall, if the car is repaired and if the car is driving, the driving is fun, albeit not quiet.