NEW Porsche Taycan (inc. 0-100 & braking) review

CarExpert

Porsche has made incremental gains on the Taycan with faster charger, better performance and more features. But, is it worth spending your hard earned on a new premium electric car? Paul Maric finds out.  Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Exterior: 00:58 Interior: 03:59 Infotainment: 05:25 Safety Tech: 06:57 Practicality: 07:26 Charging: 10:25 On the Road: 11:37 Accel. & braking: 19:12 Verdict: 21:00  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #porsche #taycan #review

Transcript

00:00Let's see what the brakes feel like around the right and handling track. So it's hard in regen

00:05there. Tip it through here. Wow, it has got so much traction. Holy moly.

00:19Wow, that felt, felt brutal. G'day, I'm Paul. Porsche has updated the Taycan. So it's now more

00:28efficient. It's got better aero. It's faster. All the good stuff I like to hear. So today we're going

00:34to do a detailed review of this. This is the Taycan 4 Cross Turismo. So it's the base model in

00:40the Cross Turismo range. Priced at just under $200,000. If that is too expensive, the entire

00:45range kicks off with the Taycan base version for just over 175 grand. Now, if you do want to skip

00:51ahead to other parts of this review, you can use the time codes that are on the screen, or if you're

00:55on YouTube, you can scroll down and use the chapters below. Let's talk about design to start

01:00with. So fairly familiar design, but they have made some changes there to headlights and this

01:04bottom sort of bumper section. A lot of this was driven by aero, and they want to improve aero

01:09because electric car means more range. Got a big battery in here now, usable capacity of just under

01:15100 kilowatt hours. They've improved charging as well on the 800 volt architecture. So all of those

01:20things added in, plus a new heat pump as well. So that really aims to give this that extra range.

01:26And it now has like just over 600 kilometers of WLTP range, which is kind of a decent chunk. It is

01:32really sort of where you want to be in an electric car without sort of not having enough to keep

01:36charging and then sort of having enough to keep going. So it's a good little sort of middle ground

01:40there. So around the side here, the wheels, have a look at these. These are optional 21 inch

01:46alloy wheels. They are absolutely enormous. Piano black finish, big brakes as well. And one of the

01:51interesting things that they've changed as part of this update is the amount of regen the car can

01:56do. It can recuperate up to 400 kilowatts of energy when you decelerate. The curious thing with the

02:03Taycan is it doesn't really have like a single pedal driving mode. You're basically, every time you're

02:09using the brake, you're slowing down and you think that you're using the brakes, but you're actually

02:13not. It's using regen. It can then go up to that 400 kilowatt mark, which is pretty cool.

02:18When you do need to actually use the brakes though, you've got six piston calipers up front,

02:22single piston at the rear on a fairly big rotor there as well. So it has some good stopping power

02:26and it kind of needs it. It's a heavy car. It's over two tons in mass. Wheel arch guard over here

02:32with an indicator built into the front there. You've got two charge ports, one with DC charging,

02:36one with AC charging, and I'll run you through some of the charge specs a little bit later on.

02:40These door handles retract when you lock the vehicle. Roof rails over here, the optional

02:44glass roof on this. This car has a few options, something like $30,000 worth of options. And

02:49it's one of the things that you sit inside and you're like, where is the $30,000 in options?

02:54It doesn't really feel like a lot of this stuff should be optional. A lot of it should be standard.

02:58But that is a Porsche. I think that is what they do well. It lets you sort of customize the car,

03:03but you can sort of run away with options pretty quickly. And now across Turismo, it's this really cool

03:08design because it's not a sedan, it's not a wagon. It's sort of just a cross between the two of them.

03:14So you've got that sort of swooping roof line at the rear. It just has a really cool proportion to

03:20it. So come around to the back with me. I'll show you this stuff. Now around the back, you have full

03:23LED taillights. Porsche behind this clear glass, a Taycan 4. That's one of the options. You can get

03:29your badge in black. And then you've got this diffuser down the bottom here as well. The unfortunate

03:36side effect to this cross Turismo setup is you don't really have a great deal of boot

03:40rim. I'll show you what that looks like a little bit later on. So there are some compromises

03:44here to the design, but the car itself, in my opinion, looks really cool. So let me know

03:50what you reckon in the comments section below. Have you had a look at one of these? What about

03:53on the second hand market? Because they're going for pretty decent prices there. Let me know

03:57your thoughts in the comments section below. Okay, so we are inside the Taycan. This is what

04:02the key looks like. You've got unlock, lock, frunk, boot, blank on the back. It's a proximity

04:10sensing key. So once you're inside, you put your foot on the brake. You also have like an

04:14override power button over here on the right hand side as well. Okay, so what about this

04:19interior? Look, it hasn't changed a great deal as part of this facelift. And to be honest,

04:23I feel like it's starting to get a little bit dated. Stuff like these sort of infotainment

04:28screens are quite small and sort of far away. Now, I do still love this curved display though.

04:33It's such a beautiful looking thing and they've done a great job integrating it here. So you don't

04:37get half your vision cut off by things. So it's sort of nicely presented. This being a sort of

04:43Volkswagen Group brand is a bit of a carryover from Audi products. And I don't love it in Audi

04:49products because it's just a bit tricky to use while you're driving. So, but anyway, all right. So

04:54touch points, what are they like? It's fairly firm there in the centre. Firm on the door,

04:58but they've got sort of padding to them. How soft are they? We've got our durometer. We've tested the

05:02main surfaces in this cabin. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested

05:06before, there is a link in the description below. Builds quality. This is built like a tank.

05:12Everything is really nice and firm here. Door slam. This is what it sounds like. There's soft

05:17closed doors optioned on this car. Nice and solid. Let's talk infotainment. So your main infotainment

05:28display is around 11 inches and the curved display is closer to 17 inches in size. The infotainment

05:34system all driven as a touchscreen. They have updated this recently so that it is a little snappier

05:39in terms of the way that it operates. It was just a little bit laggy in the sort of pre-facelift version

05:44of this, but now it feels much better and quicker to sort of get through menus and do little bits

05:49and pieces. You've got inbuilt satellite navigation, remote connectivity with the car. You've also got

05:55AM, FM, DAB digital radio, plus a 10-speaker Bose-branded sound system that comes standard

06:01with the car. You can upgrade that. Sound system isn't too bad. It's not sort of amazing, but it

06:05does the job. Smartphone mirroring. You have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both of those are

06:10wireless. This is what Apple CarPlay looks like. So full-screen integration there. It doesn't have

06:15any dropouts or anything like that, so it sort of works fairly well. And this is Android Auto.

06:20So full-screen integration there as well. Wireless too. So win-win on all those fronts.

06:28Now, you also have as an option in this car the passenger display. So I can't see that passenger

06:34display, but when it is on, basically your passenger is able to access most of the functions that you

06:40have displayed for the driver. I think it's kind of just a bit of a gimmick, to be honest, because

06:47what is the purpose of it? You're going to use it a couple of times, and then that's about it. It's

06:51not really overly convenient, so I probably wouldn't waste money on that. It also means you're going to

06:54use more electricity. It reduces your range, so I'll just forget about that. On the safety front,

06:58you've got an auto-dimming rear vision mirror. You have a blind spot monitor. You've got front and rear

07:03parking sensors and a 360 camera. I'll show you what that looks like. Quality isn't amazing. It's

07:11fairly low quality. I don't know why they can't just fit this stuff with high-quality cameras,

07:19but it just might get a whole lot better to look at, so it's just a little bit disappointing.

07:23And this is what the horn sounds like.

07:24Moving on to practicality, and we'll start off with your connectivity. So, in here, you've got

07:30two USB-C ports, a 12-volt outlet, and a wireless phone charger as well. In terms of storage, you've

07:38got a couple of cup holders there, but there really isn't, you know, you've got this little spot down

07:41here, a very small center console there, and a tiny little glove box as well. Would have just been

07:47nice to have better packaging here, because, you know, electric vehicles come with the benefit of

07:53having more spaces to sort of put things, and I think they probably missed a trick here in terms

07:57of maximizing that storage capacity. In terms of your comfort functions, the seats are really nice

08:05and comfortable. You've got plenty of adjustment there for the seats. You can go forwards, backwards.

08:09Your backrest can go forwards and backwards. You've got adjustment of the front section,

08:13lumbar adjustment as well. You can lift the front of the seat, back of the seat, so that's all really

08:17good. Dual-zone climate control up the front here with heated seats. You have a heated

08:22steering wheel as well, with a secret little button located behind here. Steering adjustment

08:27is both tilt and reach, and it's fully electric, which is good. And on our reach test, most of that

08:34stuff is easier to reach while you're driving. Now, second row, what is it like back here?

08:39Tight, in a word. Yeah, not a huge amount of knee room. Tow room's okay. Headroom is pretty reasonable.

08:46I don't know, for such a big car, there just isn't a huge amount of space back here. It's not the end

08:50of the world, but it is okay. This car's been optioned with a 4 plus 1 seating arrangement, so it's

08:55kind of two defined seats in the back here with an occasional use centre seat. You've got a giant

09:01driveline hub there, which again, with electric cars, you have the benefit of being able to have a

09:05flat floor, but it also gives manufacturers an excuse to sort of carve out areas for bigger

09:11batteries. So, given that the battery size here is just over 100 kilowatt hours, it kind of gives

09:15a bit more space to play with. A little tray there for storing odds and ends. Then you've

09:20got two USB-C ports just here under the seat, and a screen there to control climate for the

09:26second row. Air vents as well. Centre armrest here too, with a couple of cup holders. Now,

09:33our window test. Let's see whether it goes down all the way. So, it's auto up and down.

09:38No. It only goes down roughly halfway. So, cargo space. I mentioned before that it's not amazing,

09:47and you can see here what I mean. This sort of cuts into your cargo space. If you do have like

09:52a pram or something in there, you sort of have limited room in terms of storing stuff. In terms

09:57of the actual figures, you have a frunk, so the storage at the front of the vehicle, which is just

10:02under 90 litres. This space here, just over 400 litres, so it gives you a bit of an idea of how much

10:07you've got to work with. You do have a little bit of cable storage under here, and a 12-volt outlet

10:12as well. Show you what it looks like with our suitcase in there. See, it takes up most of that

10:17space. You can expand the space a little bit more if you want by dropping the second row, and that

10:22exposes it to just over 1,200 litres worth. Now, before we go for a drive, let's chat charging.

10:28Look at this. Love that. It's sort of a little over-engineered, but I love it. The cool thing here

10:33as well, fun story. If you are driving this in a cold climate where this is likely to get frozen,

10:38it actually has like a turbo mode for that door, where it increases the current to the door

10:43to snap it loose of any ice. So they really have sort of thought of everything there.

10:48This side of the car, the passenger side, has AC and DC charging. The driver's side has just AC

10:53charging. This is quite a unique system, because 800-volt architecture, there's not many other cars on

10:59the road with 800 volts. Talking about stuff like the Hyundai products outside of that, most of them

11:05are 400 volts. But that gives this car the ability to charge at up to 320 kilowatts peak, or an average

11:11of about 240 kilowatts. So that is some proper charging grunt, and for a battery that is this big,

11:16means that you're actually able to get that charging done pretty quickly. AC charging works up to

11:2122 kilowatt three-phase, so it's really well-equipped there in terms of charging and getting as much current

11:27into the car as you possibly can. And driving range of just over 600 kilometres on the WLTP cycle,

11:33and like I mentioned before, usable battery capacity of just under 100 kilowatt hours.

11:39Okay, so we've just hit the road in Taycan. Now, there's an interesting setup here, because

11:45this car is quite sort of rare in the electric car sense, because it uses a two-speed transmission,

11:52and it was probably one of the things that I liked least about Taycan in the pre-facelift,

11:57and that was because there was momentary lag when the transmission was shifting between its two

12:02gears, and it's like, well, we're in an electric car, why is there lag? The whole point is we don't

12:08want lag. So they've actually fixed that, and I'll run you through how that feels in just a second,

12:13but just to recap, the Taycan 4 is basically all-wheel drive, so you have an electric motor servicing

12:17the front axle, and then one servicing the rear axle. In addition to that, this car is also optioned with

12:22a Porsche torque vectoring that basically adds one extra step to that and allows the vehicle to have

12:28a torque vectoring setup, which means when you're sort of powering through corners, getting on the throttle,

12:33it is able to shuffle torque as required about that rear axle to give you better traction out of a corner,

12:39so it all sort of adds up to give you a decent handling experience. Well, in theory anyway, we'll test that out

12:45pretty soon. So combined, you have 320 kilowatts of power and just over 600 newton meters of torque,

12:52which is a big old wallet. There's a new rear motor fitted to these as well, and I'll give it a

12:56stab now. We'll see what that feels like. It does all that sort of standard EV stuff, and when I was

13:02talking about that two-speed transmission, you cannot catch it napping. I've tried my hardest today to

13:09just kind of find a point where it is napping, but I can't find it, and yeah, no matter where it is,

13:18it's good to go. So that's great news. It means that when you are driving this, you can just stand

13:21on the throttle, and it will deliver that sort of push in the back. Why do they use a two-speed

13:25transmission? Well, it allows them to have two sets of gears for acceleration. You have one that

13:30services low speed, explosive acceleration, and then another gear that services acceleration at high

13:36speed. In most electric cars, once you get above sort of 100 k's an hour and you hit the throttle,

13:40it really doesn't feel like it's doing much, whereas this vehicle is built to drive on

13:44de-restricted sections of the autobahn. It still needs to be able to accelerate quite aggressively

13:49when the speed is on that highway cruising speed. The other cool thing as well, you can actually sort

13:54of see it off to the side here. It tells you how much regeneration capacity you have. So I mentioned

13:59earlier that you have up to 400 kilowatts available, which is huge. That means that you're basically

14:05using regen right up until the point you exceed the maximum regen limit, and then you go to friction

14:11brakes. So there is quite a lot of headroom there to slow the vehicle down without ever really needing

14:15to use the brakes. Now I've got the diamond button here as the regen on and off. If you do have

14:21regen off and you roll out of the throttle, it basically coasts. It doesn't have any sort of

14:26resistance there. With regen on, you know, it's mild regen at best, and I can't really see

14:34any setting here to adjust how intense that regen is, because I would actually like to have it

14:40just feeling a little bit more sort of resistive so the vehicle can slow down a bit quicker.

14:45There's also an option on this car, which is the electric sports sound. So both internal and external,

14:50when you get on the throttle, you can hear it sort of humming along, and when you get on the brakes,

14:57you can feel it humming as well. So it's a bit of a gimmicky feature, but it's there if you just want

15:03to have some audio note to whatever you're doing. Now in terms of economy, Porsche claims an average

15:08of about 18.5kWh per 100km. We're currently sitting on 28.1, which is significantly higher.

15:17I will preface that by saying highway driving to get here, plus I've done some faster laps in the

15:22morning, so that figure has crept up. When I got here, it was sitting around the 22kWh per 100km mark,

15:27so still pretty high. And, you know, that is one of the, I guess, downsides of a vehicle like this

15:33that is built for sportiness. It is going to consume more energy than something that sort of

15:37just runs around the city. But if you have a look at the total average over the past 8,000km,

15:41it's sort of closer to that 22 mark. So still a little bit higher than the claim, but not that much

15:46higher in the grand scheme of things. On the ride front, you have adaptive air suspension

15:50across the range now. That means that it can vary how soft or how firm it is, depending on the drive

15:55mode that you're in. And it works great in and around town. Even on 21-inch alloy wheels, it feels

15:59so comfortable. So as a city car, they've done a really good job with that. And I'll be keen to see

16:04once the speed picks up a bit, whether that translates to handling or if there's a bit of body

16:08roll once we start tipping it in. Okay, sine wave time. We do this at 130kWh. We'll see what the body

16:13control is like on a country road. Should actually be pretty decent, given we've got, yeah, look at that,

16:20we've got adaptive air suspension, so it just soaks that up really nicely. It's quite sort of

16:23comforting and really not over the top. Now, bumpy road time. 90kWh we do this, and this is

16:30a terrible, shocking road. But it gives us an idea of what this would be like if you decided for

16:35whatever reason to drive it cross-country. So there's 90kWh. This is very comfortable.

16:42That air suspension is working overtime to keep this ride nice and settled. Here comes our condensed

16:47sine wave. Yeah, very good. It is just impressive for a sports car that it actually feels as

16:55comfortable as it does. Now, in terms of drive modes, we've got a stack here. So gravel, range,

17:00normal, sport, sport plus. It's working into sport plus. We'll go for a fang around the track and just

17:04see how this feels. I've introduced a little bit of noise there as well. We'll see what the brakes

17:11feel like around the ride and handling track. So it's hard in regen there. Tip it through here. Wow,

17:19it has got so much traction.

17:26Holy moly. That is unbelievable. You can actually feel that torque vectoring system work because when

17:32I nail the throttle out of the corner, there is no slip at all. It's just a portioning torque

17:37exactly where it needs to go. This is unbelievably quick. Far out. And this is the Taycan 4. This is

17:46basically the entry level to the Cross Turismo range. And it is absolutely hauling. Let's see what

17:53it's like along the back here. Yeah, brag pedal feel is interesting. So it has a bit of firmness to it.

17:59But once it bites, it's actually doing a decent job. Here's the back straight roll onto the throttle.

18:11Wow, it is phenomenally quick.

18:16Far out. That is unreal. Wow. I wasn't expecting that. Like this is the base and it is absolutely

18:24hoofing along. So yeah, that is very impressive for what is effectively a base model. That is

18:30absolutely unreal. Now, what about your road noise? Look, it's not that bad. Like you do get

18:35road noise inside the car. You get it primarily from the tyres and it is worse on course chip roads

18:41at highway speeds because there is a lot of tyre connected to the road and it's a sporty tyre as

18:45well. But it really isn't that bad. It's not the end of the world and not something that would

18:49keep me awake at night. We put it up against our calibrated sound meter and this is how it all

18:54went. If you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, there's a link

18:59in the description below. Visibility isn't too bad. You sit quite low to the ground. So you can see

19:04clearly down the front there. The wing mirrors are reasonably sized. Visibility out the back isn't

19:08amazing. It is sort of quite a narrow envelope, but you know, it does the job. Okay, time to do a

19:13little bit of performance testing. We'll go over to Sport Plus and turn traction control off and

19:20we're going to use launch control here to do 0 to 100 and then 80 to 120 as well. So it's basically

19:27just brake and throttle. It'll come up saying launch and then away we go. So have a listen to that. Here we

19:34go. The sound effects are hilarious. All right, there's 120. I actually felt the gear shift just

19:49then as well. It is so different to what it used to be in the last car. So I'm glad they've improved

19:54that. Okay, so 0 to 100, 4.42 seconds, which is not too bad. What's the official claim? 4.6.

20:01So very fast. And then 80 to 120, 2.79. That is nice and fast as well. All right, we'll head back and

20:09do a stop from 100. Okay. Wow, that felt brutal. So 100 to 0. Wow, 2.5 seconds, 34.36 meters. We're

20:31best stopping results on here. But that has got to be close, if not the best. That is unbelievable.

20:38Very, very impressive. If you do want to see how this car compares to other cars that we've tested

20:43before in terms of acceleration, braking, all that sort of stuff, there's a link in the description

20:48below. All right, how quick does it go in reverse? Let's find out. Here we go.

20:56All right, 40, 50, 52, 53 kilometers an hour. Very nice. So the Porsche Taycan. Look, despite this

21:05just being basically a facelift, this feels like a completely different car. They've fixed the issue

21:10with the gearbox where it just felt laggy. It's now just instantaneous. It handles unbelievably well

21:17for what is effectively the base model. Like it is surprising how hard it goes and how well it

21:22sticks to the road. They've just made all these little refinements that mean that you can drive

21:26it hard, not have that battery degradation and not have any funniness from the gearbox. So from all of

21:31those fronts, it's pretty good. Now in terms of the negatives, I reckon they could improve that sort

21:35of infotainment layout a bit, perhaps a bigger screen, just something mounted a little differently.

21:39It just feels kind of the same that it was pre-facelift. And I think this was a great opportunity

21:44for them to update it a bit. I just think they dropped the ball there. And in terms of the

21:47interior space, it just feels so cramped for such a big car. I just don't understand where all the

21:52space disappears to. So look, outside of that stuff, it is a big chunk of money, but ultimately

21:57you don't really need to be spending any more than this to get the thrills out of it. Yes,

22:01you can go for a turbo or a turbo S, but this really just delivers everything you need in a package

22:06that gives you just a little bit more space there in the boot area. So let me know what you reckon

22:10in the comments section below. Are you going to try and snap one of these up? Have you looked at

22:14something else? Does it not interest you at all? Let me know your thoughts in the comments section.

22:19If you did enjoy this video, please make sure you like it and you share it with your mates.

22:22If you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon. But until next time,

22:26take it easy.

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