whiz944

I don't track my cars. But for me, the Model 3 is pure joy up in the Santa Cruz mountain twisties. One of the great drives in the Bay Area is up Highway 9 from Saratoga to Skyline, Skyline to Alices Restaurant, and down Old La Honda Road to the coast. Then a nice cruise along Highway 1 by the Pacific Ocean. I just have the lowly RWD (LR) Model 3. Does everything I want it to. Blasting down La Honda Road, regen is plenty sufficient for diving into curves without touching the brake pedal, then the instant TQ kicks in when blasting out of them. It is great.

I've driven my old 944 on the same roads plenty of times over the past 32 years. It has had some small upgrades over time (e.g, Fuchs wheels, Koni Yellows, upgraded factory sway bars, better brake pads, etc.) It is fun too. But continually shifting gears to keep on the power curve and engine braking gets old after a while. And a modern mini-van can out drag it at a stop light. Since buying the Model 3 last summer, I've maybe put 20-30 miles on it. I really should sell it.

W8MM

It's so interesting to hear all the "bench racers" bemoan the incursion of electric cars into the "fun" segment of automobilia, calling them limp, weak, uninteresting, and worthy of derision. Now comes the likes of whiz944 testifying to the sensorial delights of instant torque and one pedal driving bliss with more grip than older Porsches. It reminds me of the muscle car fans of the '60s deriding those "funny little 'furrin" cars that somehow managed to win races against their behemoth brethren in spite of tiny engine displacement. Old prejudices die hard. But look at what has happened in the last 50 years to those views.

My wife bought a Tesla Roadster (1.5) in 2008. We both drove it around and were so impressed that she then purchased a P85 Model S in 2012. Both of those cars were more fun than I remembered SS 396 Chevelles or Pontiac GTOs of my youth. The 2008 Roadster would suck the headlights out of any stoplight challenger up to 40 MPH, which is a speed low enough to enjoy frequently while cruising around town without risking incarceration. The P85 is just as impressive off the line.

Sporty driving enjoyment is only really available on an intermittent basis, depending on happenstance or planned jaunts around the countryside. Alpha-dog fast cars (like my 918) are really only able to stretch their legs in an entertaining way at race tracks because of their excess capacity for speed. They're really not accessible on a casual basis, even though they garner great admiration from onlookers when driven at 1/10 their design speed. The Walter Mitty factor is their biggest enjoyable virtue. So, what to do on the transit legs between the twisties and home? My wife would rather not ride with me in the 918 on back roads because the getting there and back is so uncomfortable for her (under-seat fire extinguisher chafes her legs, etc.). Her current P100D Model S is less dynamic than a GT2RS, but compares favorably to various BMWs she had prior to her Teslas and more comfortable while cruising down the road. If the Model 3 Performance can walk a Cayman S at a race track of any description, that tells me the Rubicon has been crossed and there's no looking back for a fun car that never needs a trip to the gas station.

I'm very much a customer for the Taycan when it arrives, but I must say that I might be just as happy with a Model 3 as my daily driver. The elements of comparison will be cargo capacity (hauling Amazon boxes from office to home - Panamera is perfect), rear seating comfort with me (6'4") in the front seat, and range/charging issues. To me, the Taycan is very interesting, but seems far from a Tesla killer.

Can't wait for more details.

Needsdecaf

My fortune at lunch today:

"Everybody likes Progress.
Nobody likes Change".

Pretty appropriate, even if it wasn't a fortune.

Beats the last one I got there: "To affirm means to make firm". WTF, I almost asked for a refund. LOL.

Dan87951

I put in an order in for a Model Y Performance. It's really hard to ignore the value for money here when compared to Porsche.

whiz944

My DD prior to the Model 3 was a 2006 MB with some AMG bits. It was a fun handling car too - but the drivetrain drove me nuts. I was never really happy with the 7-speed auto in it. And like my 944, you had to keep the revs up to get power out of it. Expensive to maintain (all those "Service A" and "Service B"s), replaced a failed (variable length) intake manifold, transmission shift controller, various sensors and actuators, etc. Ultimately the engine was going to need a to $6-$14K repair job (depending on who did the work) to keep on the road - thanks to MB not properly heat treating its balance shaft gear. (What a rookie mistake for a car company that has been in business since the Beginning of Time...) I gladly traded it in for the Model 3.

My point is not so much to trash-talk MB as it is to emphasize that over the past 20-30 years various government and consumer pressures have demanded more and more power from smaller displacement engines. Eight cylinder engines are pretty much dead - except in trucks and some sports cars. Six cylinders are on the way out as well. Relatively exotic tech is needed to keep performance up. When they work, they work ok. When they fail, it is $,$$$$ (or $$,$$$) to get them working again.

It will be fun to watch the upcoming Tesla vs Porsche wars. I've seen one of the Roadster 2.0 prototypes in person, and it looks phenomenal. Too pricey for my ex-midwestern sensibilities though. Even a Taycan probably won't get past the Accounting Department (i.e., my wife).

(w8mm: Actually my next vehicle purchase will probably be something more "Field Day" oriented to hopefully replace my two current "*UV"s. Need some mild off-roading capabilities and be able to haul radio gear up to our mountain top site. Also do some light trailer towing. Something like the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV might work - though I'm not totally sold on it yet. This June I'll likely drive my old Suburban up again.)

umwolverine

I have to fundamentally disagree with the title of this thread. Price is simply not an issue with Porsche's first all-electric car IF the performance is beyond anything out there. According to Walter Rohl, he has never experienced performance like this. Think about that statement:

""It's crazy. In all my years of rallying, I've never experienced such performance," Röhrl said of the Taycan, despite being one of the drivers to revolutionize rally in the Audi Sport Quattro. "The Taycan goes so well at such speed, really tremendous."

This is the worlds greatest rally-car driver. He's driven 600 Hp rally cars and Porsche Turbo's at Lemans. If the Taycan is really at that level of performance that exceeds anything out there, then price is secondary. They would be fools in my opinion to sacrifice performance to appeal more to the 'mass market' driver. I mean, give me a break with all this "...it costs too much..." If we're talking about a six figure car with an elite level of performance, and rumor is that Porsche could be losing some $5K or more per car. Its a Porsche for cryin-out-loud. I don't hear a lot of people complaining about the 911 Turbo S price...

RonF

Walter Rohl had never seen a Porsche he did not like. That's especially true with a new model. You need to take what he said with a chunk of salt. Many third party experienced drivers had driven the Model 3. The universal understanding seems to be that it stands in between GT3 and Cayman S on a track. The most significant thing is it costs less than half that of the Taycan. A Porsche crest will not take 0.1 second off the time even if tracking is the purpose. The thread title is appropriate imo.

Needsdecaf

Actually, he very publicly said he didn't like EV's and then had the PR department try to rewind that stuff. The unreal performance quotes were part of the backpedaling.

RonF

True. EV was worth nothing when Porsche wasn't making any but now is the best thing ever when Porsche is ready to sell some.

Petevb

Can you clarify- were you referring to my posts?
Hmm... Call me old fashioned but I still find both shifting gears and braking “fun”. Apparently some don’t, though I do wonder if the conclusion would hold if the cars being compared were not separated by nearly 40 years and 10x in value. Nothing against 944s (I’ve owned 4), but...

whiz944

I bought my 944 in 1987. I've mentioned this before, but I've been a rennlister since the very first day John D opened the rennlist email lists. But then kinda did a Rip Van Winkle for a couple decades while raising a family, getting them through college/grad school, etc.The 944 is still fun to drive - but it hasn't been my daily driver since the 1990s. I'm just starting to get some stuff fixed up on it that I've been putting off for a long time. We'll see where it goes.

However in the meantime, the automotive landscape has changed a lot! I remember when EV1s were roaming the earth here in Silicon Valley. Not practical for me at the time, so more of a curiosity. EV tech has been advancing really fast since then, and ICE has been getting more and more troublesome as it hits its limits. It is very disruptive to the old order...

Petevb

Lol. Yep, welcome to the new millennium.

You’re extrapolating this from your experience with a decade old Mercedes? Statistically ICE reliability and durability continue to improve along with power, emissions and efficiency. These are not improving at nearly the same rate as EVs, however.

It’s pretty clear to me that next the decade’s supercars will all be pure EV or hybrid. While most of those are likely to be exercises in excess I also fully expect some real electric drivers cars to materialize as well. Thus far I’ve owned 2 pure EVs and a plug-in hybrid, and they all hint at great potential- instant torque, seamless torque vectoring, etc. But thus far they have shown significant flaws that have held them back (for me) as satisfying tools for enthusiastic back-road blasts. I’ll readily admit I’m not your average consumer, having owned a dozen Porsches along with a mix of other high performance cars and having competed for over two decades. I’ve also had the fortune to test many cars, hybrids and EVs going right back to the beginning- 918, original Tesla roadster, Wrightspeed X1 (talk about a fun EV)... I get that many will be quite satisfied and even impressed with the Model 3 as it stands. I personally find it a big step forwards dynamically from the Model S but still well short of comparable sports sedans and certainly any modern Porsche sports car in terms of fun factor.

I look forward to seeing how much of that gap Porsche will close with the Taycan. In the meantime I quite am happy with my Model 3 as a DD, but I’m not going to pretend it’s something it’s not. And I find it laughable if some think that makes me “prejudiced”. Exactly the opposite.

Adriaan

A Porsche employee who likes a Porsche product, what a surprise, didn't see that coming...
Pure marketing, a Porsche dinosaur, who was always skeptical about BEV's is now slowly starting to like them, all part of the marketing strategy.


The model Y looks like very good value indeed. A model Y and a 997 GTS of a early 991 for the price of a taycan? I'n not so sure about the taycan anymore at this price level.

W8MM

No, not referring to you, but to posters with no experience and lots of opinions.

groundhog

Sure is, plus light and agile, plus tire performance, plus the full gamut of sensations an ICE engine delivers

Just finished another tarmac rally in my old 981 GTS - had a blast

Doesn't make you prejudiced - quite the opposite. Nothing wrong with the model three (M3 = BMW) then again theres nothing wrong with a Toyota Corolla.

I have an opinion that differs from yours and have plenty of "experience", it it possible to have a different opinion because one has a different perspective and or experience base.