Porsche’s Taycan has been a point of contention among automotive enthusiasts lately, arguing that it’s too expensive, or has too short of a range, or that it’s not a “real Porsche”. We truly loved the Taycan Turbo S when we got an opportunity to test it last year. And it feels like the future of not only Porsche, but sports cars in general. Even if sporty EVs never get better than this, is it really that bad? Heck, it’s not even as bad as the numbers might indicate.
The new Taycan 4S has an EPA-rated range of 203 miles. But that doesn’t paint the full picture. Many EV drivers have said the rating is too low, and does not represent real world driving scenarios. So, what better way to test that claim than by driving one in the real world? Matt Farah of Road & Track and The Smoking Tire fame set out to find out a more realistic number.
Beginning with a “long range” Taycan 4S with the large battery option, Farah decided to take the car on a near-300-mile highway road trip to find out how far it could go. He hopped on the 10 and headed east from the Pacific Ocean to Palm Springs and back, taking a longer route on the way home. For the sake of simplicity, he set the air conditioning to a steady 70 degrees, put the car in “Range” mode, and took off. No hypermiling, no tricks, just regular old cruise control at 70 miles per hour as often as possible.
The journey began with a displayed available range of 257 miles, which on its own is far better than the EPA rating on the Monroney. Even better, without even trying, Farah managed to smoke even Porsche’s projected range by a good bit.
Getting to Palm Springs, 125 miles away from the start point, the Taycan’s readout said 167 miles to empty! After adding several miles to the second half of the journey, the Taycan returned to where it had started just shy of 5 hours later with 275.6 miles on the clock. The computer still claimed another 18 miles were possible.
The Taycan 4S can almost do half again the range that it is rated for. At high speed, where EVs aren’t the most efficient, no less. Given a flatter route, a lower cruise control speed, and a few minor hypermiling efforts, I’m willing to bet it’ll easily hit the 300 miles number. Great, now I need to go out and buy a Taycan…
