The Porsche Taycan enters its final validation phase

Everything is ready for the market launch of the new Porsche Taycan, which is in its final testing phase before entering production.

Porsche is neither the first nor will it be the last brand to head to the Arctic Circle for the final testing and validation phase of an electric car, as is the case with the new Porsche Taycan. Recently we have also seen new electric cars from BMW or the §3Audih10§ evolving on Arctic ice, among others.

But at Porsche they want everything tied down before the launch of their first fully electric sports car.

And at the same time that the brand’s German engineers are testing the performance of the propulsion system, the batteries or the chassis control systems of the Taycan in Scandinavia, another fleet of pre-series Porsche Taycan units is being subjected to the high temperatures of Dubai, or to the extreme road conditions in several countries of Southern Africa. It also travelled to Africa Audi with its e-tron.

Real and virtual simulations

In total, during its testing phase the Porsche Taycan is covering more than 30 countries around the world, and has been subjected to temperatures from -35 to +50 degrees Celsius, not to mention the hours of testing on virtual simulators. Indeed, these have also played a major role: Porsche has completed more than 10 million “digital” kilometres with virtual models, many of them at the Nürburgring, where the simulations deliver lap times below 8 minutes.

These are some of the most relevant figures that Porsche provides about the Taycan’s on-road testing phase:

• More than 1,000 people involved from the development department, including test drivers, technicians and engineers
• More than 30 countries visited around the world, in the USA, China, the United Arab Emirates and Southern Africa as well as Europe
• Testing altitude: up to 3,000 metres above sea level
• Total distance covered: around 6 million kilometres, of which 2 million were long-duration tests
• Charging cycles completed: around 100,000

If you’re a little curious, you’ve surely done the same calculation we did: the kilometres driven divided by the charging cycles, to get an idea of the real-world range during testing.

Forget it, the resulting figure is 60 km. Or a zero has slipped into Porsche’s charging cycle count, which we doubt. Because if not, that would mean 600 km of real-world range on every battery charge, which seems practically impossible to us. In fact, Porsche still advertises a range for the Taycan of “more than 500 km”, but on the NEDC cycle, so it will come in at just over 400 on the WLTP cycle.

Rather, the figure in question has less to do with mileage and more to do with the endurance and performance of the batteries individually under different charging and temperature conditions.

Let’s remember that the Porsche Taycan will reach the market in September, and that the brand recently announced it already has more than 20,000 interested buyers who have put down 2,500 euros as a reservation deposit.

More information about the Porsche Taycan:

• Porsche Taycan, the first electric sports car from Porsche
• The Porsche Taycan appears in the advert for the new DJI Mavic 2 drone
• Porsche confirms the arrival of the Taycan Cross Turismo

Technical specifications of this car

HatchbackPorsche Taycan22 versions · from 106,252 €