Someone please tell me why Porsche decided to name the Taycan a "Turbo S"? The last time I recall, EV's don't have a turbo. Calling it a turbo is like some idiot up-badging a non-turbo car. It's fake and an insult to all those Turbo owners including me.

WTH was Porsche thinking?

And don't get me started on the Taycan name. Or it's ugly as sin design.

 

Years of model trim history and owners that understand the nomenclature are the most obvious reasons why. Does it make sense? Not particularly; however, computers used to have "Turbo" buttons, as well.

 

It’s a name, what’s the difference really. My 991.2 has a two turbos but turbo is not part of the name.

 

Taycan +
Taycan ++
Taycan S
Taycan S+

All ideas to use instead

 

I find it hilarious that their new EV, which seeks to distance itself from ICE and touts "sustainability" relies on a name synonymous with ICE performance to help market / sell them.

They could have easily come up with a unique and suitable name for differentiating the Taycan models but chose instead to take the " consumers are stupid " marketing approach that is all too common in the auto industry these days....

 

I couldn't have said it better.

 

To be fair, the vast majority of consumers ARE stupid.

 

It bothers me too. People who order the Taycan need to vote by checking the ‘rear badge delete’ option!

 

Don't like this either. I'd like to think the average Porsche buyer is intelligent enough to not be drawn to the traditional 'turbo' designation and instead to something more fitting of an electric vehicle that they could have come up with. And then there is the 'Taycan' name... no one knows how to pronounce it without asking or checking online. 911 is classic, even 944 has a nice ring to it, boxster, cayman,… all good. Taycan is on the level of Tiguan.

 

One could argue that Porsche already crossed this divide by having turbos on every engine yet only calling some of them a Turbo.

Don't get me wrong, it's especially egregious in an EV. But it's not like they've been model designation purists up to now.

 

It's embarrassing. Like if Chevy put a '427 V8' badge on a high-performance Bolt.

 

If you have to go out of the way to produce a video on how to pronounce a model name then perhaps choosing a different name is in order. Or maybe all the other were already "taken".

 

Using "turbo" to label top or fastest or the most potent version of something is commonplace. It's part of the evolution of the language. Dunkin has Turbo Short coffee, Nike has Turbo running shoes, Motorolla had Droid Turbo phones etc. It's normal to carry over older names to new concepts. Just like we call open top cars "Spider" which is a type of a horse carriage, but guess what - no horses there anymore. Keeping the same nomenclature makes sense for Porsche.

Just give me longer range, lower weight, and more reasonable price, and call it anything you want.

 

Or like AMG putting the "63" badge on cars with 4-liter engines. right?

 

^ Inflation of German model number badges started in the early 1980s with the BMW 745i and 320i and has only gotten worse.

For an engineering company to label an EV a 'turbo', though...pathetic. Even more so that shoes and coffee also use the name.