An upgraded version of the Nurburgring-smashing 2024 Porsche Taycan is just about ready for its global reveal and has now entered its final stage of development before being launched in Europe in March.
Accompanying this announcement was some now-traditional testing imagery and a development video showing off the Taycan doing what it does best in the extreme cold of Finland and extreme heat of California while wearing minimal camouflage, giving us our best look yet at the new electric sports sedan (the Sport Turismo wagon has been dropped).
The 2024 Taycan doesn’t look especially different at first glance, save for a few altered lines here and there – likely done in the name of aerodynamics and that’s not a bad thing in our book given the Taycan is one of the most recognisable vehicles on Aussie roads.
Porsche says the prototypes have covered a collective 3.6 million kilometres during testing, making the development program almost as rigorous as that of an all-new model on account of the extensive upgrades for new model year.
The German brand is yet to go into detail about what’s changed on the Taycan, but previous intel suggests the chassis, battery hardware, motors and overarching software have all been changed for the better, thereby yielding more performance, efficiency and better dynamics.
We know this to be accurate given the new flagship model – thought to be known as the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT – lapped the infamous Nordschleife in 7min7sec, which was just two seconds off the 7min5sec time set by the 1408kW Rimac Nevera hypercar.
The time was also 28sec quicker than the 760kW Tesla Model S Plaid and 26sec faster than the outgoing Porsche Taycan Turbo S, which the GT Turbo will take over from as the ultimate Taycan variant.
Porsche was predictably thrilled with the result, which can also be seen as an indication of the improvements made to the lower grades, with the most efficient versions set to eclipse 500km of ‘real-world range’ from a single charge.
Taycan model line vice-president Kevin Giek said the updated version has been improved in “practically every discipline compared to its predecessor”, which is why it was subject to such an intense testing regime.
Odds are the new Taycan will debut in February, allowing some breathing room for the reveal of the second-generation (and all-electric) Porsche Macan SUV late tomorrow – 11:30pm AEST on January 25. Both the new Macan EV and updated Taycan are due to arrive Down Under in the second half of this year.
Before then and opening a trifecta of new models from the German performance car brand this year will be the third-generation 2024 Porsche Panamera sedan, which arrives here in the first half of the year.