Week 103 was posted by Charanjit Chana on 2019-10-14.
Believe it or not, EVs are the future. Tesla kickstarted the revolution and now everyone is trying to catch up. The most surprising thing to me is that everyone else is trying to eclipse Tesla in one area rather taking them head on.
The likes of Honda are dipping their toes and along with Nissan, Renault and VW they all seem to be tackling range anxiety. Sadly none of the above have taken Tesla up on being able to use the Supercharger network.
BMW, Mercedes and Audi are all on the plugin hybrid or mild hybrid train at the moment. The latter championed by Toyota as the immediate future.
Almost all of the above has some optional intelligence built in to cars, whether that's lane detection or the ability to predict collisions or automatically park.
The last aspect Tesla that is being attacked is performance, and that's where Porsche come in with the Taycan
I really like the Taycan but the Tesla Roadster is better looking (but less practical) but of the two being discussed here, I prefer the looks of the current Tesla Model S. A car that also has plenty of aftermarket options.
Tesla Model S and Porsche Taycan compared
Taking the most powerful models of each available, this is how they stack up today.
| Stat | Tesla Model S Performance | Porsche Taycan Turbo S |
|---|---|---|
| Range | up to 400miles | up to 256miles |
| Battery size | 95kWh | 93.4kWh |
| Doors | 5 | 5 |
| 0-60mph | 2.4s | 2.8s |
| Top speed | 155mph | 161mph |
| Full Autonomy | In development | Unknown |
| Powertrain | Dual motors | Dual motors |
| Other | HEPA air filter Sentry mode Dog mode |
Ability to repeatedly use launch control Charge from 5-80% in 22.5 minutes |
| Base Price | £92,300 | £138,826 |
When I compare these figures, it's the Tesla that makes more sense, pound for pound, but there's always going to be the allure of the Porsche brand, but right now a Porsche Panamera E-Hybrid would probably be a better comparison for the Tesla. Nowhere near as green, but arguably more desirable and cheaper, starting at just under £84,000.
Where are our autonomous vehicles?
Circling round back to the fact that Tesla are pulling themselves into different directions and making progress in each of them, the bit that's really missing is autonomy.
Fully Charged have covered the topic, but no one is as vocal or as proud of their autonomous future as Tesla and it really should be the future of where we want cars to go.
Penn's Sunday School podcast recently had Gary Marcus as a guest where they had a good discussion covering why autonomy is difficult and how a machine may not be able to get it right all the time because of the lack of nuance, but this is the kind of moonshot we want, not just better range or faster charging.
Update
A little late getting this update posted, but a couple of days ago, Porsche posted a photo of the Taycan 4S. What I didn't appreciate at the time was that brings the cost down from close to £140,000 to 'just' £83,367. That's cheaper than the Model S and inline with the hybrid Panamera.
Range and performance suffer, 20% less for the former and an additional second on the 0-60 time.
If I was buying, it just got a lot harder to choose.
Tags: ev, hybrid, porsche, taycan, tesla, ev, hybrid, porsche, taycan, tesla