2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S Range Test: It Gets How Many Miles?

Porsche encounters bad press about as often as the Dalai Lama. About the roughest that things ever get is looking too lucky after winning Le Mans (for the numbing 19th time) in 2017 after the underdog Toyota conked out at the last moment.

Naturally, the Tesla community gloated. The Taycan appears to be Europe’s EV strike three after Jaguar and Audi swung and missed with the I-Pace’s (optimistic) 234 miles and the E-Tron’s 204. Meanwhile, the Tesla Model S Long Range Plus carries a claimed 390-mile range—nearly double the miles before you start getting nervous about finding a Supercharger.

So what happens when a third party—say, MotorTrend—goes outside the EPA’s test cycle and performs its own instrumented range test on the Taycan?

The Turbo S’ 192-mile range can’t be shrugged off with, “Well, the Taycan’s all about performance anyway, not range.” Would you buy a 911 Turbo S that stuttered to a stop at 192 miles? The population of fast charging stations is growing, but they’re still sparse. And if anything, their multiminute charge times (including the best of them) argue for even greater EV ranges than gas cars, so you wait at them less often.

But is the Taycan’s range really 201 and 192 miles? Porsche commissioned a test by independent testing firm AMCI, which came up with distances 37 percent (275 miles) and 45 percent (278 miles) greater over a mixed city/highway course, with city speeds capped by its posted limits, highway ones no more than 5 over, climate control in Eco mode, and the cars measured until they lapsed into limp mode.

Our pal Dan Edmunds drove a Taycan Turbo on a more urban-oriented route (in Range mode, cabin at 72 degrees, and Dan as the single occupant) that projected 287.2 miles. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a competitor of ours projected 209 miles from lapping a giant oval at a high(ish) 75 mph. (By the way, even huge-diameter corners add noticeable tire drag.)

Now it’s our turn, and MotorTrend does it with proper instrumentation, not guesstimation. We enlisted our partner in mileage testing, Emissions Analytics, which has conducted 726 tests over a standardized L.A. test course. It’s the largest real-world mileage-measuring program in the United States.

Their laboratory PEMS instrumentation measures the quantity of exhaust gas, and by sipping a sample of it into a gas analyzer, it can determine CO and CO2 percentages and hence how much fuel is being combusted. Of course, with an electric vehicle, that’s zero. The analyzer still came along for the ride as a GPS and OBD2 data-logger, letting us record the battery’s vital state of charge at higher resolution. The car was loaded to the standard 400 pounds and climate control set to 72 (though the A/C failed). Then Jesus Flores—the solar system’s most experienced mileage-testing driver—whirred away on their 88-mile loop, composed of repeated highway and city segments to monitor repeatability (and allow for data-cleaning).

To save you further suspense, here are our city, highway, and combined ranges for the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo S:

Switching to Range mode dithers the balance of city and highway a little, while combined is right down the middle between the high and low gutter balls to either side. Compared to the repeatability of our acceleration and figure-eight testing, it’s remarkable how squishy EV ranges can be, depending on how you test them.

Recharging at Electrify America’s fast chargers doesn’t let you doze or settle into a book like the old days—the Turbo S added 100 miles in 17 minutes at a 150-kW-hr unit (seeing a peak of 138) and 11 minutes at a super-powerful 350-kW-hr charger (peaking at 261 kW hr). Waiting for 150 miles needed 28 and 20 minutes, respectively.

But it’s long enough to declare the Taycan’s range makes the grade by a hair—my personal cutoff for acceptability is 250 miles of actual range. It’s comparable to the Bolt’s and Hyundai Kona EV’s. And those two don’t hit 60 mph in 2.4 seconds.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall, what’s the range before I stall? 254.