Dusseldorf It’s no surprise that Porsche builds fast vehicles. Not even that the auto company from Zuffenhausen now also sells very fast electric cars. What is unusual, however, is that Porsche now also has a kind of jacked-up electric sports station wagon on offer: the Taycan Cross Turismo. And that’s frighteningly fast in the Turbo-S version.
The sprint to 100 kilometers per hour: a matter of less than three seconds. Less than seven seconds later, there are 200 on the clock. It is cordoned off at 260 kilometers per hour, 300 would probably be easily possible. The vehicle is powered by two electric motors that develop a maximum of 761 hp. The acceleration is brutal. There are only two reactions to passengers: they either hate it or they no longer have their enthusiasm under control.
For Porsche, the Taycan series is the entry point into the world of pure electric mobility. And the sports car maker has apparently hit the mark with the first model. Barely two years after the market launch, Porsche has already registered more Taycans this year than 911, the legendary car model that Porsche has always defined. Even a recall due to faulty power electronics software, which had led to a loss of power, does not detract from the Taycan’s success.
The Taycan Cross Turismo is based on Porsche’s “Premium Platform Electromobility”, or PPE for short. The vehicle, which costs more than 200,000 euros, is built in Zuffenhausen. In Düsseldorf I don’t even attract attention with the vehicle. Here passers-by are used to Porsche. A friend who sees the car says: “It looks almost like a Panamera.”
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The Taycan Cross Turismo differs from the Panamera not only in terms of its drive system. Porsche is also taking a different approach with the chassis. This can be raised by ten millimeters using a rotary switch on the steering wheel in so-called “gravel mode”. The car is then not suitable for off-road use, as the name suggests. But the gravel mode also offers advantages in city traffic: high curbs or speed bumps, for example, are less of a problem for the Cross Turismo than for the normal Taycan. During the test week, I used the gravel mode more often than I expected.
The Cross Turismo also looks anything but clunky in profile.
The processing of the interior is beyond any doubt.
But the Sportplus mode is really exciting. The chassis then lowers, the electric motors on the front and rear axles are armed and – I’m not a fan of that – an “engine sound” thunders from the speakers into the interior. The roar is likely to be reminiscent of dying, sporty sounding internal combustion engines – a compromise offer to the petrolheads.
Because long-time Porsche fans will probably miss the roaring boxer engine noises in the future. I do not need that. Fortunately, the spaceship-like sound can be turned off.
But you shouldn’t accelerate too often with the Taycan if you don’t want to get back to the charging station quickly. The consumption is then beyond 30 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometers. But even when driving normally, the Taycan consumes a relatively large amount of around 27 kilowatt hours. Sports car drivers know this from combustion engines.
Overall, you can fall back on a battery capacity of 83.7 kWh. That is enough in the laboratory for a range of around 400 kilometers, in reality I get around 330 kilometers.
The possibility of fast charging with up to 270 kilowatts is a blessing. When plugged into the charging station for five minutes, an additional 100 kilometers can be charged. Charging from 10 to 80 percent battery capacity takes less than 20 minutes. Thanks to the Porsche Connect app, you can cool or heat the car while it is charging, even if you are not sitting in the vehicle.
Unlike other sports cars from Zuffenhausen, shopping with the extreme station wagon is no problem either. The trunk has a volume of 489 liters, with the rear seats folded down even up to 1255 liters fit in. Then bulky goods can also be transported. The Taycan driver can easily accommodate skis and golf clubs.
In the interior, high-resolution displays extend from the driver to the front passenger. There are three individual screens and not a continuous one, as is the case with the Mercedes EQS. The front passenger can have important vehicle information, such as the speed, displayed. The radio or Spotify can also be operated via the front passenger display. The “Virtual Cockpit”, in other words the driver’s display, is nicely animated, but unfortunately it is a bit too big. Depending on the steering wheel setting, it hides some information.
The passenger also gets his money’s worth in the Taycan.
Unlike other sports cars, the Taycan Cross Turismo has a lot of loading space.
The quality of the materials used in the interior is beyond any doubt. The steering wheel is wrapped in Alcantara, the fittings are covered in leather, everything is foamed. Almost nothing feels cheap – with one exception: Porsche made savings on the door handle, of all places. It’s made of plastic. Brief additional information: The test car costs over 211,000 euros. The door handles could have been made of stainless steel or aluminum.
If you are looking for further errors, you will find them in the software. A bug in Apple CarPlay is particularly annoying. When I want to jump to the next song on Spotify, it takes about 1.5 seconds for the song to change after the click. Again and again I have the feeling that I didn’t hit the button or that the system isn’t responding. This is very irritating while driving.
On one day, the Porsche did not want to connect to the cell phone per se. Repeated restarting of the cell phone, the car and the reconfiguration of the connection did not help. It was just impossible to connect my smartphone to the vehicle. The next day it worked perfectly again.
This is how most drivers will experience the Taycan: from behind.
Overall, the menu navigation is fairly intuitive and fluid. It is only better not to move the navigation map while driving. It jerks, jumps and is much too slow. Either it was poorly programmed or Porsche simply installed a control unit with too little graphics memory and too little RAM.
The operation of the air conditioning also takes getting used to. For this, Porsche has installed a fourth dedicated display in the center console. This can be used to set the temperature and the direction of the air flow. The air nozzles themselves cannot be adjusted manually. In my opinion, this makes operating the air conditioning unnecessarily complicated.
It is also a shame that I am not given any opportunity to distract myself while charging. There is no Netflix or Youtube app, and I cannot surf the Internet without restrictions using the infotainment system. Means: I have no way of watching a series on the large, razor-sharp displays in the interior of the Porsche, for example. Instead, I have to be content with my almost five-inch smartphone display. But at least the sound comes from the vehicle boxes.
Porsche Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo – Technical data:
Four-door electric sports car with all-wheel drive
- Length: 4.97 meters
- Width: 1.97 meters
- Height: 1.41 meters
- Wheelbase: 2.90 meters
- Trunk volume: front: 84 liters, rear: 490 – 1212 liters
- Electric drive
- System output 460 kW / 625 PS
- maximum torque 850 Nm
- Two-speed automatic transmission
- Performance battery plus with 93.4 kWh
- 0-100 km / h: 3.3 s
- Vmax: 250 km / h
- Range 395 -452 km (WLTP)
- Price: from 154,444 euros
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