While the Porsche Taycan 4S which recently hit US shores is currently the cheapest Porsche Taycan that you can acquire, by a long shot, it will not end up being the cheapest Taycan option forever, as a single-motor variant of the electric car is still coming our way.
If you know anything about Porsche’s naming conventions, you will have notices that there is no simple “Taycan”, there is a Taycan 4S, Taycan Turbo, and Taycan Turbo S. This leaves a hole to be filled by an entry-level model as every other Porsche model has a regular base trim with nothing added on to the name. Given that Porsche had opted to use the “Turbo” nomenclature for their Taycan, despite obviously not having a turbo, it seems likely that the Taycan will follow the same naming convention.
Recently Taycan, R&D chief Dr. Michael Steiner told CAR that an entry-level version of the Taycan was still coming, presumably filling that hole:
“There will be entry-level models coming off the Taycan. There will be a rear-wheel drive model with a smaller battery to make it more accessible price-wise, especially for markets that don’t need 4wd – places like China, where weather conditions mean you don’t need it.”
The question on everyone’s mind will no doubt be how much cheaper the base Taycan can become. If we take a look at the 911 and the difference in price between the base and Turbo S models, we can hazard a very rough estimate of the upcoming price.
The current 911 starts at $97,400 while the Turbo S version costs $203,500, representing a roughly 2.09x increase in price. If we apply that to the base price of the Taycan Turbo S at $185,000, then we get a rough estimate of about $88,550.
While Porsche is adamant about not having Tesla as its direct competitor, this new price would put it right in the middle of the price points between the Long Range Model S and the Performance Model S. However with a single motor I do not imagine that it will be anywhere in the same league as the Performance Model S when it comes to specs and with Porsche’s EPA range troubles (despite real-world tests showing that the range is pretty good), I doubt it will compete well with the range of the Long Range Model S.
I doubt the price will fit that simply into the ratio as I’m comparing the price difference an electric car and gasoline car, but it should at least be in the mid-$90k range as the Taycan 4S is already in the low-$100k price point
What do you guys think the price of the entry-level Taycan will be? Will the performance losses from only having a single motor make the car not even worth it at that point? Let us know down in the comments below.
