Porsche Taycan: 2020 carsales Car of the Year Highly Commended

The Porsche Taycan is one of the two Highly Commended models in the 2020 carsales Car of the Year awards, proudly presented by Bingle.

One of the most hotly anticipated models to be launched in 2020, the Porsche Taycan shows that high-performance driving and zero-emissions motoring can go hand in glove.

The four-door electric sports sedan also is a tantalising taste of a future in which established brands look set to resume the luxury and performance mantel usurped by EV start-ups.

In short, the Porsche Taycan, unlike any other vehicle, will change the way you think about EVs.

Priced from under $200,000 – well under Porsche’s own 911 and our $250K COTY price limit – the three-variant range opens with the dual-motor Taycan 4S, making all-wheel drive standard across the line-up.

In entry-level form, the all-electric Taycan produces up to 390kW on overboost and has a 365km range – yet can hit 100km/h in four seconds flat. An optional higher-capacity battery, which takes the price to just over $200K, raises those numbers to 420kW and 414km.

The same battery pack powers the 500kW/850Nm Porsche Taycan Turbo to 100km/h in 3.2sec and extends the range to 420km, and the top-shelf Turbo S delivers even more stratospheric numbers: 560kW, 1050Nm and a hypercar-like 0-100km/h figure of 2.8sec – and its range is still 405km.

That’s violently quick in anyone’s language, but the Taycan feels even quicker than its 911 namesakes due to its instant torque and its near complete lack of mechanical noise.

The other thing the numbers don’t show is just how accessible the first Porsche EV’s performance is, time after time, as Editor-in-Chief Mike Sinclair found when he drove the Turbo and Turbo S at the Taycan’s global launch in Munich in October 2019.

“It is the first EV that delivers repeatable real-world high-performance: viciously fast point to point, yet comfortable and quiet when it needs to be; launch control starts, 10, 20, 30 in a row; and a 260km/h top speed not for one kilometre but dozens,” he said.

Nor do the numbers convey the Taycan’s uncanny ability to combine straight-line speed with the kind of dynamic prowess never before seen in a battery-electric production car.

Or the fit, finish and quality of materials that grace an opulent four- or five-seat interior that oozes luxury and is packed with all of the latest safety, driver-assist and multimedia technologies.

Many things had to change in 2020 and the carsales COTY process was one of them. The tweaks in no way detract from the overall victory of the brilliant new Kia Sorento, in the absence of which the Taycan would almost certainly have been crowned our 2020 COTY.