Porsche disrupts itself with Taycan

NIAGARA FALLS, Ontario — It is the quickest Porsche in production. But it represents a changing universe for the German sports car manufacturer.

At events held simultaneously on three continents last week, Porsche unveiled its Taycan electric car, a product that breaks radically — no roaring engine and no dramatic gear shifts — from what the brand has long meant to many customers.

Instead, the Taycan defines "Porsche" for a new era, executives say.

The car has already drawn more than 20,000 hand- raisers globally to buy it, including more than 12,000 from the U.S., a Porsche executive told Automotive News last week.

Early interest in the Taycan has led Porsche to reconsider its initial production plan of 20,000 to 25,000 vehicles a year.

"We need to adjust because we see the demand higher," Porsche sales boss Detlev von Platen said.

Porsche views the Taycan as its ultimate new conquest model — a four-wheeled weapon to lure new customers to the brand.

Powered by a 93.4-kilowatt-hour battery, the Taycan is a performance beast — with its top variant capable of doing 0 to 60 mph in a blink-of-an-eye 2.6 seconds and of covering a quarter-mile in 10.8 seconds.

Thanks to the battery design and thermal management magic, the Taycan can achieve these bursts of speed repeatedly without performance degradation.

"In the sports car segment, EV doesn't mean sacrificing any kind of emotion or performance," von Platen told Automotive News.

The Taycan is the first production vehicle capable of charging at 800 volts, and it can refill its lithium ion battery from 5 to 80 percent in 22.5 minutes using high-power chargers, with a maximum charging capacity of 270 kW.

While interest is high, it's less clear if Porsche can maintain its historical 15 percent profit margin as it wades into EV development. "It will be harder, to be completely frank," von Platen said. An EV is $10,000 to $12,000 more expensive to build than the gasoline engine equivalent, he said. "That has an impact on the margin of the car," von Platen said.

The Taycan will also trigger changes throughout the automaker's retail network. Early next year, the dealer organization will go through training at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles to learn how to sell and service the car.

The 191 U.S. retailers are amid a $70 million build-out of a network of fast-charging stations. By year end, all U.S. Porsche dealerships will have 24-kW or higher DC charging stations installed on-site. By mid-2020, dealers covering 90 percent of the Taycan's U.S. market will have installed Porsche's superfast 320-kW Turbo Chargers.

With a six-figure sticker price, Porsche's EV will likely be confined to well-appointed McMansion garages. But through its performance and driving capabilities, the Taycan may demonstrate the potential of the electric powertrain to a still-skeptical American consumer.

For North America, Porsche chose the dramatic backdrop of sun-washed Niagara Falls to unveil the car. The three debut sites, including in China and Germany, were near a hydroelectric dam, a solar farm and a wind farm to underscore the EV's zero-emission theme — a subject Porsche has not tackled in the past.

As if to ease its traditional customer base into this new zero-emission world, Porsche chose a familiar word to name its product designations: "turbo."

At launch, the car will come in high-powered, high-priced Turbo and Turbo S versions. Those models will arrive in U.S. stores in December and start at $154,860 and $188,960. Prices include shipping.

But a sub-$100,000 base Taycan is planned for the second half of 2020, Automotive News has learned. That single-motor model is expected to offer a smaller 79-kWh battery.

For Porsche, the Taycan is no one-and-done halo model line, either. It is the first in a series of battery-electrics the automaker plans for the next decade, including crossovers, coupes and roadsters.

"By 2025, we expect more than 50 percent of all the [new] vehicles we sell worldwide will have a plug — either battery-electric or hybrid," Porsche Cars North America CEO Klaus Zellmer said.

The Taycan demonstrates Porsche's willingness to toss tradition when it sees a business opportunity. It has done so before.

It recognized the potential of crossovers in the early 2000s and launched the Cayenne — an equally controversial decision that had purists wailing like a turbocharged flat-six.

Porsche is doing it again with the Taycan, abandoning throaty engines for whisper-quiet electric motors.

Porsche is making no secret of wanting to take on a competitor that, until now, was of little concern to the sports car maker: Tesla.

That upstart California automaker had an early and uncontested start in the luxury EV business. But it is now feeling pressure as established and better-funded competitors challenge its turf. A battalion of automakers, including Volkswagen, Audi, General Motors, Ford and Mercedes-Benz, have ambitious plans to blanket the market with EVs. Among them now is Porsche.

About 50 percent of the early interest in the Taycan is coming from customers new to Porsche, with a large segment being Tesla owners, according to Porsche.

The Taycan is "probably the most credible threat" to Tesla's Model S sedan, said Tyson Jominy, vice president of the Power Information Network at J.D. Power.

"If there's one brand that can really play to the sporty, technology-centric crowd that Tesla does, it's Porsche," Jominy said. "They are doing it not just by adapting the Panamera or making an electric 911, but they are throwing a lot of tradition to the wind."

Given its performance and design akin to a sports car, the Taycan is also drawing significant early interest from Porsche 911 owners. But the company says there are no plans for an electric 911 anytime soon.

Zellmer said, "It's probably the last car we're going to look at in terms of electrifying it."