Mission E Tours Australia Ahead of Taycan Global Launch
Australia among the last to see the Taycan arrive on its shores with a scheduled 2020 local market launch.
The wait for Porsche’s first-ever fully-electric vehicle is nearly over. Some time in 2019 production will begin on the Taycan, followed by shipments to dealerships in Germany, Europe, and the rest of the world.
One of the last places to get their allotment of Taycans will be Australia, with a date of arrival set for some time in 2020. Until then, Sam Charlwood of Motoring spent a few minutes with Porsche Australia product chief Ingo Appel during a tour stop of the Porsche Future Lab pop-up display in the Sydney, Australia suburb of Barangaroo, featuring the Taycan’s predecessor, the Mission E.
When asked if the Taycan will bear any resemblance to the Mission E, Appel said he hoped it would, adding he couldn’t comment on product plans because he didn’t know about the final design of the Taycan.
“There are very likely some features that are not even legal in Australia, the mirrors, et cetera. But otherwise, we hope that we find a lot of the styling cues back in the production car, as well.”
“There’s some pretty impressive performance stats,” said Charlwood. “When I think about it now, you’re up to 100 [kph] in 3.5 seconds… a 500-kilometer driving range, 100 kilometers a charge in four minutes, just incredible.” Appel adds the Taycan can hit a top speed of 155 mph, and can reach 124 mph from zero in 12 seconds.
Of course, with any electric vehicle, the most important factor in successful electrification is the infrastructure, such as what Tesla has done with its Supercharger network. Porsche is well aware of what it needs to do for its Taycan and future EVs.
“Home charging is obviously very important, that is, 90 percent of the charging at home,” Appel says. “We’re working on a very good solution there; we probably have it in place already. Then the main one is obviously corridor charging, highway charging. We are currently talking to potential service providers in that regards. We’re very confident it’ll be 350-kilowatt charging– there should be benchmarked charging infrastructure out there once we launch [the] Taycan.”
As for how much Australians will pay for the Taycan when it arrives in 2020, Appel couldn’t say, as he didn’t know about the pricing, either. He did say pricing would be announced once it was finalized, which should be near the Australian market launch of Porsche’s first-ever EV.
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