What's all this about?

Porsche has updated its quite brilliant Taycan electric vehicle (EV). It has applied various technical and equipment updates to the entire family of cars, which means the regular saloon, the Sport Turismo estate and the Cross Turismo lifestyle off-roader wagon all benefit from this programme of improvements. Quite astoundingly, Porsche has seen fit to give the Taycan more power.

You what? How much more power?

A lot, frankly. For both the Taycan and the Taycan Sport Turismo, the lines run the standard single-motor, rear-wheel-drive version with no suffix badging, then go 4S, Turbo and finally Turbo S. For the Cross Turismo, there's a slight variance at entry level, due to its go-anywhere capabilities, so there is no single-motor derivative and the range instead kicks off with the Taycan 4 Cross Turismo, before going up the same 4S-Turbo-Turbo S hierarchy as the other body types.

Porsche hasn't, as yet, detailed the power increases on all of these cars, but it's happy to outline the bookends of the range to give you a clue as to what's going on. So the basic single-motor Taycan used to have 280kW in normal operation and 350kW during a time-limited boost phase, which equates to 380- or 476hp accordingly. It now has an additional 60kW (82hp), meaning it runs 462hp in normal operation anyway. No word on the final peak output, yet Porsche says this car can now run the 0-62mph benchmark sprint fully 0.6 seconds quicker, with a best time of 4.8 seconds.

That's as nothing to the Turbo S, though. If you thought 460kW/625hp nominal and then 560kW/761hp on boost were huge figures for the Taycan EV before, Porsche reckons otherwise and has doled another 140kW of peak output in the Turbo S model's direction when it's in Launch Control mode. This raises its peak power to 700kW. And that equates to... wait for it... 952hp. That's officially the most powerful road-going car Porsche has ever put out, eclipsing the 918 Spyder, and it slashes what was already a brain-scramblingly quick 0-62mph time of 2.8 seconds down to 2.4 seconds.

Good grief! And is that all Porsche has done, made it outrageously fast?

Nope. It has enhanced the larger Performance Battery Pack (PBP), which is now 105kWh in size rather than the 93.4kWh it was before; they're gross figures, by the way, previously the Taycan had 83.7kWh usable if you had the bigger battery pack. Nevertheless, the new, larger battery means that Porsche can now claim a maximum driving range of up to 421 miles (spec depending), an increase of 35 per cent in the car's one-shot capabilities when compared to the longest-distance pre-facelift model (301 miles from the rear-drive Taycan saloon with the PBP).

You can also charge that battery faster, because the 800-volt architecture of the Taycan has allowed Porsche to up the peak DC ultra-rapid charging speed by 50kW to 320kW outright. This means that in 15 degrees Celsius temps on its fastest connection, you should now be able to get the EV from 10-80 per cent battery state of charge in 18 minutes, less than half the 37 minutes the same job required previously.

Porsche has even increased the rate at which the brakes harvest otherwise-lost kinetic energy when decelerating in the Taycan, putting it up to 400kW from 290kW previously. That's a more than 30 per cent gain in efficiency.

It's all sounding good. Anything else you need to add on the technical side of things?

A few bits and bobs. Porsche has made the revised Taycans up to 15kg lighter than their predecessors, despite the fact they get more equipment as standard than before, while every version is fitted with aerodynamically optimised 21-inch wheels wearing reduced-rolling-resistance tyres. There's revised thermal management too, with a new generation of heat pump fitted to the car.

Every model also now comes with adaptive air suspension as standard, although buyers can opt to go for Porsche Active Ride Suspension, which uses clever tech to prevent body roll, pitch and dive before it even happens.

Besides this, there is some minor tidying of the exterior looks - the Taycan has new front wings and flatter headlights with matrix HD LED illumination, as well as an optional light-up rear 3D boot badge and a fresh, exclusive colour for the Turbo/Turbo S variants, which is called Turbonite - while inside the digital displays have been tweaked. There's greater in-car connectivity too, and also the In-Car Video app, which allows video streaming on the central Porsche Communication Management infotainment and passenger-side displays.

So with all this in mind, can you give me some UK prices?

We can. The Taycan saloon starts at £86,500 for the single-motor model, rising to £95,900 for the 4S, £134,100 for the Turbo and a chunky £161,400 for the Turbo S. If you want a Sport Turismo body instead for any of these powertrains, you need to add £800 to the prices of each of the first two and £700 for the Turbos, meaning the estate range starts at £87,300 and culminates at £162,100.

The Cross Turismo is a little different, as it cannot be specified with the smaller battery and comes with the PBP across the board. This, coupled with its twin-motor specification at base level, makes it look expensive as a Taycan 4 Cross Turismo (from £96,800) or a Taycan 4S Cross Turismo (£100,400), increases of £9,500 and £3,700 over the (roughly) comparable alternatives. However, the Turbo and Turbo S derivatives are only 400 quid more than the same Sport Turismo models, with prices at £135,200 and £162,500.

All of these are available to order now from Porsche Centres across the UK, although there is no word yet on a facelifted version of the Taycan GTS - we're sure it'll be on the way soon, though.

Matt Robinson - 6 Feb 2024