Can an Air-Cooled Porsche Driver Enjoy an EV Porsche?
Updated: Feb 5
The future of Porsche is Electric Vehicle (EV) technology so I’ve always wondered: Can an air-cooled Porsche driver find the same enjoyment in an EV Porsche?
I now know the answer after spending three days with a Porsche Taycan 4S. The Taycan was courtesy of Porsche Asheville providing one as a loaner while the my water-cooled 997 Turbo was in for service. It was a shock to see a chalk-colored brand new Taycan 4S idling (does an EV idle or hum?) waiting to be driven by a die-hard air-cooled Porsche enthusiast.
The first challenge: how do you know when the Taycan has started? You don’t hear a thing. You can only tell the Taycan has started by looking at if the instrument panel (IP) is lit up and showing the vehicle’s vitals.
The first check was the charge in the battery since I was scheduled to have the vehicle for three days and do not have an access point for charging. The battery was at 79%. I was advised that I had a 200-mile cruising distance.
The first impression as I drove out of the dealership was the quiet and smoothness of the vehicle. No typical flat-six sounds, no bumps or squeaks; just a smooth, quiet ride. You may say “what’s wrong with that?”
Well, it is the exact opposite of an air-cooled Porsche.
The badge is there and the taut handling and powerful engine that is the soul of a Porsche is at your control. However, this EV Porsche is missing the smell of oil and the distinctive sound of an air-cooled flat-six, but is it ever a pleasure to drive.
The smoothness, the luxury, the quiet all said what a great daily driver. Then I noticed the charge gauge was already down and I had hardly driven the car but 10 miles. The gauge was dropping; 75%, 73% and by the time I arrived in my garage, it was at 66%.
Where is a charging station? How do I charge it? The smooth, quiet drive gave way to anxiety of the unknown.
I tucked the car into the garage to “save the charge” for a Porsche function that I wanted to use the Taycan for transport the next night. My “charge anxiety” extended to my better half as she stated: “I don’t want to get stuck out on some road, in the dark, with a dead battery.” I assured the car would make it.
She enjoyed the comfort and we both agreed what a great car it was providing comfort, prestige and luxury that we are accustomed to when arriving in her Mercedes.
There is a regular feature in Departures magazine where a celebrity is asked about what is on their iphone and one question is when do you get anxiety about charging your phone. For my phone, it is at 10%, for a car I can state it is at 30%. A dead phone goes in my pocket until I reach a charger; for a car I have to factor in reaching a charging station.
I am sure my experience would have been much different if I had a charging station, but I didn’t. I learned it is like a phone or the multitude of other electronic devices in today’s world; you have to plug it in every night.
Even if I had the requisite charging station, would I want the car? It was smooth, it was quiet, it was luxurious, and it was an engineering masterpiece,
The net takeaway: It was a quiet, smooth Porsche with an electric motor, ideal to "arrive in."
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