The 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S is a $250,000 Electric Sports Car

I'm Jacob, and we're going for a drive. 2020 Porsche Taycan. Turbo S with launch control. Very quiet. Oh, holy. Okay, every time someone does a launch in a YouTube video of an electric car, it doesn't look nearly as intense as it is. No, hopefully the interior footage translates. Would we both almost swear? Yeah. Okay, horsepower and torque. Up to 750 horsepower and up to 774 pound-feet of torque. Regularly, 616 horsepower. Not during launch control. Out of a naturally aspirated boxer engine? Yeah, out of a battery actually. Okay, what's the battery specs? 93 kilowatt hours, but nobody really knows what that kind of stuff means. Everybody cares about the range. 192 miles per the EPA rating, which is 309 kilometers because we are in Canada. Okay, but it said 400 kilometers on the gauge. It was just under 400 when we picked it up fully charged. We won't be able to test the full range today because we have this for a short amount of time. And where did we get this from? Polycarro Porsche Center Oakville. Steak and Sizzle hooked us up with this one. Yeah, there was a press event, but because of some travel restrictions, we couldn't really go, so we wanted to get our hands on it as soon as we could. Yeah, so thank you to them for providing it to us, and we are going to put this through its paces, but not long distance paces this time. And as you can tell, we're on the road to a million subscribers, so if you want to subscribe to help us out, that'd be great. If not, I guess we'll just see you next week anyways. So this is Porsche's first fully electric vehicle. Yes, and it's their fastest one because this is the Turbo S. Hit it. Man, that's so cool. It's so cool, but from outside, it doesn't look as fast as it feels on the inside. Right, because there's no sound to associate with the translation of speed. Yeah, it's just like, it's weird looking from outside, but from inside, it's the fastest thing you'll have ever been in. And people say I fake it and, like, throw my head back. I do not fake anything. I just have a limp neck. You know what I mean? Like, look, I can stiffen my neck up for it. Exactly, but, like, when you don't expect it... Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm gonna get a concussion. Shut up, sorry. So back to that launch because that is the craziest part of this car. That was 0 to 100 kilometers per hour in 2.8 seconds, but that feels like one of our fastest launches because it's so consistent. And this is all-wheel drive. Yeah, obviously. So it's got motors in the front, motors in the back, but it also has a two-speed transmission in the rear. And I've noticed, like, a little bit of clunking. Like, I'm not really sure when it's changing or what it's doing, but I have noticed that it is back there. So everyone's probably wondering, does this still handle like a Porsche? So I'm going to keep it in Sport Plus mode because I find that to be the most fun. I'm going to keep the vehicle stability in Sport and send this through cliche corner and let's see what happens. Okay, this is... Wow. This is easily one of the fastest cars we've driven through here, but the sensation just isn't there without the crazy sound. But it's like a weird pulling. Like, there's no shifting you get on it. We played this car in Gran Turismo Sport because they had a thing where, like, you try to go through the streets of Tokyo. Yeah, and it just felt like a video game, and this feels like a video game. There's no shifting. It's just linear power the whole way, and it actually kind of feels like it did in the video game. It really kind of does, but this is even better, obviously. The steering is amazing. Like, this is 911 steering, which I haven't experienced in any other electric car, obviously, but this is amazing steering. Crazy good handling. There's no slip or anything like that. It just distributes the power to every single wheel that needs it. It feels a lot better than the Model 3 Performance did, which also felt really good. Yeah, but this is way better. Yeah. We do have a bunch of different drive modes. They change a bunch of things, including the interior sound, which we'll get to later. It also has adaptive suspension. It is air suspension. You can raise it. You can lower it. You can stiffen it. There's a bunch of crazy stuff going on with this car, but we should probably get to the looks now. Okay, it started with the Mission E Concept. Which had the coolest wheels ever. When the actual Taycan came out, and then everyone was told it's actually called Taycan. In white, it looked just like the concept, like close enough, and it looks amazing, but this one is in a dark gray. Yeah, and a lot of companies screw up their concept to actual production, and I think they did a really good job of keeping most of the best elements, including the wheels. But the one that we're driving does not have the cool wheels because we are on winters. But it does have cool wheels in general. Like if this was on anything else, they would be awesome. They look kind of like Knight Rider turbine wheels. Yeah, I think they look like turbo fans, kind of. I love these. Okay, back to the overall looks. Let's start with the front end. So front end kind of looks like a 911, but also kind of like a Panamera. The best part is how from the headlights, it kind of comes down on the side, which is more evident in white, not really on the gray. Yeah, but you still can see little air holes around the side, which is pretty cool. Then we've got the normal new Porsche headlights with the four little dots, which I like now. I think they should have had four lightning bolts. I just want that first Panamera lights where there were Xs. And then obviously we don't really have much intake or anything at the front. It's mostly just like air dams. Yeah, but there are radiators and grills and stuff down there. Do you like the look of the front end without a need for a big grill? Yeah, because I think the 911 is already doing that anyways because the engine's already in the back. So it just fits. How about the side view? Side view is pretty cool. Like it kind of looks like a 911 and a Panamera hybrid. Yeah, it looks like it should be a hatch, but it's not. And when I say hybrid, I mean like physically. But what do you think of it not being a hatch? I really think it should have been a hatch. But I guess there's probably some structural stuff they needed to do to work around that. The coolest thing for me right now with the wheels that we have right now are the carbon ceramic brakes because you can only see a sliver of them. Yeah, I mean, I like it more on the Mission E wheels, but I love those big yellow brake calipers like popping out as much as possible. Yeah, and they come stock on the Turbo S. Yellow is such a cool color. But what is the Continental recommended tire for the Porsche Taycan? The Continental Pro Contact RX. Now, what do you think of the door handle situation? It's kind of like the 911. Not my favorite, but you just get used to it. I mean, it makes the body line sleek. It gets hidden. It's all electronic, but I think it looks good. And then we also have a vent behind the front wheels where our charging port doors are also located. OK, charging port doors are super cool because you slide your finger along the bottom and then it opens up. There's one on each side for different chargers. But that vent behind the front wheel and the fender, like that makes you know it's a Taycan. Yeah, it makes you know that it's something different and something high performance. I guess also knowing it's high performance, you look down the body line and you got those huge fenders at the back. Yeah, the wide hips. I love it. And then probably the coolest part of the looks of the Taycan, the rear end. It's just big, beefy. We've got that crazy big LED light bar across the whole back. Yeah, the line across the back is like the best. I love that about newer Porsches. It just makes them look so wide. Then we also have a spoiler that goes up sometimes. Yeah, so this has active arrow. So there's three positions for that spoiler. But basically the first spoiler is the only one that you can legally deploy pretty much anywhere in North America. The next two positions are basically illegal on any road in North America. And the only way you can pop it up manually is for cleaning mode, and you can't even pop it up that high. And then we don't really have a traditional diffuser. It's just kind of like this big flat piece, which I'm sure helps with underbody arrow. I don't really know how it all works. I would love to find out one day. Hopefully I will. But it all looks cool back there. What do you think the exhaust tips? Good one. Good one. I will tell you what I think of all the carbon fiber around it because there is some back there. I love it. It's on the front, it's on the side. Perfect. But in gray, it kind of blends into everything. Personally, I know I keep bringing up the gray, but I feel like the black windows are part of the design when you look at the white concept vehicle and the white vehicles. So like you really shouldn't get this in a dark color. Yeah, I really think white with the white Mission E style wheels is the only spec that anyone should get. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Or I think green, you made a green one in Gran Turismo. Yeah, green was pretty cool because I also made the barrels green too. Yeah, yeah. It's got to be bright though. And also back there, we have the Porsche badge, which is 3D, but Porsche is doing that in every car. But this one's a little bit different. Electric circuits through the background. That's really cool when I first noticed that. You know, like the word Carrera was written in that like weird almost Comic Sans kind of font. This is like that, but more electric-y, like more harder lines and jagged-y. Should we talk about this Turbo S name? I mean, I get it. Turbo S is the fastest Porsche. So why wouldn't you call this a Turbo S? This was an opportunity to change that. And I think they should have changed it. Made it like, I don't know, Electric S or like Lightning S. Lightning S would have been cool. Nah, Turbo is- Lightning E. Turbo S is a cool name and I stand by it. Lightning Plus. Lightning Bolt. So overall looks-wise, this compared to a Panamera. I think this looks way better than a Panamera. This compared to a Panamera wagon. I mean- Panamera wagon, I think it's the better. Yeah, it is. But this compared to a Model S P100D. This looks way better. This does look better. But the fact that we're comparing the looks of this to a 2012 built car. They did a really good job. And I think this is a good like fight towards Tesla. And I think this is a smaller shape overall. Like you can't fit seven people in here with the optional seats on the Tesla. So this is a smaller car. And with that, that brings us back to handling. Because it really throws its weight around. This is a heavy car at the end of the day. Because it is electric. There are a bunch of batteries. But it feels a lot lighter than it is. All right, so enough of that. As much as I want to keep sending it. I'm going to send you into the driver's seat. So I put it into drive with my bronze shaver. Yes, you do. It's up on the dash. And let me guess how to do launch control. Hold the brake and floor it. Yes. Oh my goodness. This is the best. You know what's also the best? Nobody's staring at you because it's dead quiet. Yeah, there's like no attention to you at all. This is opposite of Huracan. Especially in this color. No one will know. This is basically a goon spec vehicle. Like if you just want to drive fast all the time. Nobody's going to really look at you or know how fast you're going. FYI. So before I get into all the fun stuff in the interior and all the gadgets. Little boot through cliche corner. Sport plus with the audio going. Wow. My god. Yeah. This is like way faster than I'm ready for in an electric car. But it doesn't feel weird at all. Like not one bit. Exactly. It feels like normal car. Just really fast. Which happens to be electric. Obviously the throttle response is instant because it is electric. There's no lag for anything. The suspension is amazing. It's so daliable. It soaks up everything. I love this. And for like ripping through roads like this. It's fun not having to worry about gears. If I hit this in second round of the turn. Is it going to upshift or what? Like it's just stay in it. Everything is fine. It's exactly video game stuff. Okay. So this interior. We've got a bunch of screens. We've got a giant screen for the gauges. We've got an infotainment screen at the top. And then another infotainment screen at the bottom. And then we just have straight up gloss black right in front of the passenger. It's kind of like a mirror. It looks like it should be a screen. So we do have Apple CarPlay. We do not have Android Auto on this one. Apparently. Yeah. I read a bunch of articles. Some people said it had Android Auto. Some people didn't. So my Android Auto is not working on this particular vehicle. And there's no option for it. No. So we also have rewinding satellite radio station. But no tune mix. And as always in these new Porsches. We've got a shortcut key that'll let us go forward through tracks. But it won't let us go forward through favorites. So someone at Porsche. Please fix that. But there's an additional shortcut key on this one. Which is actually on the gauge cluster to the right side. Which is a clickable button. Okay. We'll get there in a second. Let's talk about the bottom infotainment screen. So we have our climate controls down here. We have our heated and cooled seats. And it does have haptic feedback. So you can click everything. And then there's a resistive kind of thing that you feel. Do you prefer this over the newer Porsches that have blank buttons that you can see through? This. This is better. It looks nicer. Yes. It doesn't feel like you're missing out on anything. Exactly. Even if you got the most expensive one. There's still blank buttons in the newer 911s and stuff. And then the bottom part is kind of like a pad. Where we can move around. And control everything on our above infotainment screen. But our upper infotainment screen is also a touchscreen. So you don't really need to use this. Except for one of the coolest and most useful features. Which we found in the Lamborghini Huracan. Is that you can actually control the volume. By hitting it with like three fingers. Four fingers. Up and down. Because there is no volume knob. But you have a plus minus at the bottom at all times. So on the bottom screen. If you hit the menu button. You actually get a secondary climate control thing up on your main screen. So you can control your ventilation. And it's pretty crazy how you do it. Because you can use your finger to control each individual vent. Yeah. You can't actually adjust them physically. So when you drag your finger. You kind of just drag which vent. And where it's going to point. It's very intuitive. And like a cool party trick as well. And then also up in this infotainment screen. It's different than I guess the newer Porsches we've been driving. I think it's better. Yeah. So do I. We also have some charging stuff in there as well. Not too much. And I think more of the settings you can actually adjust while driving. Which is nice too. But we don't have a head-up display to adjust in this model. Yeah. And I don't really think you need one. And then we've also got a really cool reverse and 360 camera. It's super high resolution. And we can click around the cameras. And slide it around like we can in Audis and BMWs. And it's super high quality. Which is what we expect in a car like this. But it kind of sucks that it's not the exact car that we're driving right now. Well the spec is really nice on the one. I know but you know. Let's get into the gauge cluster. So it is a curved screen. And then on the right side. We do have four clickable buttons. And on the left side. We've got four more clickable buttons. But the ones on the left are for your lights. And on the right we have traction control. Suspension. Air suspension. And then that favorite button that I mentioned. The second favorite button. So the way the gauge cluster is set up right now. We've got our three pods. We've got our speed in the middle. No tach. Which is kind of weird in a Porsche. But I guess that's part of being an electric car. Yeah there's no tachs on electric cars. Then on the left we can customize that bubble. And on the right we can customize that bubble. With the buttons on our steering wheel. But then we can also customize the whole screen. To be like a full map. Or reduced mode. Which is my favorite. Reduced mode is really cool. But I do like power meter. Because then you can see your regen. You can see your braking. You can see your drive modes. So we do have five drive modes. Range, normal, sport, sport plus and individual. And each drive mode has its own set of options. Which you can change in the infotainment on the right. But then the second you turn off from it and come back. It resets it. So can you give me two rips. One in sport and one in sport plus. Just so we can hear the interior audio. Sport. Sport plus. Yeah so you definitely notice a difference. You get a lot of cool like laser noises. Let me see if it'll stay in it. Nah it's really hard to like toggle the audio levels. And I really like the choice of sound that they did with this. It's definitely future. Yeah just like the Jag E-Type. Yeah this is like a really good future sound. E-Type. I-Pace? Jag I-Pace. Just like the Jag I-Pace. And the steering wheel has a drive mode button at the bottom right. Like all Porsches. So it is cool that way. Yeah and the wheel itself is very similar to the new 911. Which is kind of like the new GT style wheel. Yeah except for that the GT cars don't have any buttons besides the drive mode. So with all that out of the way. Not priced yet. Visors. Let's see if this passes. Three. Two. One. No. No no chance. All right how about a cup? I've got a medium today. Yeah that's that's a full pass in both. So we've got two cup holders right up here. Which kind of get in the way of like controlling all the bottom screens and stuff. It's not the end of the world. But at least we got cup holders. You know how much I like cup holders right? And these seats up here are super comfortable. They're well bolstered. I love these seats. And rear seat room at six foot one and a half. Me behind myself is amazing. I actually fit. There's so much room. And this is the four seater version not a five seater version. And we have a massive moonroof which I think helps move my headroom. Yeah and I guess because of that massive moonroof that might be part of the reason why we don't get a hatchback. Probably. And looking out the back window there's pretty much no visibility. No. But there's enough to get by. And then if we talk about highway lane keep and driving assist. It's actually really good. It keeps you in your lane. No problems at all. One of the better ones. And it does have adaptive cruise obviously as well. And obviously since this is an electric car you do have a frunk. Yeah so we don't have our boxes with us today unfortunately. But we will box test this on a future video. Maybe a road trip video. But I do think there'll be enough room for maybe just one. And then if we go to the back there's an okay amount of room in the trunk. But it's not like huge huge. Yeah but this isn't that big of a car. So overall there's a lot of storage space. So now should we get to the price? No we should get to the electric charging stuff. Okay kind of the boring stuff. Yeah but that's what people need to know. Okay hit me with it. So Porsche wants you to know that this is an 800 volt architecture. So that means it can charge faster. But there aren't really many of those 800 volt chargers right now. No the infrastructure is being built up. So this charges in about 10 and a half hours on a regular level 2. Level 3 up to 270 kilowatts takes about 22 and a half minutes for 5 to 80 percent. So these are the chargers that will be at Porsche dealerships. And then Electrify Canada and Electrify America. So what you're saying is if you go to the right charger in 22 minutes you can get to 80 percent. Yes that's right which is pretty good. That's all that really matters. Yeah but for now level 3 at 50 kilowatts which is most of the stations takes about one and a half hours for 5 to 80 percent which is a lot of time for level 3. Yeah but everything's going to get there. Like obviously the infrastructure isn't as good as Tesla's right now. Like that's the main thing you complain about in every electric car. Exactly Tesla solved that infrastructure problem. Porsche has not yet but they are starting to. Okay so let's get into the price. Yes. Hit me with it. It starts at $213,900. Canadian. And this one is sitting at $253,508. Not gonna lie that's a lot of money. It is a lot of money. That's 911 Turbo S money. I feel like whoever's spending that money on a first year electric car from a company that hasn't made one before really wants the credit of having this car first. Yeah for sure. Like you really need to be somebody to get this first year. You know who has one of these? Not in Turbo S trim, Bill Gates. Nice. Yeah makes sense right. So I guess at the end of the day this or a Model S P100D? We haven't driven a P100D and I really want to but from what I've driven with this I think this will out handle this. This will do launches consistently at the speed that it says it will. I really like this. But this won't go as far because this doesn't go as far as Tesla's do. In theory on paper however the range that it's saying on the gauge cluster is very good. So we will have to test that. And then the infrastructure at the moment is better on Tesla's. So while this can charge at a faster rate Tesla's charge at a faster rate at more stations. Then this is a ton more expensive than the fastest Model S. Yeah. The fact that like it's all competing is like a lot of fun and I really look forward to driving both of them. But Tesla's not its only competitor. This actually competes with non-electric cars like supercars essentially because 2.8 seconds to 0 to 100. So this has a lot of actual gas competitors as well. Yeah but I guess like the main thing is like are you going with the electric trend or are you going with the old school gas trend. So let us know what trend you guys are on Tesla Model S, Porsche Taycan or gas supercars. Like the AMG GT63. Yeah or the Huracan and stuff like that. Maybe click this playlist with those cars right here. Right here. Let us know in the comments but be sure to click this. Thanks guys.