The all-electric Porsche Taycan has entered it final stage of testing, according to the luxury sportscar maker which has released more images of its first sportscar with pure electric drivetrain.
Due to commence production later this year, the Taycan is undergoing final testing procedures in a variety of environments such as in the icy climes just south of the Arctic Circle, in the searing heat of Dubai and in rugged South Africa.
The tests, says Stefan Weckbach who is in charge of developing the electric model range, so is not entirely independent, show that the “Taycan is going to be a true Porsche”.
In Scandinavia, the Taycan’s ability to handle the harsh driving conditions of ice and snow is being tested – as well as factors such as temperature control of the drivetrain and the charging ability of the battery.
In Dubai, it is the extreme heat demands on battery charging that is being tested, as well as “endurance runs”, while in South Africa Porsche is testing the car’s performance.
“Before the Taycan is launched on the market at the end of the year, we will have covered approximately six million kilometres across the globe,” says Weckbach. “We are already very happy with the current status of the vehicles.”
In an in-house interview last August, he said:
“The Taycan drives like a Porsche, looks like a Porsche, and feels like a Porsche,” Weckbach said.
“It just happens to have a different type of drive. Even an electric sports car can be puristic and highly emotional. We don’t consider that a contradiction.
With its advanced 800-volt charging system that can allow ultra fast charging at 350kW, the vehicle can add 100km to its driving range in as little as 4 minutes.
Porsche has definitely put the electric sportscar through its paces – out of its 6 million total kilometres, 2 million of these have been during endurance runs.
When it is released on the market in September 2019, there are already 20,000 buyers who have expressed serious interest in the vehicle, the carmaker says.
Expected to arrive on the Australian market in mid-2020, it is the production version of the Mission-E which was on show at Sydney’s Barangaroo in October last year.
Porsche has not yet announced a price for the Porsche Taycan either here or overseas, but with a purported 500km driving range under the NEDC cycle, it will likely have around 405km of real world driving range.
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.