Porsche Taycan confirmed for Australia

Porsche has confirmed its first electric vehicle — the Porsche Taycan sedan — will be available in Australia from the first half of 2020.

Announcing the news at a pop-up activation in Sydney yesterday, when the Mission E concept that previewed the Taycan was shown to the Australian public for the first time, Porsche said the pioneering EV will arrive here within 12 months of its international on-sale date in the first half of next year.

Porsche Cars Australia director of marketing and motorsport, Toni Andreevski, said hundreds of Australians have already lodged expressions of interest in the Porsche Taycan.

“It’s early days but it’s been very positive in terms of reactions from our official Porsche customer data base,” he said.

“We can see that it’s already developed quite a lot of positive sentiment and we have a number of people who have put down an expression of interest. That’s now in the hundreds.”

The German sports car manufacturer will show off the Mission E concept in Barangaroo, Sydney, for the next two weeks. The ground-breaking concept was first revealed to the world at the 2015 Frankfurt motor show and has been flown out to Australia from Germany for display.

“It was important for us to be able to showcase this concept car to people and to show that it’s real and coming. To see it in the flesh with your own eyes makes a huge impact to people,” Andreevski said.

“Barangaroo, Sydney, is an ideal location for us. There’s a young urban lifestyle and it’s particularly relevant for us as a target market.”

The Porsche Taycan’s Aussie arrival will coincide with a network of highway charge locations that will initially cover the eastern seaboard of Australia, parts of Western Australia and Adelaide, along with home charging infrastructure and destination charging at dealerships and other end points.

Andreevski said it was important that the Taycan arrived with an established infrastructure network, along with adequate home-charging options. Porsche recently confirmed the car would be fitted with an 800-volt battery pack that will be compliant with a wall box for fast charging at home.

It is understood the production Taycan will employ a ‘Type 2’ plug already used by numerous manufacturers.

“The most important thing is that 80 per cent of charging for a vehicle like this will always be done at home and we have a lot of experience in that regard with our plug-in hybrid vehicles. We’re quite confident with that solution that will be in place when people purchase the vehicle,” Andreevski said.

“The other bits that we need to work on is destination charging and a high performance charging network for interstate travel. That’s where we will look at what’s available. There are a number of consortiums that are beginning to take shape and we will partner with one of those in time of the car’s launch.”

Like the Mission E, the Porsche Taycan will be powered by two permanently excited electric motors boasting a hefty combined output of 440kW, accelerating the Taycan to 100km/h in less than 3.5 seconds, Porsche claims.

Like Tesla’s Dual-Motor system, the Porsche Taycan has one motor driving the rear wheels, the other driving the front wheels.

But performance isn’t the only goal set for the Porsche Taycan, the manufacturer declaring the prestige sedan can achieve up to 500km of range before the battery pack needs recharging.

That matches the range of its chief rival, the Tesla Model S sedan, but the Porsche Taycan will be much quicker to recharge.

With the use of a 350kW fast-charging system, it will be possible to enable 100km worth of range with just four minutes of charge, meaning a full battery charge in less than 20 minutes.

Porsche will not provide any indication on the price of the Taycan in Australia, but it’s expected to be priced below the Panamera (from $214,400) and in line with the Tesla Model S, which opens at about $125,000 for the most basic 75D variant and tops out at under $250,000 drive-away for the quicker, more powerful P100D flagship.