The new 2024 Porsche Taycan will be revealed in the next few days, touting dramatic increases in range, efficiency, charging speed and performance.
The German firm’s first electric car has been substantially refreshed for its fourth year on sale, following hot on the heels of its new sibling, the electric Macan, which was revealed last week.
The new Taycan has been testing publicly with minimal disguise for months, and Porsche has given a few early details away already. But having now driven a near-production-ready prototype across California and spoken to the chief engineers behind the upgrades, we can testify to the extent of the improvements.
Even with some camouflage still in place, it’s clear that the Taycan hasn’t been extensively redesigned; there are flatter LED headlight clusters, new creases in the front wings and subtle new details to mark out different variants, but the headlines of this ‘facelift’ are to be found under the skin. Already one of the fastest, longest-range and quickest-charging EVs on sale, the Taycan has been improved, Porsche says, in “practically every discipline compared to its predecessor”.
On our run from Los Angeles to San Diego and back, we recorded a cruising range of 318 miles from the dual-motor Taycan Cross Turismo estate at an average efficiency of 3.1mpkWh, suggesting the battery now has a usable capacity north of 100kWh, compared with the 93.4kWh of today’s top-rung Performance Battery Plus.
Whether that has been achieved with the use of new chemistries or a more simple enlargement of the pack itself remains to be seen, but the former is likelier, considering there have been no changes to the wheelbase or ride height.
In the same conditions, a prototype of the single-motor (and lower-slung) Taycan saloon achieved 3.6mpkWh for a range of 364 miles – a huge increase on the 301-mile maximum currently quoted for that car (and that’s official, not real-world). Plus, an ambient temperature of just 15-16deg C at time of test suggests there’s room to substantially improve upon that maximum in warmer climes.