Porsche’s Electric Taycan Has a Range of Just Over 200 Miles, EPA Says
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It was all going so smoothly. The Porsche Taycan, easily one of the most anticipated EVs ever produced, has finally hit a speed bump.
On Wednesday, the sports sedan took its first serious ding—a pedestrian EPA driving range estimate. According to the agency’s website, Porsche’s first all-electric vehicle’s Turbo edition can go just 201 miles on a single charge of its 93.4 kWh battery.
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That figure puts the Taycan squarely in the middle of the pack when compared to other new electric vehicles on the market, and significantly behind the figure for its principal competitor, the Tesla Model S. Tesla’s flagship car boasts an EPA estimate of 287 miles on a single charge. And the car’s variants have even better ranges, with the Performance coming in at 348 miles and the Long Range at 373 miles, though both are powered by 100 a kWh battery.
Drivers expect top-level performance from a Porsche, and they are willing to pay a premium for it. While the automaker’s electric sedan has passed previous tests with flying colors, its EPA range estimate shows there is at least one area where it has fallen short of expectations. The modest range also raises questions about whether the car can be used as an everyday vehicle. The Taycan’s base price is nearly double that of the Model S—$150,900 compared to $79,990—so you have to wonder whether the lower range and higher cost will cause some potential customers to choose Tesla instead.
It would appear that Porsche knows this too, as the German automaker has commissioned an independent test of its own to help customers make a “more informed decision.” Conducted by AMCI, that study found the Taycan to have a much more impressive range of 275 miles in normal driving mode and could go as far as 288 miles on a single charge in “Range mode.” Unfortunately for Porsche, these figures won’t be the ones that end up on the Taycan’s window sticker.
“The Taycan is a phenomenal car built to perform and drive as a Porsche should. We respect and entirely accept the results of the EPA testing,” a Porsche spokesperson told Robb Report on Thursday. “We commissioned the AMCI report to help our potential Taycan buyers with more information ahead of making their purchase decision. While we could quote our own internal testing figures for the range of the Taycan, we felt it was important to seek entirely independent verification of what the car can achieve. This test is just one of many tests that all manufacturers commission to validate their own claims. We do tests like these on many of our models for many different aspects.”
It remains to be seen how or if the Taycan’s underwhelming range will affect sales. Earlier this week, Porsche announced it had received 30,000 pre-orders for the vehicle. Regardless, you can expect that the EPA estimate to become one more data point to be used in the ongoing Taycan vs. Model S rivalrly.
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