Every time we’ve had our mind blown in five different directions by the Porsche Taycan Turbo S, or even the standard Turbo, and the even Taycan 4S, we’ve thought the same thing:
“Great, but it doesn’t really need to be this fast, does it?”
Well, if you too fancy an all-electric Porsche four-door but don’t need acceleration that can turn your tear ducts inside out, then good news. Welcome to the base-spec, entry-level, cheapest and slowest version Porsche is going to make. The plain’n’simple Taycan.
In Malaysia, it costs RM605,000 (RM584,561 with SST exemption), which is RM120,000 less than a 4S. Or about half the price of a Taycan Turbo S. And yet, it looks exactly the same, you can add all of the same chassis upgrades and deluxe cabin niceties from the hotter models, and even My First Taycan is not what you’d call ‘sluggish’.
Thanks to 321bhp from its single rear motor, the first rear-wheel drive electric Porsche is good for 230kph on das autobahn. In its temporary overboost mode, power leaps to a Jaguar I-Pace-sized 402bhp, and that’ll punt you from 0-100kph in a claimed 5.4 seconds. Even in 2021, that’s rapid enough to make your passengers giggle. Or swear.
What’s more, you can make the slowest Taycan quicker still, if you spec the optional Performance Battery Plus. Not only does that up capacity from 79kWh to 93kWh, and claimed range from 268 miles to 301 miles [431km to 484km], but it uncorks a bit more punch.
Yep, if you upgrade the battery you’ve got 375bhp under your right foot, or a temporary 469bhp on overboost. Just enough to get that pesky Polestar 2 off your rear bumper.
Standard kit throws in 19-inch rims sculpted to reduce drag and LED headlights, a 10.9-inch cabin touchscreen (seriously, why not round it up to 11 inches?), and two boots, because there’s no engine in the nose.
You get conventional steel-sprung suspension on this baby Taycan, but obviously Porsche is happy to relieve you of your life savings in order to equip the car with acronyms. PASM, PDCC… you know the drill.
What you might not know is the Taycan RWD already has some motorsport pedigree – it recently set the world record for the longest drift in an electric car, of over 41km. You can check out what happened when TG’s Chris Harris had a crack at the challenge by tapping here…
