• Up to 422 miles of driving range
• Super-fast recharging
• Certainly not cheap to buy

What are the running costs?

The Porsche Taycan has a solid miles-per-pound figure of 3.7 – 10.9, which is significantly better than many more traditional, ICE-powered performance cars. The various electric car tax savings are an added bonus, as well.

We’ll get into how far the Taycan can go on a charge in the next section, but we should add the caveat that how much the Taycan costs to run very much depends on where you charge. Charging at home is the most cost-effective option, especially if you have an EV-specific electricity tariff. Using public chargers can be much more expensive – even more so than petrol in some cases.

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Range and charging

Post-facelift, the Porsche Taycan can go up to 35% further on a full charge than an equivalent pre-facelift model, thanks to new battery chemistry. On top of that, there’s the Taycan’s much-vaunted 800-volt charging system that allows maximum DC charging of 320kW – up from the previous 270kW max. That means a top-up from 10-80% is theoretically possible in just 18 minutes, much faster than before despite the bigger battery.

However, achieving that kind of charging rate relies on finding an 800v public charger, which is a rare thing. Most are 400v, which increases the 10-80% time to 33 minutes. Public fast chargers are very expensive, as well, reducing the Taycan’s cost savings.

More promisingly, the latest Taycans are capable of fast charging over a wider range of battery temperatures – a particularly hot or cold battery takes longer to charge. A gauge on the dashboard monitors battery temperature and predicts maximum charging speeds in the moment. This can help you be strategise when you stop and for how long, minimising disruption to your journey. But it still requires more active attention that simply filling up with fuel.

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Home charging requires at least 11 hours from 0-100% using a typical 7.7kW wallbox, thanks to the battery’s large size.

The amount of official WLTP driving range varies between the different Taycan models. The base model Taycan fitted with the optional Performance Battery Plus goes furthest with a range of 422 miles – only a few EVs such as the Mercedes EQS can go further. The Turbo GT has the shortest range, a not at all bad 344 miles.

In reality, how you drive affects range tremendously. The Taycan is an efficient electric car but also a very powerful one. Still, we achieved between 3.2 and 3.9 miles-per-kilowatt-hour in several hundred miles of mixed driving in the base-model Taycan, which is pretty strong for this type of EV. The range predictions seem to be highly accurate, as well.  

Servicing and warranty

Service intervals for the Porsche Taycan are every two years or 20,000 miles. Porsche servicing isn’t cheap, but a number of service plans are available to help spread the cost.

Like all Porsches, the Taycan has a three-year, unlimited mileage warranty. Extended warranties are also available from Porsche for up to 15 years or 125,000 miles. Three years of free European breakdown cover is included in the price of every Taycan, as well.

Reliability

• Taycan has suffered reliability issues
• Complex car with lots of technology
• Numerous recalls issued

Although owners are generally very positive about their Taycans, it doesn’t take long scanning forums and Facebook groups to find that some have experienced reliability and build quality issues. Not what you expect from a premium-brand car, but the Taycan was an entirely new type of car for Porsche, with brand-new tech. So it’s not surprising some issues have cropped up.

Problems range from minor niggles to major issues, so if you’re buying used be sure to look carefully at all the paperwork for signs that the car has been maintained properly and/or spent an unusual amount of time at the local Porsche Centre.

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We recommend you talk to the garage that has maintained any Taycan before you buy it, to make sure any outstanding recalls have been carried out. A fair few have been issued – check out the recall check website – affecting every year of production so far. Hopefully the issues have been ironed out with the facelift. Outstanding recalls will be listed on the MOT certificate of a Taycan that’s more than three years old.