Funny how many people scream "unfair comparison" when comparing a Taycan to a Tesla. My response is: of course it's a fair comparison, and trying to be a gatekeeper on what amounts to legitimate comparison is bullshit. It's one car being compared to another car. That's a fair comparison. Fabricating faux distinctions like "democratized horsepower" vs. (what?) "elitist horsepower" is a laughably meaningless distinction. They're cars, and EVs, and both expensive. That's close enough for a meaningful comparison.
Of course you can compare all you want, "they are not comparable" is a figure of speech. They are two very, very different objects. Yet, nobody is stopping you from comparing them even if the only things they have in common is that they are EV with 4 tyres. The Taycan is the closest you can get to a sports car. Steering, suspension, brakes, chassis dynamics, all geared to purpose. Generally well put together. A luxury product with so-so software (though improving). plaid s is a badly assembled, badly painted, clunky thing with lots of horsepower and inadequate brakes, suspension and chassis. Giant iPad (but no CarPlay). And a much lower final price (around here a fully specced
plaid s costs about 50% of your turbo s).
Quite so.
My first reaction was that this was a dopey comparison. However after looking at the comparison "test" article that gave rise to the one quoted above (https://www.roadandtrack.com/reviews/a45614830/2024-performance-electric-car-of-the-year/), it's fair to make the comparison. R&T compared 6 vehicles to get a Performance EV of the Year. They don't really define performance except their road test comments make it pretty plain that how the car behaved while attacking twisty roads was the most important criteria. Based on that it should be no surprise that the Porsche took the top spot (in the over $100K category). Even if they had selected a RWD base model, or 4S Taycan to better equalize the price point the result would have been the same. Had they been trying to find the Road Trip EV of the year, Quarter Mile EV of the year, or Plushest EV of the year the results would have been different, but they weren't and made no secret of what they were looking for in selecting the winners.
All manufacturers make cars people want. Different people want different cars for different reasons.
Those of us who like Porsches ultimately should like driving and cars that handle better than most cars on real roads, not the track. (Though Porsche do good tracks cars too.). In nearly every sector where Porsche choose to market vehicles they are the best handling cars and probably the best engineered. Musk says that a Tesla is essentially a robot. Porsche need to be wary not to go down that route until full autonomous driving is the norm. Even then I would still prefer to drive an entirely mechanical Porsche.
Driving is why the Taycan replaced my Model S Performance. I do fairly regular road trips. With the Tesla the basic autopilot was engaged for a good portion of any restricted access highways. With the Porsche I only use Innodrive to play with the infotainment or open a bottle of water. With a Porsche you want to drive the car, not be driven. But for just plain old transportation the Tesla wins. Easy user interface, easy Supercharging, actually pretty decent and comfortable suspension. The Taycan is far from perfect but until I get too old to enjoy actively driving a car there is no going back.
There are very mildly used Turbo S's now on the market for less than $100,000.Of course you can compare all you want, "they are not comparable" is a figure of speech. They are two very, very different objects. Yet, nobody is stopping you from comparing them even if the only things they have in common is that they are EV with 4 tyres. The Taycan is the closest you can get to a sports car. Steering, suspension, brakes, chassis dynamics, all geared to purpose. Generally well put together. A luxury product with so-so software (though improving). plaid s is a badly assembled, badly painted, clunky thing with lots of horsepower and inadequate brakes, suspension and chassis. Giant iPad (but no CarPlay). And a much lower final price (around here a fully specced
the fact that some are trying to pass off the plaid s as a 'sports' car (e.g. obstinacy to lap the Ring with little or nothing as standard, introducing a non purchasable track pack, ehm) in europe makes one smile...
really last I looked cheapest turbo s was 120’s. Just looked a lot of those are actually turbos that are marketed as turbo S only ones at 100 or below have a branded title. There are a couple in the 110’s though which is a nice buy.
