An op ed appeared in USA Today by Klaus Zellmer titled "Porsche thinks you'll want your next car to be electric". Anyone who still has doubt of the EV future this should settle it. Note the reason he cited is not regulation or anything like that. It's because he thinks people want to buy them. Could be a Freud slip when he called EV Electronic Vehicle though.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opini...mn/1287505001/

He also gave proper credit to Tesla which is pretty nice imo.

 

So I've been driving the S P100D for quite some time now. A few observations:

1) Real world range is nowhere near to the advertised 345-370 miles (550-600km). It's more like 1/2 of that number. Much like a gasoline car and its advertised range
2) Highway range depends heavily on the speed you drive with. In my country the allowed highway speed is 140kmph (89mph). With the allowed speed limit, with AC on and luggage, my tesla does around 250wh/km or around 25kwh/100km. This should give a range of around 400km (based on 100KW battery) before charging, but realistically it's more like 300 km tops. I did a 210km highway with 30-40km of city driving and was down to 23% of battery.
3) Range anxiety is a bitch.
4) It is not fun to drive on a twisted road. This is self explanatory, the thing weighs almost 2.5 tonnes, the breaks are barely adequate for that mass. It's a saloon car, designed for you to drive your family and dog(s). It's not a TTS, not even an M5. It just isn't.
5) But contrary to (4), I would still say - Future is totally electric. Since I got my Model S delivered, I've barely even thought about riding any of my other cars. I would drive my 991.2 TTS on a longer journey or on a twisted road to have fun, but for city driving the quietness and extreme acceleration of the Model S kinda ruins everything else for me.

Would be happy to answer any further questions you guys have

 

Be careful which rating system you are relying on. The EPA range quoted in the U.S. is actually pretty good. If you limit speed to 65 mph or so, you'll get fairly close to their highway rating. In many other countries, the old NEDC test cycle rating was _highly_ optimistic. NEDC is now obsolete and they are using the WLTP range - which falls somewhere between EPA and NEDC.

And highway speed assumptions are a major difference between EPA, WLTP, and NEDC ratings.

You need to try a Model 3. The S is a boat by comparison.

 

Pretty decent article comparing EPA, WLTP, and NEDC: https://www.gearbrain.com/electric-c...547963655.html

 

The most useful number would be when driving at the highway speed 65 or 75 mph. I don't know anyone would care what the range is in urban low speed situations.

 

I road tripped my Model 3 this weekend from San Jose to Fresno area and back to San joust - consumption was right around 260 wh/mile or 3.8 miles/kwh at 70 mph+ speeds with passing and no particular attention to speed - I did two supercharger stops (one in Fresno, and one at Harris Ranch) - cause I'd not done the trip before, turns out you don't need the 1st stop - I could've gotten by with one stop at Harris Ranch - when plugging in at the Harris Ranch supercharger I got 160 kW charge rate to start which is better than the Model S/X 120 kW charing limit and was the 1st time in my 3 I was able to use it's faster charging speed - my daughter and I had dinner while the car was charging and the car was done before we were (I had to step out and move the car to avoid charging idle fees while we finished our meal)

all in all the Model 3 is a major efficiency upgrade and performance upgrade vs. the S/X and bodes well for the future, it's also less of a boat than the Model S and much better long distance road car given it's cruising efficiency.

range is awesome, consumption is minimal, and charging rate in real world scenarios is quite fast.

 

Unwise for you to praise Tesla here. LOL.

btw, how do you like the autopilot?

 

@daveo4porsche Told me the same thing when I reached out to him about buying my Model 3. I now understand what he meant and can totally relate.

My gripes about my Model 3 are limited to the pretty crappy seats, and the bouncy suspension. Give me an EV that fixes those two things and I don't think I'd ever want an ICE car for daily driving again.

 

autopilot is great in small doses - and really really relieves the stress of stop and go and some highway driving - I don't trust it in "tricky" situations, but really really nice to double tap the cruise control wand and just relax a bit and let the car drive and keep pace with the car in front of you…

I'll slam or praise Tesla equally in all forums, they make the best EV's period, and pretty good cars, I expect the Taycan to be an excellent car and an "ok" EV - when I finally get to drive one I'm going to have to decide if I'm willing to ditch my Model 3 for one - this past weekend reminded me of the importance of a worry free reliable and very functional charging network.

 

I simply can't buy an ICE car anymore - other than as a "specialty" vehicle (mmmm love my GT3) - for general purpose daily driving the EV is the winner hands down.

 

You guys seem to forget Panamera is still in full production. Taycan is more of a Panamera killer than model S killer if anything. The two car look very similar.

You think Porsche is going to diminish Panamera sale with her hundreds of options and a dozen models and glorious maintenance fee?

Until Macan and 911 turns electric, you wont see that many electric Porsche. That's a given.

The dealers will also anti-sell Taycan. Just watch.

Lastly, Taycan has been delayed until 2020. I thought you all know that. GL getting configurator up by december at earliest.

Refreshed model S with 400 range and 2 sec 0-60 is coming.

 

Any updates on what the pricing will be on the Taycan?

 

Taycan is obviously targeting the Model S than Panamera which has much smaller sales than the former. I wouldn't be surprised that Porsche is just "unofficially" giving up on the Panamera. It will not say so until the final days of course. Everything still depends how the Taycan is accepted. The more I look at it the more I believe Tancan will not be competitive. I don't think there are that many people who will only buy things with Porsche logo on them.

 

at 20/40 thousand units a year the Taycan is _NO_ completion to the Model S or the Model 3 - it's a statement vehicle and a way for porsche to gain experience in the EV market, but even 40,000 units over 2 years production is a drop in the bucket in terms of volume - I anticipate the Taycan will be "successful" in that they will sell all they can make, but I think Tesla will be a better EV and the Taycan will be a better car.

 

Maybe so but that might not be what Porsche had in mind if Taycan was targeting Model S instead of Panamera or other Porsche models. We'll see.