Webber: Porsche Taycan is "unreal"

When the new Porsche Taycan electric super-sedan arrives in Australia in mid-2020, after its global reveal in September, potential customers will get a Porsche through-and-through.

That's the word from Australian F1 GP and Le Mans winner Mark Webber, whose input during development has helped shape the ground-breaking car's dynamics.

Moments after blasting up the hillclimb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in the UK on the weekend, Webber told carsales.com.au that Porsche’s first EV is a bona fide weapon.

"It's unreal mate. The power is just insane in Sport Plus mode. It's incredible."

With its 800-volt electric system and learnings from the Le Mans-winning 919 Hybrid racer, Webber said the Taycan will offer supercar performance beyond a 0-100km/h time of less than three seconds.

"I mean the 0-200km/h is going to be an impressive number," he said, grinning.

"This is something so new. I think what's been fascinating for us, and no other brand can really do this, is the link from the 919. So many ideas, the 800-volt battery, the packaging -- all that went across to the Taycan. And the people involved as well.

"Even for me, if I had not done driving in the 919 I think it would have been hard for me to help a lot with these guys on this car.

"Six million kilometres of testing they’ve done in the car. It’s based on performance – all performance. Range is slightly less of a priority. We're very excited about the repeatability on the 0-100km/h sprint," said Webber.

Webber explained that his job during the Porsche Taycan's development was mostly honing the dynamics, so it's fair to say there's a bit of Aussie influence in the new vehicle too.

"My job? I get pulled into the performance side of things.

"For me, of course, I'm looking at dynamics, torque vectoring, how we can do four-wheel steering. We need that because the car's heavy."

Despite a kerb weight expected to be well beyond 2000kg, Webber said the Taycan is pretty quick around the world's most challenging performance benchmark track, the Nurburgring.

"It's sub-eight [minutes] already on the Nordschleife," he said.

Details on the Tesla competitor have not been officially released but power output of around 450kW or 600hp is tipped and, as Webber explains, the all-wheel-drive EV will do skids if that's your jam.

"Yeah, you can play with all that," he confirmed when quizzed over whether the Taycan will do powerslides.

"Nobody is going to get in that car and be disappointed."

Constructed from a blend of carbon-fibre, aluminium and steel, the Porsche EV is based on the German company’s new J1 platform and will have a centre-of-gravity 80mm lower than the 911, thanks to the low positioning of its batteries.

The new Taycan EV is not a small vehicle, measuring 4850mm long and 1990mm wide, making it around 200mm shorter than the big Porsche Panamera but a little wider.

As a four-door vehicle it will offer more practicality than most Porsche sports cars and will be followed up by a jacked-up crossover wagon version dubbed the Sport Turismo, which will increase boot space even further.

Webber said the new car is "totally different to anything I've driven before" and admits it doesn’t provide the visceral feedback you get from a petrol-engine sports car like the Porsche 911.

"I've done quite a bit of mileage in it now and it definitely feels like a Porsche because of the way they’ve done the interface and the styling -- everywhere is Porsche inside, so it feels like you're in a Porsche.

"[But] Electric in general you don’t have a vibrating engine. The parts aren’t there -- there's no turbo, there's no torque curve, [no] running out of steam [at the rev limit].

Webber’s take on EVs is that opinions are changing. There's clearly demand for the car in Australia and overseas, and he explained that when a company like Porsche releases an electric car it cements the technology as legitimate.

"People are going on this journey of accepting that’s what automotive is [now]. I still love driving my GT3 RS – [I] drive it all the time, love it, it's great. And I’ll continue to drive it. But I'd be more than happy to have a Taycan."

The inaugural Porsche EV is generating a significant interest locally and globally, with almost 1000 expressions of interest in Australia alone – complete with cash deposits next to them. What's interesting is that close to half of those deposits are from customers who've never purchased a Porsche before.

In Norway, which has a car market about 10 per cent the size of Australia’s, there are already 2800 customers who have paid deposits and globally the interest is said to exceed 20,000 units.

Clearly, the new Taycan EV is creating quite the buzz (pun intended).