Tested: 2020 Porsche Taycan 4S vs. Tesla Model S Long Range Plus Mike Sutton © Michael Simari - Car and Driver 2020 Porsche Taycan 4S and 2020 Tesla Model S Long Range
Climb to the top of today s mainstream EV ladder and you ll come to the Porsche Taycan and the Tesla Model S, two high-profile sedans that make compelling cases for electric vehicles as grand, expensive things. Introduced in 2012, the Model S laid the groundwork for Tesla s contemporary lineup, along the way proving that EVs can be both desirable and (almost) as practical as conventional, internal-combustion vehicles. In time, it also helped to show that cars can be designed to emit fart noises, but we digress. The newer Taycan, on the other hand, hails from the sprawling Volkswagen Group and is Porsche s first push into the EV space. In many ways, it exists to steal some of the Model S s action, yet with a greater focus on driver enjoyment. It s impossible not to compare these two heavy-hitti
Tested: 2020 Porsche Taycan 4S vs Tesla Model S Long Range Plus
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Porsche’s entry-level electric pairs swift performance with a decent range 29 April 2021 - 05:00 Denis Droppa Priced at R2,227,000, the baseline Taycan silently whisks from 0-100km/h in 5.4 seconds.
Picture: DENIS DROPPA
Affordable electric vehicles (EVs) for the masses are still some years away, but the premium end of the market has a growing array of choices for well-heeled early adopters of nonpolluting cars.
The Porsche Taycan launched last year demonstrated that not only can battery-powered cars be friendly to the planet, they can be exciting too. The range-topping Taycan Turbo S which retains conventional petrol-engined nomenclature even though it’s an electric is a 560kW beast that accelerates quicker than a Formula One car for the first couple of seconds. Its 0-100km/h time is claimed at 2.8 seconds about the same as the petrol-engined Porsche 911 Turbo S and it has a 260km/h top speed.
Though the newest and most affordable version simply called the Taycan has none of the peel-your-face-back intensity of a true supercar, there’s more than enough sporting prowess to paint a smile on your dial and its 5.4 second 0-100km/h time and 230km/h top speed are nothing to sniff at.
The main enjoyment of electric cars lies in their instant response, and a firm shove of the throttle sends this Taycan forward at a brisk and lag-free pace. There are no gears; it’s a seamless and instant surge of power that’s useful for stealing gaps in traffic or quick overtakes.
Leave it to Porsche to even think about offering a long-roof model of its electric sport sedan. For decades Porsche has been taking risks by offering form factors that other companies must believe to be be too difficult to engineer, produce, or market. How many wagons are left on the market? Five? Add one more to that list, and it’s a damn fine addition.
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Full Disclosure: Porsche invited me to sunny Los Angeles to test drive its newest Taycan variant, the one with a long roof. I paid for my travel, driving my own car rather than flying, and I paid for my own hotel stay. Porsche provided me with a car and a fully charged up battery pack for about 7 hours to do whatever I wanted to do.)
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