Porsche shocks more power and range into facelift Taycan

Kept surprisingly unchanged, bar the introduction of more derivatives, since its world debut in 2019, Porsche has removed the wraps from the facelift Taycan South Africa will be receiving later this year.

New inside and out

Since joined by the all-new Macan as Stuttgart’s second fully electric vehicle, the Taycan range again spans three versions; the conventional sedan, estate Sport Turismo and the crossover-inspired Cross Turismo, though not all will be available locally.

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With emphasis on performance and dynamics, Porsche has made minor alterations to the Taycan’s styling by equipping it with new, flatter LED headlights, wider wheel arches, new taillights and an illuminated Porsche logo in the centre of the LED strip connecting the rear light clusters as an option.

Joining the colour palette is a new option called Turbonite reserved solely for the Turbo and flagship Taycan Turbo S.

Inside, the interior changes have also been subtle and involve an improved interface for the 10.9-inch Porsche Communication Management infotainment system, better Apple CarPlay connectively and a redesigned toggle lever for the two-speed transmission.

New on models with the so-called Performance Battery Plus and Sport Chrono package is a push-to-pass button that provides an additional boost when overtaking.

More range and more powerful than ever

As mentioned, the majority of the changes have taken place underneath the Taycan’s skin in the form of a new adaptive air suspension system, and an Active Ride setup as an option on all four-wheel-drive variants.

Central to the reworked chassis is the new battery pack and significantly upgraded charging performance as part of an overall range improvement by 35% on all models.

Still riding on the EV-optimised 800-volt version of the Volkswagen Group’s MSB platform sister brand Audi also uses for the e-tron GT, the setup involves DC charging up by 70 kW to 320 kW and a bigger 105-kWh battery pack as per the Performance Battery Plus moniker.

In effect, the new battery results in a waiting time of 18 minutes from 10-80% despite being larger than the original 93.4-kWh module.

As a reminder, the latter supported charging up to 270 kW, required a waiting time of 22.5 minutes, and allowed the Turbo S to travel 450 km on a single charge.

In terms of models, the Taycan will again be offered in four variants; the unbadged rear-wheel-drive base, 4S, Turbo and Turbo S with the previous GTS having fallen away.

As for power, only details surrounding the Turbo S was divulged, which takes into consideration the mentioned push-to-pass that adds 70 kW for 10 seconds.

The final result is an output of 700 kW and 0-100 km/h in 2.4 seconds, figures which makes the Turbo S the most powerful and fastest accelerating production Porsche ever made.

The claimed range is now 630 km whereas that of the base model now stands at 678 km.

Price

Set to arrive in South Africa in the third quarter of the year, the local market will again receive all four model variants, but not the Sport Turismo only markets in Europe be privy to.

As such, pricing is as follows;

• Taycan – R2 912 000
• Taycan 4 Cross Turismo – R3 239 000
• Taycan 4S – R3 261 000
• Taycan 4S Cross Turismo – R3 405 000
• Taycan Turbo – R4 349 000
• Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo – R4 383 000
• Taycan Turbo S – R5 225 000

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