Porsche of The Main Line recently hosted our Spring Porsche Driving Experience at New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, NJ. It was a beautiful afternoon that put clients behind the wheel of the entire Porsche Taycan range giving them a first hand experience of Porsche's venture into the electric sports car market. Our customers weren't the only ones who used the weekend to become more familiar and informed about the Taycan. Our very own Porsche Brand Ambassador Jesse Facer spent the weekend in a base Taycan getting to know the vehicle and putting it's estimate range reports to the test. The result was a weekend filled with spirited driving that laid to rest any concerns of range anxiety. Take a further look into Jesse' weekend with the Porsche Taycan and see how his range numbers lined up with those being reported.
As soon as I sat in the driver seat, I immediately thought GT3. This was my first time seeing the Taycan optioned with the metal roof combined with the leather free interior. The enclosed feel and the materials used in the leather free really make for a race car like feel. This is something I can assure you, you will not see in any other electric offering on the market and shows the possibilities with the options packages Porsche offers.
I was fortunate to be able to spend some real seat time in our Taycan Base with the 79.2KWh standard battery. 6 hours and 211.7 miles to be exact. We are constantly having to overcome the objection of range anxiety with our clients on these vehicles as the posted numbers are low, so I figured doing a first-hand range test would be helpful for everyone to see how the numbers shake out in real life usage of the vehicle. When I took the car on a full charge Saturday after work it was showing me an estimated total range of 217 miles. The trip I had planned out was estimated at 201 miles, you can imagine there was some worry about making it without charging. By the time I had driven through the weekend a total of 211.7 miles there was still 44 miles of estimated range remaining! This would give me a total of around 255 miles of range had I kept going at this pace.
I don’t want to mislead you in saying this was an effortless attempt to maximize range on the Taycan as it did take some thought when using the car, but that is the fun in having an electric car anyway. Do not mistake that statement thinking it took too much effort as well, which it really did not. It was just conscious choosing of drive modes and comfort level while driving.
This was done hugely in part by using RANGE mode with minimal accessories (heat, a/c, heated and cooled seats), and REGEN on the whole time. There was a lot of mixed driving between back roads and highway, short and long trips. On a few of the trips, I was not using a/c or any seat functions (heating or cooling) and had the windows down. Whether that helped or hurt the range I would be curious of. While not using the accessories, I may have given up more by having the windows down and adding excessive drag.
The lower the kWh / 100 miles you can achieve the longer the range. In my trip back from NJMP, over 64.6 miles, using range mode, no accessories, and windows down I was able to get the use down to 27.0kWh / 100 which is very efficient! For comparison if you were to look at this vehicles total life consumption it is averaging 36.7 kWh/ 100mi from its short stint in loaner fleet. At the rate of 27 kWh/ 100mi this vehicle would achieve almost 300 miles of range! Also note, I was not uncomfortable at any point of this testing. I was not hot, or inconvenienced by the wind as I noticed the way the Taycan is shaped does not overwhelm you with wind even when on the highway.
After the whole 211.7 mile trip, I was able to average 28.2 kWh / 100mi, which is extremely impressive especially since this is the most basic configuration of Taycan that you can purchase. Aside from the range debate, I can also say this vehicle was a huge talking point, the looks, the feel, the whole package is really, really great. I can’t count the number of thumbs up and compliments that I received just in the short 36 hours I had the car.
The Taycan gives our clients something to be passionate about while being “green” and that will not go unrecognized in “the wild”.
For more information regarding the entire Porsche Taycan model range, contact us at 610-886-1000 to speak with our team of certified salesman and schedule your test drive in the electrifying Porsche Taycan.
- Jesse Facer, Porsche Brand Ambassador Certified Sales Consultant
