Quick-drive YouTube review (Michael Chuang) of the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S that emphasizes styling, straight-line performance, and handling. The speaker contrasts the Taycan with Tesla, praises its design and 'sexualized' EV styling, and reports measured runs (noting suboptimal battery conditions). Notable claims: a quoted price of "185 grand" plus "£5,100 worth of ... batteries," a 61–130 km/h run of 8.99 seconds (with potential low-8s/high-7s in optimal conditions), two-speed drivetrain (unusually for a production EV), and handling comparable to or better than many sports cars due to a low center of gravity from the battery pack. The clip includes brief behind-the-scenes handling-course footage.
Questions this video answers
Michael Chuang
December 24, 2020
"185 grand" (also references "£5,100 worth of ... batteries")
8.99 seconds
Chapters
Sam sa.
Let's face it, electric cars are boring, but they've been all the rage lately. And Tesla's grasp on the market has sort of gotten the attention of every other major car manufacturer on planet Earth, but no one's really been able to put a dent on that. So then Porsche came along and decided that, nope, these Americans, they can't have all the fun. We're going to show them how it's done. And they did. This is the Porsche Taycan Turbo S. 185 grand and £5,100 worth of state of the art batteries and fancy computers. And yes, it's pronounced Taycan, because if you say Taycan, the salesperson will just facepalm themselves when you leave the showroom. It's a car that, in my opinion, sexualized EVs because though they are fast, not one of those Teslas are really good looking enough for me to stop and say, dang, what is that? But when I saw a Taycan on the road for the first time, I was kind of in awe. It's like a Panamera turned UFC fighter. It had shaped shape, broad shoulders, hips. The front end looks like it means business, even though all you'll probably end up seeing are those 3D taillights in the back. And the cool thing is that when you put into sport plus, the sound from the electric motors gets louder, sort of like you would expect from a typical combustion engine sports car. Anyway, we've only got a few moments with this thing, so let's take her down the Runway to see what it can do. So this was only meant to be a quick dry video and the data here should be taken with a grain of salt because we didn't have optimal battery conditions. But I'll still throw up a 40. 160, 130. We'll start with the former where the Porsche did 5.07. And that is seriously quick. This is a pretty small range, but it favors electric vehicles because they tend to die off in the high end. Either way, it's in entry level supercar territory here, and I'm sure it'll only improve if the battery was full like Tesla's. The Taycan's performance potential goes down as the battery drains. 61, 30 is what really matters. And the Turbo S did it in 8.99 seconds. But remember, in optimal conditions, it's potentially low 8s or high 7s. The one really special aspect about this car is that it's one of the first production EVs to operate with more than just a direct drive system. It's got two speeds. Technically it's not a gearbox in the traditional sense, but having two ratios definitely helped with its top end in the 60 130. The quote unquote gear change is actually practically unperceivable as well. Outside of straight line performance, the car handles ridiculously well for something that weighs about the same as our X6 M50 SUV. It actually handles better than most sports cars that I've driven lately. A lot of this is probably due to the fact that the batteries make the center of gravity so low. We got a chance to run it around our beta handling course, which we will show in the credits since it was just BTS footage, but let's just say the car will definitely surprise you with the way it behaves around corners. At the end of the day, the Porsche Taycan is a car that changed my mind about EVs. We're looking at the gold standard of electric performance here. Is it worth nearly double the price tag of an equivalent Model S? Questionable because in typical Porsche fashion you can easily option this out to over 200 grand, which puts it in supercar territory. And me personally, I would much rather buy a used Huracan than spend the leftover money on a plain Jane Model 3 just to ease out my conscience. But what do you guys think about the Taycan? Don't forget to let me know in the comments below. Oh yeah, and here's our terribly underexposed behind the scenes run of the Taycan on our beta handling course, which will hopefully debut in the spring. Thanks for watching.
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Now that I know the course, The.
Coming like the exit on this thing is ridiculous. Yeah. Yep, there's just so much thrust coming out of a corner like this is like okay, no big deal but and the big the brakes do wide pretty well.
But it does.
I feel like the mechanical grip is just. I don't know if it's just because it's cold, but it feels like it's really, really tail happy, but it might.
