Porsche Taycan Turbo S has an official EPA range, and it's not that great - Roadshow

Porsche's first EV should have Tesla very concerned, even if it can't keep up with the Big T's range.

Andrew Hoyle/Roadshow

Porsche's Taycan Turbo S may have a silly name, and its styling might not be to everyone's taste, but it's the first production EV to truly compete with Tesla on many levels, and frankly, it does more than compete in most of them.

The one area where Porsche (and everyone else) lags behind the Big T is in range, and this was shown to be the case when the EPA numbers for its Taycan Turbo model were published. Some people may have been hoping that the Turbo S would do better, but extra performance costs -- and in this case, it costs range.

How much range? Not a ton when compared to the non-S variant of the Taycan Turbo, just 9 fewer miles for a total of 192. That's a full 134 miles less than the current-generation Tesla Model S Performance (which boasts 326 miles, for those of you without a calculator handy). Here's the thing, though: In a practical sense, that's not a big deal.

The range discrepancy between the Porsche and the Tesla is big, but does it really matter?

FuelEconomy.gov

See, how often do you drive more than 192 miles straight through without a break? Going a step further, how often do you realistically drive more than 192 miles in a single day? My bet is that it's a strong "Not that often," on both counts.

It's likely that you, like most Americans, drive between 40 and 50 miles per day, and then your car sits at home, which is when, if you had an EV, you'd be charging it. So, even if you skipped a day or two, you're probably going to be OK with the Taycan S' less-than-class-leading range, especially since it excels in so many other areas like build quality, dealer network, handling, etc.

The moral of the story is that the Taycan should probably have a better range, but it's a stellar first effort from a legacy car company at building a world-beating electric vehicle. Tesla, for all its flaws, is very good at making EVs that are phenomenal to drive and offer excellent range, but it's been at it for a while now.

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