Yahoo Finance Hello Taycan! Porsche unveils new electric sports car on three continents
Porsche live-streamed the launch of its first fully-electric sports car simultaneously on three continents on Wednesday, ahead of the Taycan’s motor show debut at Frankfurt next week.
The locations — Niagara Falls in North America, a solar park outside Berlin, Germany, and a wind farm in Fujian Province, China — were chosen to highlight three sources of sustainable energy. These are also the most important markets for the new sports car.
F1 driver and Porsche brand ambassador Mark Webber and Porsche chief executive Oliver Blume presented the electric car in Germany.
“This car ushers in a new chapter in our history,” Blume said at the Neuhardenberg solar plant.
The Taycan — a Eurasian word that means “lively young horse” — was first unveiled as the Mission E concept car in 2015. It is entirely new, built from the ground up, and can accelerate from 0-to-100kph (0-62 mph) in 2.8 seconds, and 0-to-200kph in 9.8 seconds, with a top speed of 260 km/h (161mph), with the combustion-engine equivalent of 760 horsepower. It will cover more than 300 miles on a single charge.
Porsche North America president Klaus Zellmer told Fortune that the Taycan will charge from empty to 80% in 15 minutes, twice as fast as its main rival, the Tesla Model S.
The Stuttgart-based company, which belongs to the Volkswagen Group, has received over 30,000 pre-orders for the premium electric sedan. The Taycan Turbo reportedly will be priced at a tick over $150,000 and the Turbo S at $185,000, a lot more expensive that its natural rival the Tesla Model S.
In March this year, sales and marketing board executive Detlev von Platen said the company was ramping up its production capacity to meet demand.
Porsche revealed the car’s interior last week, saying that inspiration for the Taycan dashboard design came from the original 911 from 1963. The Taycan is fitted with a 16.8-inch touchscreen, a separate control panel, and integrated Apple Music — a six month subscription to the streaming service is thrown in as standard.
Porsche said in March that it is aiming to offer a plug-in hybrid or full-electric version of more than half its models by 2025, and to electrify the entire vehicle range by 2030. It is investing over €6bn (£5.4bn, $6.6bn) in the next few years to kick off the electrification transformation.
READ MORE: Porsche aims for electric versions of all its models by 2030
