Porsche Taycan Turbo 2020 UK review

Will the UK’s narrower, bumpier roads put this 671bhp electric Porsche in its place? This, allegedly, is the year of the electric car. “Wait, wasn’t that last year, or the year before?” I hear you cry. Well, this time, we’re inclined to believe it. Or rather we were, were it not for a certain global pandemic forcing mass factory shutdowns and sending car company shares plunging at an alarming rate.This is the first year that new EU corporate fleet average emissions targets come into play, prompting certain manufacturers to flood the market with the lowest-CO2-emitting cars possible (namely, EVs and plug-in hybrids) to help avoid hefty fines.Trying to do this in a slowdown economy, where most people aren’t allowed to go to work and dealers are almost entirely off limits, is a near-impossible task. Estimates for new car sales in the coming months are bleak at best, understandably so, and this could put some makers in precarious financial situations.But, hey, there’s enough doom and gloom around these days. The new, all-electric Porsche Taycan is finally here, on British roads, and that’s something to celebrate, if our verdicts from launches abroad (remember going abroad?) are anything to go by.Having most recently driven the current ‘base’ Taycan – the 4S –and with a Turbo S set to undergo Autocar’s full road test treatment in the coming weeks, we find ourselves sliding behind the wheel of the middling Turbo. Not that 671bhp and nearly £116,000 really justifies the use of the term ‘middling’.Customers for a car in this price range – people who are unlikely to baulk at the £23,000 jump from Turbo to Turbo S – may see the 81bhp deficit between this and the S as substantial. But, actually, both cars reserve this maximum power rate for full-bore launch mode. In normal driving, both Turbo and Turbo S make an identical 617bhp.