2023 Porsche Taycan

Porsche Taycan 2023 Review

There may have once been a time where if you asked Porsche whether they would build an electric car, they would flatly deny it. Unfortunately we’re living in a time where climate change and global warming are growing concerns, and regulations around the world are forcing manufacturers to rethink the way they produce cars as well as the kind of cars they want to produce.

Perhaps the first talk of electrification for Porsche in the last two decades actually came from their motorsports program in the form of the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid. This one-off racecar utilized a flywheel type Kinetic Energy Recovery System, or KERS, to store energy and deploy it through an electric motor for a deployable performance boost.

While it was an interesting experiment, Porsche didn’t continue development of this particular racecar – but they did introduce hybrid variants of the Porsche Cayenne and Porsche Panamera just the year after, which was an impressive step forward for the brand. Even if they weren’t keen to electrify their sports car products (and still haven’t), it was at least a decent start.

Since then their two hybrid models have grown in complexity and functionality, with improvements in battery and motor technology allowing for longer ranges and better performance deployment. Inevitably however, Porsche would need to make an all-electric car – and in 2015 Porsche debuted the Mission E concept.

A four-door sedan with an all-electric powertrain – it was something that was designed and built from the ground up as an electric vehicle, and not merely an awkwardly ported Panamera with a motor in the place of the engine. By 2019 the Mission E became production ready and was unveiled as the Porsche Taycan, and in 2020 over 20,000 units of the electric sedan were sold.

In Malaysia, the Porsche Taycan was first launched towards the end of 2020 with three variants on offer, and eventually a simpler entry model variant was introduced at the start of this year to bring the total number of variants up to four. For now we only have the sedan body-style, though the crossover wagon Cross Turismo variant will be made available soon.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Specifications

As mentioned earlier, there are four variants of the Porsche Taycan available in Malaysia, and each of them has their own unique powertrain and battery package. The simplest variant is known simply as the Taycan, and it comes with a singular rear motor that delivers 321 hp, or 402 hp with temporary overboost, with a battery capacity of 79 kWh for a range of 431 kilometres. Add on the Performance Battery Plus option and the outputs jump to 375 hp and 469 hp respectively, with capacity going up to 93 kWh and range increasing to 484 kilometres.

The next step up is the Taycan 4S, which as Porsche naming convention suggests, comes with more power and all-wheel drive. In this case there is both a front and rear electric motor – the front being a single speed drive, while the rear having a two-speed gearbox. In its base form, it makes 429 hp with an overboost to 523 hp, and has a battery capacity of 79 kWh with a range of 408 kilometres. Tick the Performance Battery Plus option and the numbers go up to 483 hp and 563 hp respectively, with battery capacity increasing to 93 kWh and range going up to 464 kilometres.

From here on, there are no additional battery options. The Taycan Turbo represents the next higher step, with 617 hp and 670 hp on overboost, the same 93 kWh battery pack as the Performance Battery Plus option for the lower variants, and a range of 452 kilometres. Again, this is a dual-motor setup with the rear motor getting a two-speed gearbox.

The range-topper for the Taycan line-up is the Taycan Turbo S, packing a similar 617 hp to the regular Taycan Turbo, but overboost bringing the performance level up to 751 hp. The same battery pack is employed at 93 kWh, but the range is shorter at 416 kilometres. Once again, the dual motor setup is employed with the rear unit having a two-speed transmission.

 Dimensionally, all variants of the Taycan are practically identical. It’s a little smaller in real life than it seems in pictures, with a wheelbase that stretches 2,900 mm for a length of 4,963 mm, with a width of 1,966 mm and a height of 1,378 mm. The kerb weight starts at over 2 tonnes, going up as high as 2,305 kg depending on variant. For context, the Panamera has a wheelbase that’s 50 mm longer with a length roughly 100 mm longer.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Exterior

From the outside, all Porsche Taycans look fairly identical – at least, that is until you start ticking option boxes. From the factory however, the regular Taycan and Taycan 4S get 19-inch alloy wheels, while the Taycan Turbo and Taycan Turbo S get larger 20-inch wheels - though as expected you can easily select your choice of wheels when you start optioning your car. The overall roofline and shape is not reminiscent of the Panamera at all – instead having its own unique design and styling cues, and a more aggressive roofline taper.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Interior

The broad strokes of the Porsche Taycan’s interior are the same for every variant – a sharp, driver focused setup with touch-sensitive haptic feedback controls in the central stack, but perhaps the only significant difference is that the instrument cluster is simply a full digital screen that displays the various functions and readouts relevant to an electric car (of which there are simply less).

Porsche Taycan 2023 Safety Features

There are no official lists of the safety items you get with the Porsche Taycan, although as is the case with most Porsche models you can select exactly which functions you want beyond the usual electronic stability and traction control systems and your complement of airbags.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Strengths & Weakness

Where do we begin? The Porsche Taycan is not only a fantastic product, it’s also a representation of what an electric car can be if engineered properly, and by a company that absolutely knows what they’re doing both when it comes to luxury cars and performance. There’s absolutely no doubt that it will become a future icon, and will go down in history as one of the great Porsche models collectors will seek out in a couple of decades.

But even if we focus on the now, there are so many things to love about the Porsche Taycan. Its blistering performance in near absolute silence, its fantastic handling (when you consider just how much it weighs), and an exterior that’s as elegant and futuristic as its chic and sports-oriented interior. It’s the whole package, and it’s good for the environment too.

Perhaps the downside then, like most electric cars in Malaysia, is simply the fact that keeping it charged is difficult unless you have a dedicated charger wherever you go. Sharing chargers can be a difficult problem to solve as Malaysia’s electric vehicle charging infrastructure leaves a lot to be desired – not merely in terms of high-speed chargers, but chargers at all. If you plan to head out of town on a road trip, you have to plan your route extremely carefully.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Price

Taking a Porsche Taycan home will cost you a pretty penny, but when has a Porsche even been mass market? In its simplest form, the Taycan will run you RM 584,561. The next step up is the Taycan 4S which will set you back RM 699,986, while the higher end Taycan Turbo runs you RM 963,297. The range-topping Taycan Turbo S will cost you RM 1,151,779 – all prices being inclusive of the current SST exemptions.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Features

Features are a tricky subject when it comes to the Porsche Taycan, as they can vary greatly depending on the functions you add on as options. Everything from electrically adjustable seats to heating and cooling can be optioned in, though you can expect the infotainment system and the overall climate control functions to be common and automatic across the range.

Porsche Taycan 2023 Fuel Consumption

There is no manufacturer quoted fuel consumption figure for the Porsche Taycan, because it doesn’t consume any fuel! What we could do is work out roughly how much it would cost you in household electricity to keep that battery charged. The spread of ranges across the Taycan range is 484 kilometres for 93 kWh down to 416 kilometres for 93 kWh. Assuming that you travel roughly 70 kilometres a day, that would work out to between 13.5 and 15.6 kWh per day. Across a maximum of 31 days, this would work out to 418.5 to 483.6 kWh, or an additional RM 198.30 to RM 276.13 per month depending on how much your initial electricity bill is.