I wanted to go into my first drive of the 2022 Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo as objective as possible. It’s easy to say that a Porsche is brilliant and call it a day. But it’s different this time, because the Taycan Sport Turismo has to be both a good Porsche and a good EV.
Spoiler alert: It is. It is actually brilliant.
The GTS is the latest version in Porsche’s ever expanding Taycan lineup. Available as both a sedan and a wagon, the GTS is the driver’s-focused value of the lineup. It should function as a solid daily driver while being able to attack a back road like its nobody’s business.
This is also the first time we’ve seen the Sport Turismo variant on the Taycan in the United States. All of the other versions are called Cross Turismo, and are lifted a bit and designed for more rugged use.
The Sport Turismo is the same ride height as the Taycan GTS sedan, but all the practicality of the wagon. It also — along with the sedan — has a dual motor all-wheel drive setup.
The rear motor comes straight from the Taycan Turbo, while the front motor is from the 4s. In this guise it makes 590 horsepower on peak boosted power and 626 lb-ft of torque. The sprint to 60 mph should take 3.5 seconds and the Taycan GTS will top out at 155 mph. I have no reason to doubt those numbers.
The Porsche prescribed drive route for the day took the Angeles Crest Highway up to over 7,000 feet. Where there was snow. And rocks. Then back down to the city to get some electricity from an Electrify America station before returning to our hotel.
In Sport Plus mode, the Taycan drives like you’d expect from a sport sedan. The steering is nearly telepathic, with turn in being instant. There isn’t a lot of road feel, but there’s enough to tell what the front wheels are doing.
No matter how you enter a corner, even in the cold, or when you apply throttle, the Taycan GTS sorts it all out and you end up with a corner exit speed much quicker than you thought.
This is the first sporty electric that I’ve driven that feels like being a sports car was its top priority. Yes, you can feel the weight a bit more — it is a chonky boi at 5,152 pounds — but Porsche’s engineers have dialed nearly all of it out.
Additionally, in Sport Plus mode, when the transmission shifts from 1st to 2nd gear — yes, this car has two gears unlike most EVs — there’s a noticeable kick in the back. Combined with the performance sound that is unique to GTS, it’s an engaging experience.
Speaking of that performance motor sound. You can turn it off, and it’s off by default in Normal mode, but it sounds great. Porsche sampled motor sounds at various speeds and it sounds like you’re driving something that’s part spaceship, part racing car. When the transmission downshifts back to first gear, the sound even makes an audible blip like a PDK would.
Not only is the sound awesome, but it helps you better perceive how fast you’re going. The car is super quiet without it, so the added sensory experience makes it easier to judge corner entrance speeds. No, it’s not a real gasoline engine, but I don’t care.
Where the Taycan Sport Turismo GTS really impresses though is the day-to-day stuff. It has room for 5 people, and the rear headroom on the Sport Turismo is better than the sedan, which has a sloping rear roofline.
If you fold down the rear seats you get a cavernous 42.8 cubic feet of cargo storage. That’s not just enough room for a weekend getaway, but rather you could move your entire college dorm room in it.
It can get up to highway speeds and exploit gaps in traffic effortlessly in any driving mode.
The standard air suspension also smooths out all of the bumps better than it has any right too. Sure, it has a bit of a sporty edge all of the time, but the way it absorbs bumps is a near luxury car experience. This car is a road trip monster.
The car we tested was a European-spec vehicle, so some things we couldn’t use. Innodrive, for example, needs map coverage to work and the car didn’t have U.S.-based maps. Also the radio couldn’t pick up U.S.-based frequencies. But Apple Car Play worked, as did the adaptive cruise control. My test car even had a trick dimming glass roof that can block out some or all of the glass to keep the sun out.
At the Electrify America charging station, I plugged in with about an 11% state of charge. Porsche claims that the Taycan can charge at up to 270 kW, but peak rates can vary for a lot of different reasons. For what it’s worth, I did see 245 kW for a bit. What’s more important is that in the span of 8 minutes and 44 seconds, 32 kWh was added to the battery pack.
Obviously we need to spend more time with it, in U.S.-spec, to be able to give it a proper full evaluation, but our first drive has proved that while all EVs compromise somewhere, the Taycan GTS has some of the fewest compromises.
You can order one now before the hit U.S. shores in the spring of next year. The starting price for the sedan is $131,400 and the Sport Turismo starts at $133,300. Both prices are before the $1,350 destination and handling fee.
It’s an excellent road trip car. It’s an excellent daily driver. It’s an excellent sports sedan. It’s an excellent electric vehicle. It’s an excellent Porsche.
