Porsche will position the Taycan below their Panamera sedan when the electric 4-door sports car reaches markets next year, with a likely starting price above 80,000 euros. Including taxes, that would place the vehicle between 74,828 euros and 90,655 euros for its base version of the car in Germany.
However, Porsche Chief Financial Officer Lutz Meschke says that he wants to offer higher-performance versions that could be priced as much as 200,000 euros, such as a Taycan Turbo S.
The Taycan’s two permanently excited synchronous electric motors, supplied by Italy’s Magneti Marelli, will produce more than 600hp and accelerate the vehicle from 0 to 100km/h in less than 3.5 seconds. The Taycan aims to be the fastest series production electric car around Germany’s Nordschleife racetrack, with a lap time of less than 8 minutes.
The 800-volt lithium-ion battery, built by Draexlmaier Group outside Stuttgart, is composed of “pouch” cells sourced from LG Chem of Korea in a specific power-to-energy ratio that balances the needs of range with those of performance.
Together, the roughly 400 battery cells have a gravimetric energy density equivalent to 270 watt-hours per kilogram, roughly comparable to the latest technology on the market today.
The Taycan will be able to drive more than 500 km on a single charge under the New European Driving Cycle. Once drained, the battery needs only about 4 minutes to add a further 100 km in range when using a 350-kW fast-charging station. By comparison, Porsche estimates a Tesla requires two and a half times that duration.
Porsche expects it will build 20,000 units of the Taycan a year on two shifts, but production boss Albrecht Reimold said a third shift could be added if more capacity is needed.