All but the single-motor versions of the Taycan were on offer to test at the car’s press launch in Seville and drives in 4S, Turbo and Turbo S derivatives proved that none wants for plentiful, accessible power.
Even the 4S, tested with Porsche’s Performance Battery Plus fitted, has a pervasive sense of instant thrust about it. Buy a quicker model if you want – but there’s no question that anyone would need to.
In the case of the Taycan Turbo and Turbo S, the car’s appetite for speed can begin to feel quite savage when fully tapped – but linear and perfectly responsive accelerator pedal calibration means that, even here, you never put on more speed than you intend.
Use Normal driving mode and there’s no noise to speak of from the Taycan’s powertrain. Dial up Sport or Sport Plus instead and there’s a synthesised electric powertrain noise to add some performance flavour – but you can turn it off individually if you so choose, and it’s certainly not the most irksome ‘fake engine noise’ made by a performance EV. The way it helps to telegraph throttle load, as well as the point at which the rear motor changes from first to second gear, is actually quite useful.
Drivability is kept simple. There are no physical energy regeneration controls, and so the level of battery regeneration the car provides on a trailing throttle depends mostly on the selected driving mode (though there’s never enough for one-pedal operation).
Porsche has added a push-to-pass button on the car’s steering-wheel-mounted drive mode selector knob, which dials up a 10sec hit of additional motor power on cars equipped just so (Sport Chrono package, optional bigger battery) – but with so much power under your toe to begin with, it’s something you seldom find a need for on the road.
The blended brake pedal, meanwhile, remains quite lightly weighted by Porsche standards – progressive enough, and easy to module in outright terms, though lacking the feedback, bite and assured weightiness of a typical Porsche brake pedal.
