2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S  First Test:  Fast Expectations - video Dailymotion

MotorTrend

The Porsche Taycan has a lot of expectation on it. First

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00:00 (engine revving)

00:02 Hey, Chris Walton with Motor Trend,

00:09 here today with the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S.

00:13 It's vying to be the top dog electric vehicle on the planet.

00:18 We're gonna do some tests on it today,

00:19 then we'll hand it over to Kim

00:20 and he'll take it over to the figure eight

00:22 and see what kind of numbers he can generate over there.

00:24 So, let's check it out.

00:26 (engine revving)

00:29 (upbeat music)

00:31 The reason the Taycan is so important,

00:41 Porsche's been working on it for years

00:43 and they've made some decisions about how it operates

00:45 versus the obvious comparison, the Tesla Model S.

00:49 It launched unlike any other car I've ever driven.

00:52 It leaps off the line,

00:53 it feels like it's about to do a burnout

00:55 all the way through 40 miles an hour.

00:58 It's very violent.

00:59 Then it hits 60 miles an hour,

01:05 you can feel that second gear kick in

01:07 and then it just starts all over again.

01:08 It just pulls and pulls and pulls

01:10 all the way to the end of the quarter mile,

01:11 which was over 130 miles an hour in the quarter mile.

01:14 It's thrilling, it's absolutely thrilling.

01:23 The brake pedal feel is different from a Porsche.

01:27 There's a lot more travel to it,

01:30 but the neat thing about it is,

01:31 the switch from regenerative braking to friction braking

01:35 is absolutely seamless.

01:36 And you can't tell when one system is working

01:39 and the other one's not.

01:40 It's always the same brake pedal feel.

01:42 So, it's really neat in that way.

01:44 So, here we are in the Taycan.

01:51 The car feels very heavy,

01:53 so I'm braking a little bit early.

01:54 It's also going very fast.

01:56 And then the corner is fundamentally understeering,

01:58 but you can definitely power out of them,

02:00 which I'll do now.

02:01 So, something that an electric car like this can do,

02:11 it has dual motors, one on the front and one on the rear.

02:14 In this kind of performance driving,

02:16 they're both active the entire time.

02:18 But what they can do is synchronize

02:22 and interact with each other.

02:23 So, the amount of power going to each axle

02:26 can be modulated very, very carefully and accurately.

02:31 So, it's very much under control.

02:32 So, there's a lot of software going on here.

02:34 It's not one motor sending power to all four corners.

02:38 There's two motors,

02:39 and they need to be talking to each other

02:41 and understanding each other the entire time.

02:43 It's also something that was happening

02:46 in terms of a wheel slip on the drag strip,

02:49 as well as here, exiting these corners,

02:51 to have just the right amount.

02:53 So, you want a little bit of wheel slip

02:55 to get maximum grip,

02:56 but an electric car, electric motor,

02:57 can react so fast that it can modulate that

03:00 and get it exactly right,

03:02 which is something that's very hard

03:03 for an internal combustion motor to react quick enough.

03:06 There's so much inertia and all that in the drive train,

03:09 where here, the electricity can just go on and off

03:12 and just do it brilliantly.

03:14 So, the ability to control a car with software

03:17 and the lightning speed of electric motors

03:19 is simply unmatched.

03:21 (upbeat music)

03:23 So, there it is.

03:31 You got your 750 horsepower Porsche Taycan Turbo S.

03:35 We can't wait to put it up against the latest version

03:37 of the Model S, which is said to have 735 horsepower.

03:41 We'll just have to wait and see.

03:43 (upbeat music)

03:46 (beeping)

03:48 (upbeat music)

2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S First Test: Fast Expectations

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