The Sunday supplement: Talking Taycan

Checking in on Porsche’s inbound all-electric wunderkind

3y ago
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Last June, slap bang in the middle of Porsche’s official 70th birthday celebrations, phase one the Mission E programme officially became ‘Taycan’. A momentous day for an equally momentous product – our first purely electric sports car.

Three months later, the Taycan is still strictly confidential, but prototypes are now out and about on public roads, undertaking intensive testing in extremes of heat and cold. In one part of western South Africa, more than 60 Porsche developers were recently on hand with 21 camouflaged prototypes, putting them through their paces in temperatures soaring to 40 degrees Celsius. All in, some 40,000km were banked on that trip alone, and by the time the Taycan hits the market in late 2019, the total will run into the millions.

The core team behind the Taycan know it inside and out, pouring over every detail in the prototype construction department of Zuffenhausen. And there is a lot to get right. The 800-volt technology is a first, its attendant battery and cooling systems all unchartered territory and vastly complex. What the designers first imagined for the Taycan has, over weeks and months of painstaking trial and error, been gradually translated into these vital initial test cars by Porsche’s prototyping specialists.

But it’s not as easy as simply getting a test mule out of the door. This team must also lay the groundwork for series production, perfecting all the necessary assembly and logistics concepts. They even train their colleagues from the assembly teams to ensure optimal preparation for the moment full production on the Taycan gets the green light.

And when it does, we’ll get to appreciate the tantalising fruits of these exhaustive labours. The engineers in Weissach have developed a drive concept for the Taycan similar to that of the 919 Hybrid. “We opted for a permanently excited synchronous motor in the Taycan,” reports Heiko Mayer, drive unit project leader. “They combine a high energy density with strong sustained performance and maximum efficiency.” Two permanently excited synchronous motors (PSM) generate a constant rotary motion that can be applied at any time without needing to be started.

PSM electric motors are the turbos of the electric motor world. They boast both ultra-high sustained performance and superb efficiency. One motor powers the Taycan’s rear axle, the other the front wheels. Together they generate over 600 hp (440 kW) and are fed by batteries designed to provide 500km of range. Performance promises to be astonishing, with the Taycan sprinting from 0 to 100 km/h in well under 3.5 seconds and passing 200 km/h in under 12.

Porsche is leading from the front with the Taycan then, but a seismic shift in our motoring norms has already begun. The total number of fully or partially electrically powered cars reached some 3.2 million in early 2018, a 55 per cent increase on the previous year. The market is driven primarily by China where 579,000 of its 1.2 million electric cars were bought in 2017 alone. In the US, meanwhile, the number of electric vehicles rose by 195,000 in 2017 to a total of over 750,000. If the growth rate stays near the level of 2017, the number of annual new registrations for electric vehicles worldwide will exceed 25 million by 2025.

For Porsche, then, the future is electric. The company wants to shift to electromobility before all other German auto manufacturers and by 2025 the aim is for every second Porsche sold to have an electric drive unit. Porsche will release the first wave of Taycans to customers at the end of 2019, with current production estimates projecting roughly twenty thousand units a year. Put into context, that would be equivalent to roughly two-thirds of the current sales figures for the 911, a car that has been around for longer than most of us.

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Comments (7)

  • I love the way Porsche is teasing us with the Taycan! I saw it ,and learned a lot about it at the Porsche museum! I look forward to owning one in the distant future!

      3 years ago
  • I'm all for it if it means Porsche will be able to continue to make sublime sportcars. A lot like what happened with the Cayenne. Only difference is, I personally like EVs more than SUVs.

      3 years ago
  • If Porsche cracks a legendary EV-dynamics formula that doesn’t simply rely on locomotive torque-feel, this car will impact the market like meteor(s) to the dinosaurs that roam our streets. The strong will continue on in the realm of art and hobby, so no fears, but even less tears for the extinction of all the last-gen carry-overs that pretend “luxury” or “performance”. It is a big “if” but Porsche has been killing the desire game for a decade now: maybe the answer lies in the robustness of the complex-sounding “PSM” in relation to the overall weight? We are rooting for you Porsche engineers!

      3 years ago
  • Will be interesting to see what kind of in cabin tech this car will come with

      2 years ago
  • Grand note: KEEP MISSION-E ALIVE😍😍😍. Most beautiful car of 2015 Frankfurt's, is now lost its FUTURISTIC S3xy wheels, and I'm seeing normal headlight type, if the concept could pass E standards for the lights and stuff, why losing it?😢😢😢😢

      3 years ago
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