Taycan - First drive reviews

[Strøm Tycoon]

Begge reagerer på at det er lite regen når man går av volumknappen. Sikkert en vanesak, men jeg ville også foretrekke sterk regen som på Tesla Model 3 Performance. Det syntes jeg fungerer veldig bra.

Autocar

There's still stuff I'd change here. Most notable is the lack of 'engine' braking when you come off the accelerator. It is Porsche philosophy that, broadly speaking, one pedal should make the car go and the other should make it stop, and while you can vary the degree of off-throttle deceleration, I'd like more, even at its peak in Sport Plus.

Let's for a minute forget the Taycan is electric. Just in terms of what and how it does what it does, is this a proper Porsche? In these days of Cayennes and Panameras, and based on first impressions of the prototypes I drove, unequivocally so.

If you want to enjoy driving a Porsche more than this, you need one with its engine behind the driver. And yet it's one of the most comfortable GTs I've known and without question the quietest. In the distance and directions it is able to throw the net of its abilities, it is an astonishing, even an astounding, achievement.

Is this, then, the world's first mainstream electric sports car? There I must stop you. It is sporting, for sure, and far more so than any other, but will Taycan owners set alarms and go for pre-dawn blasts – I mean whirrs – just because they can? That I doubt.

Then again, it is not that kind of car, and nor was it ever intended to be so. For now, the Taycan and its creators will have to be happy with having created the best electric car yet to go on sale, and having done so by a mile.

Top Gear

By default, lift off the throttle and you'll coast along – the most natural sensation for keen drivers says Porsche – because only when you touch the middle pedal does the regen begin. A dial in front of you shows the point when regen hands over to mechanical friction, pads on discs, and you have to really stomp on them to get there. That means 90 per cent of the time the feedback you're feeling from the brake pedal is synthetic, designed to mimic the resistance we're accustomed to.

To be the sportiest, best-handling EV available. And it succeeds. Porsche is pushing the idea that this is a sports car with four doors, but really it's a GT – a rapid, refined saloon with proper space for passengers and their things that just happens to run on electricity.

Hats off to them for proving, through thorough engineering, that EVs needn't be the compromise most of use assume they are. Yes, some character has been lost along the journey, but it's startling in new and interesting ways. Ways that are more likely to entice the next tech-driven generation of car buyers.