Why My Porsche Taycan Review Nearly Ended In DISASTER

Prior planning… didn’t happen

This week, I reviewed an electric Porsche.

That’s seven words I never thought I’d combine a little over two years into starting this business. But I have, and I’m immensely proud of what this means for my brand.

That’s probably a bit too ‘inside baseball’ for anyone who has reached this webpage in search of an opinion on Porsche’s take on electric car ownership (or electric car ownership in general, for that matter). So, apologies if that’s the case.

Alas, like so many of my reviews, this isn’t your standard car review; it’s not something you’d find within the pages of Top Gear magazine, or What Car. It’s simply a high-level overview of what it’s like to drive an extremely expensive electric vehicle (EV), and, more importantly, what the EV experience is like in the UK.

Oh, and you’ll find out why I nearly had to make a very embarrassing call to Porsche.

The Taycan specs

The Porsche Taycan I was given to play with for two days had a spec list as long as a car charging cable.

It’s propelled by a 380hp power unit, which might not sound like much in a car that weighs just over two tonnes, but it really does shift, and, if you decide to have a go with the hilarious-but-ultimately-unusable-on-public-roads launch control feature, you get 476hp.

It features two-speed transmission (a rarity in a world of single-speed EVs) and achieves 0–60mph in a not-too-shabby 5.4 seconds. If you’ve swallowed your brave pill (and live somewhere without speed restrictions), 0–124mph can be reached in 16.5 seconds.

The battery is a 93.4kWh unit that features a capacity of just over 300 miles on a good day.

The Taycan I was given came in a head-turning shade of Frozen Berry Metallic (a colour that sits somewhere between pink and purple and which grows on you, surprisingly, after a couple of days of ownership). As you’d guess for a press car, this one also had lots of extras bolted on including 20-inch Turbo Aero wheels, a performance battery, and a sports chronology package (including a Ferrari-like drive mode switch on the steering wheel).

The price for this particular configuration? A smidgen over £86,235.

This is easily the most expensive review unit I’ve ever been entrusted with.

The EV driving experience

I’ve been a passenger in plenty of electric cars, and I’ve driven a couple of hybrids, but I’ve never been at the controls of a full-on EV. That made the Taycan my first-ever experience of being propelled by nothing more than electricity — and trying to avoid any form of range anxiety.

My first trip in the Porsche — an 80-mile motorway jaunt from Porsche’s UK headquarters in Reading back to my home in Leamington Spa — was completely uneventful. In fact, it was probably the easiest car I’ve ever driven without any experience whatsoever.

Like every automatic, you just put your foot down, steer, and break. Simple stuff. The Porsche doesn’t feature regenerative breaking by default (you have to turn that on), therefore there’s no weird engine braking to get used to as there is in many EVs.

However, there’s something about the EV experience that is immensely straightforward. I can’t really put my finger on what it is — after all, driving the Taycan is technically no different to driving either of our cars at home (both of which are also automatic). It might be the absence of an engine or the subtle but satisfying tram-like whine from the electric motors, but whatever it is, it feels more like playing a computer game than being in charge of an internal combustion engine.

Keeping your eye on a battery percentage bar rather than a petrol gauge is surreal at first, but quickly becomes second nature. I guess we’re hard-wired to do so these days thanks to the multitude of battery-powered devices that accompany us each day.

The Taycan might be incredibly expensive and capable, but if you just need to get from A to B, I challenge anyone to find it a difficult car to drive.

The design

Externally, this really is a marmite car. My brother-in-law likened its raised front headlights to that of a surprised frog. At certain angles, he has a point. But if you hunker down and look at it from a lower angle, it looks seriously impressive. The Taycan has real presence and never fails to turn heads. I’m a fan.

It’s a massive car. The Taycan is a grand tourer in every sense of the word, and the design is dominated by that wonderful rear end, which screams ‘Porsche’ and ‘I’m a bit different’ in one breath. Capped off with a Tron-like LED light running the length of the boot lid (and just below the active spoiler) it looks mightily impressive.

The Taycan cabin is a nice place to be. The interior feels premium but doesn’t really shout about it. If you’re looking for a reminder of the money you’ve emptied from your bank account every time you step into a car, the Taycan doesn’t really deliver that. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing; like so many EVs, it focuses purely on the driving experience and relies more on its three sizeable displays than carefully-crafted knobs, dials, and switches.

The lack of chrome, carbon fibre, or Alcantara detailing in the model I had may disappoint some, but the Taycan’s interior is at least very well-made, quiet, and supremely comfortable. It’s like slipping into the master chair in someone’s high-tech minimalist front room.

The Taycan tech

As noted, the focus of the Taycan cabin experience is the trio of displays. The first and most striking is the one that resides behind the steering wheel.

This 16.8-inch curved display replaces the traditional dials that are fast becoming a thing of the past on modern cars. It’s bright, sharp, and nicely configurable with three different sections, all of which can be tweaked to show whatever it is you want to keep an eye on.

The ‘Powermeter’ displays your speed, acceleration and ‘recuperation’ (Porsche’s deliciously refined term for battery regeneration under engine breaking [when enabled]). This can be swapped out for a Google map of your location which can either fill part of the display or the entire display.

To the left, there’s a space that can display everything from g-force to road sign information, and to the right, a third configurable area for turn-by-turn navigation signals, trip info, and the all-important battery health.

There’s a second, traditional display in the centre of the dash which provides access to the in-car entertainment system, and will display either the Apple CarPlay or Android Auto interface, depending on your smartphone of choice. It’s a nicely-sized screen which is, again, plenty bright and sharp enough. The Porsche operating system (known as ‘Porsche Communication Management’) is pretty fluid and intuitive, although, like most iPhone owners, I only have eyes for CarPlay these days.

On the subject of CarPlay, the Taycan has wireless integration with Apple’s car infotainment extension of iOS. Having only ever driven cars with wired CarPlay connections, this was an absolute joy (although I did occasionally experience an issue where the car wouldn’t reconnect automatically to my phone).

Despite my reliance on CarPlay, I did spend a fair bit of time with the Taycan’s navigation system, not least because of its integration with the UK charging network. It takes some getting used to. This is mainly because, as soon as you input a destination, the car immediately susses out where you’ll need to stop in order to grab enough charge for the entire journey and adds those points as stopovers.

This wasn’t obvious at first, which is why I was constantly confused as to why such relatively short journeys had such long durations. One and a half hours to drive 20 miles? I genuinely only worked out towards the end of my time with the Taycan that the extended duration was taking into account the length of time I’d need to spend at each charging station in order to juice up the battery.

So, the Taycan tech experience is dominated by displays and an ever-present eye on how much battery you have remaining. It takes some getting used to, but at least the car has its eye on your ability to get to your destination.

Performance

The Taycan is a very quick car. I knew that EVs were, generally, quicker than their similarly-priced petrol and diesel forefathers, but I wasn’t prepared for how quick.

We should remember at this juncture that the Taycan I was driving costs not that far south of £90,000, therefore its speed capabilities shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. What is a surprise, however, is how much power is on tap all of the time, no matter what speed you’re doing. As soon as you put your foot down, you’re off — big time, like it or not.

There’s a beautiful progressiveness to the way in which the Taycan gathers speed. It’s instant, as noted, but it’s also smooth and entirely controllable. Stick it into Sport or Sport Plus mode and the pickup goes from mightily smooth to neck-snappingly instant. It’s breathtaking when you first experience it. As for launch control… well, that’s a bit like riding Rita Queen of Speed at Alton Towers.

The Taycan is also supremely capable on twisty B-roads. It feels incredibly planted and the confidence with which the rear-wheel drive system applies all of that power and torque to the road means you never feel like you’re about to lose grip and head backwards through a hedge. For its size, this car feels lithe, agile, and a huge amount of fun to drive.

Where it absolutely excels, though, is on the motorway. This is a grand tourer, after all, and I’ve never driven a car that feels so at home on long stretches of tarmac where the only driving that’s asked of you is remaining in the most appropriate lane and occasionally overtaking other vehicles. It’s a dream in that scenario. The power on tap makes every overtake a breeze and the comfortable ride removes all nastiness from the tarmac.

This is surprising given how low the Taycan is — it felt trickier to get in and out of than my BMW M2!

The EV experience

I’ve never had to plug a car into an electrical outlet in my entire life. I knew this would be one of the most interesting — and possibly most stressful — elements of being in possession of an EV for a couple of days.

I wasn’t wrong.

The Taycan has two methods of charging — AC and DC. The latter gives you access to fast charging, which, as it turns out, is the one you’ll be in search of most often unless you’re leaving the car charging overnight.

There are some issues with this. Despite the Taycan conveniently having charging ports on both sides of the car, it’s only the passenger side that features the DC charging option. Given that public charging cables don’t extend like petrol pump hoses (at least, the ones I encountered didn’t), this means you’ll have to find a very specific parking spot at each station whenever you need to grab some electricity. You also need to find fast-charging stations that are both working and vacant.

As it turns out, this perfect combination of events is rarely possible in the UK. On my first day with the car, I lucked out — the first charging station found by the onboard navigation system was both DC-equipped and the cable was long enough to reach the left-hand side of the car.

The second day was a different matter. During a break in filming (for the YouTube review which will hit my channel later this month) we decided to head to the nearest charging station to add some much-needed mileage to the Taycan. The first DC charger we found wasn’t working; “oh, it’s been broken for ages,” said the petrol station attendant, unhelpfully.

We found another, which didn’t accept any form of contactless card we tried, nor the Porsche Charging Service card (which provides access to 270,000 charging points at a discounted rate of 30p p/kWh). A third attempt resulted in us inadvertently parking up next to an incredibly slow, free charger in a Tesco car park.

The fourth and fifth tries saw us heading into industrial estates only to discover that the charging station on the map was, in fact, company owned — and locked behind cast-iron gates.

Eventually, we found a DC charger that was available, working, and located next to the ideal parking spot for the Taycan. But we’d lost over an hour of an incredibly tight day of filming simply because we couldn’t find electricity for the car. It was frustrating, and with a dwindling battery percentage, my first experience of range anxiety.

Which isn’t very nice — trust me.

That anxiety got much worse later that day, though.

My lucky escape

When it was time to head back to Porsche, I had around 28 miles to drive with about 33 miles in the battery. I knew that wouldn’t be enough, and therefore decided to put the previous charging station dash down to experience. It was time to find a charger and make it back to Porsche with a few percentage points to spare!

Surely, I could find a working DC charger on the way back?

Not at first. In fact, it turned out to be a near-disaster. The only DC charging station between my location and Porsche HQ was occupied by a car whose occupant informed me would “be there for hours” due to the slow charging and the need to get home that evening.

At that point, I had just five miles left in the battery, and seven miles to travel.

Panic gradually set in as I gingerly exited the car park, in search of an alternative charging option.

The nearest turned out to be a company-owned unit locked behind an iron gate. Again. Great.

Three miles left in the ‘tank’.

In desperation, I headed back out onto the road towards a Lidl store which, I thought, might just have a charging station in its car park.

It did! And it was DC-equipped!

I’ve never run out of fuel in my life, therefore this was the first time I’ve ever experienced that overwhelming sense of relief upon approaching a metal box that would ensure I’d get home safely that evening.

Embarrassing call to Porsche averted.

Conclusion

Firstly — the car. It is wonderful. If I had that much money to spend on a grand tourer and actually had the need for one, I wouldn’t hesitate to buy a Taycan. The performance, Porsche prestige, comfort, and mesmerising design would keep me happy for a very long time.

The EV experience? I need more convincing. However, there’s a huge caveat here which is that I am a complete novice — I had no idea what I was doing. More tellingly, I didn’t pre-plan any of the trips I made. I just jumped in the car and drove, assuming that, should I need to add some more juice, I’d just do the ‘petrol thing’ and go and grab some.

You can’t do that with an EV unless you have oodles of time to faff about looking for the right charger and parking spot. This isn’t the fault of the Taycan — nor any EV. It’s simply a brand-new driving and car ownership experience for which I wasn’t quite prepared.

It should be noted that this exact car played the starring role in an unofficial EV world record attempt earlier this year when What Car successfully visited 14 countries in just 24 hours. Proof that, if you plan ahead, you can do wonderful, completely unstressful things with EVs like the Taycan.

This won’t be my last EV review. I am fascinated by the technology and, in particular, the ownership experience. Clearly, there is a lot more to be learned by yours truly, and a great many more miles to be explored via electricity. Stay tuned.

My video review of the 2022 Porsche Taycan hits the YouTube channel later this month. Don’t forget to subscribe if you fancy watching that!

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Originally published at https://markellisreviews.com on December 7, 2022.