23333 Kilometers. One year Porsche Taycan.

I got the keys for my first (electric) Porsche a year ago today and put 23333 kilometers on it the first year. With very few exceptions, all of them for personal use and not for business. I'm hooked, apparently. 

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The Taycan is a spectacular car. 

I once went on a driving trip through the hills of "Bergisches Land" with a friend who usually rides on those roads on his monstrous 200hp Aprilia bike. I drove up the hill to a biker restaurant, we had breakfast, and then handed him the keys. 

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A kilometer down the road, he's like "Wow, all of this is so DIRECT!" - referring to the accelerator and the brakes and especially the steering. And as he drove further along this curvy road and gains a bit of confidence, it was fun to look at his "what is this thing?" expression of disbelief. He goes "everything else is just trash!"

That might be a bit extreme, but the immediacy of everything is breathtaking. The steering has no play. You can feel the road in the wheel. At the same time, the air suspension can make the worst road feel smooth and the Cross Turismo's "Gravel" mode makes cobblestone roads flat. Acceleration can be tame and smooth in city traffic or absolutely brutal in Sport Plus mode when 571hp are available for launch control and provide a rollercoaster-like experience at 3,8 seconds from 0-100km/h.

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The car is q-u-i-e-t. At 180 km/h on the Autobahn there's largely just wind and tire noise. But when I turn on the "electric sports sound", the Taycan sounds like a passing UFO, inside and out. Hisses and hums and whistles. When the sound is on in the city, it turns heads. The humming sound is strange and different.

Range has not once been an issue for me, even not on the several very long drives I did. I drove from Viersen to Ascona, Viersen to Kiel, and a loop from Viersen to Antwerp to Regensburg and back as some of the longest trips, all without being troubled by range concerns and while driving the Taycan like a Porsche.

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The usable battery capacity is around 86kWh. On a 250km country-roads-only trip last March, I managed to keep consumption at around 19kWh/100km. Hitting the accelerator hard and driving 180+ km/h when traffic permits, will cost 45kWh/100kw. The typical max range I get from a charge is 350-380km; in summer a bit more. 

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That is never a hard constraint on long trips in/around Germany because availability of fast chargers with 300kW+ is good and Taycan knows how to use them. Porsche's 800 Volt charging is the envy of all the Mercedes and Audi drivers. I plug the car in, go to the rest stop restaurant to get a snack and a coffee, and after about 20 minutes I'm from 10% back to 85% and can keep going; often leaving before people who were there before I arrived. The charging curve starts at 272kW. An astonishing amount of power pumped into the battery. Nearly twice of what the 400V charging competition can do.

Between March and October, my solar energy roof delivers enough extra power over the house consumptionto keep the Taycan charged at 85% while sitting in the driveway, meaning that all trips of up to 150km around the house are carbon neutral and independent of the grid.

However, I must admit that we have sinned and bought another combustion engine car recently. The driver experience difference between Taycan and the (former) convertible "fun car", a Volkswagen EOS, was rather extreme and not quite so fun anymore. The new convertible is a Boxster. 

#Porsche #Taycan #EV  

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