. . . I’ve taken numerous trips in many different electric cars, so I was never concerned about the Taycan even if its range did prove to be “just” 201 miles. But it’s now abundantly clear to me that the Taycan Turbo’s real world range is easily better that the number the EPA gave it.
My result of 287 miles of projected range in around-town driving shows that there’s ample cushion if you drive normally. It took 72.9 kWh to replenish the battery afterwards, and the math works out to a consumption rate of 34.8 kWh/100. That’s fully 29% better than the EPA rating of 49 kWh/100.
It's true that most EVs can exceed their rated range when driven prudently, but I've never seen this much margin on this course. Still, an EV's published range is conservative by design, the result of lopping 30 percent off the number generated by the EPA test protocol. As it happens, 201 miles is exactly what you get if you take 30 percent off my 287-mile result. I'm not saying that my course mimics the EPA EV test pattern exactly, but maybe this result says something about the by-the-book nature of Porsche's numbers in the context of the EPA procedure.
Better still, the numbers didn’t plummet on a more spirited road trip. Higher speeds and a bit of light hooning up a mountain had an effect, but it was nothing like I expected. My projected range was still more than 50 miles better than its official rating after all that. So let’s agree to stop wringing our collective hands about the 2020 Porsche Taycan Turbo’s range. It’s more than fine.
