Fully Electric Porsche Taycan Boasts Lower Center Of Gravity Than 911

Porsche’s head of EVs promises the Taycan “drives like a Porsche, looks like a Porsche, and feels like a Porsche”.

The all-electric Taycan isn’t going into production until next year, but more details about Porsche’s highly anticipated Tesla rival are starting to emerge. In a recent interview with Porsche’s customer magazine, the automaker’s head of battery electric vehicles, Stefan Weckbach, assured us that the Taycan will still deliver a driving experience people expect from the prestigious brand, despite the lack of combustion engine.

"The Taycan drives like a Porsche, looks like a Porsche, and feels like a Porsche; it just happens to have a different type of drive,” he said, adding that every Porsche needs to be the sportiest in its segment.

“Even an electric sports car can be puristic and highly emotional. We don’t consider that a contradiction. On the contrary, with the optimum drive technology and the right vehicle concept, the Porsche characteristics can be brought even more to the fore.” He went on to say that the Taycan’s under-floor battery will enable it to have a lower center of gravity than the 911. It will also also have impressive longitudinal and lateral dynamics, according to Weckbach.

While the performance in some electric sports cars degrades after repeated hard acceleration, this won’t happen in the Taycan. Porsche has developed “permanently excited synchronous” motors similar to the 919 Hybrid that “offer high long-term output.“ Weckbach promises this system will enable you to a “accelerate powerfully not just once but several times in succession” and drive at a consistently high speed. The Taycan also has an active cooling system that prevents any performance losses by supplying cooling power to components that need it.

Being Porsche’s first electric vehicle, the engineering team has had to ensure the Taycan is suitable for everyday use by having a sufficient range while offering the performance expected from a Porsche. To achieve this tricky balance, engineers focused on making the car as light and as aerodynamic as possible, as well as developing a lightweight lithium-ion battery. As a result, the Taycan has a range over 310 miles. Two electric motors produce a combined output over 592 hp, enabling the Taycan to accelerate 0-62 mph in under 3.5 seconds and 0-124 mph in less than 12 seconds.

“Porsche will present the Taycan at the end of 2019. And I can reveal this much already: it won’t be just an electric vehicle. It’ll be a Porsche,” Weckbach concluded.