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Comment by elonismycopilot | Hacker News Reader

>True, and the Taycan may well be a better car in many ways. But a discussion of the gearbox has nothing to do with handling or sports car feeling.

There isn't a single published metric in which the Performance Model S doesn't trounce the Taycan.

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Nurburgring Ring times. P100D has terrible thermal management and goes into limp mode before completing the course. If people really cared about 0 to 60 times, we see a lot more Dodge Demons on the road instead of 911s and Corvettes.

If Porsche can get price point for a regular Taycan below $100k, i'll gladly trade in my Porsche and Tesla for one because it does everything i want. I can drive canyon roads and never have to fill up.

Nurburing will be put to the test next week. To compare a 2014 model S or even p85 is pointless. Until then it is just another attempt at hand waving and cherry picking from Porsche.

> Nurburing will be put to the test next week.

Unlikely. The track is fully booked for a while. I know that Musk wants to get an apples-to-apples comparison between the two cars, but Musk needed to start working on this (starting with a Nurburing reservation) months ago.

I'm sure they'll get a test-run in within a few months, but there's no way they'll get the info within a week.

Lots of jeering on Twitter right now as Nürburgring is saying that Tesla does not have a lap reservation for them next week as Musk had claimed. https://twitter.com/RoadandTrack/status/1170044182808977408

> Porsche has tons of experience setting fast Nürburgring lap times, and a huge asset in the form of factory racer Lars Kern. The Model S Performance is a quick car, but Tesla has no prior experience attempting to lap the Nürburgring. It's hard to imagine the automaker could go out and beat Porsche on its first visit to the track.

Maybe they're hoping Autopilot will set the track record? LOL

Sure, and it's an ancient car, by EV standards. I'd hope that a Porsche that nobody has taken delivery of yet and costs way more is better.

Last time I was at the track (in my BMW M car, mind you) we had a couple of Model 3 Performance cars, and a couple of Model S.

I could pass the Model S with ease. I couldn't get close to the Model 3 Performance.

Model 3 performance needs ceramic brakes for the ring. Car is too heavy for the Brembos and it is at the limit for brake size.

The Taycan currently only comes with two brake options: carbon surface coated brakes or full carbon ceramic brakes.

Porsche have said in many interviews the coating is for cosmetics rather than performance.

Like most electric cars, when driving “normally” you don’t really ever touch the brakes as the energy regen that kicks in when you step off the accelerator pedal slows the car down so effectively. Porsche were worried the discs would develop unsightly surface corrosion from lack of use for some drivers - the coating keeps them looking good.

The Taycan freewheels when you take your foot off the accelerator and only regenerates when you hit the brakes. This is quite different than most other electric cars.

That's just a default configuration difference. You can configure it to do lift-off regen if you like. There's also a camera based auto-regen mode that can switch between coasting and regen based on the distance to the car in front.

Philosophically, Porsche believes it's easier to drive a car fast when one pedal is solely responsible for accelerating and one for braking. Having the throttle be responsible for acceleration and light braking makes it difficult to modulate speed consistently. You can even see the philosophy at work on their gasoline cars, in Sport+ mode the anti-lag system pretty much removes engine braking.

Primarily for cosmetics since it generates much less brake dust, but it's also has a shorter stopping distance due to increased coefficient of friction from increased contact area and seems to be more resistant to fade.

https://thebrakereport.com/porsche-surface-coated-brake-pscb...

Which seems pretty reasonable...large family sedan vs a sports sedan.

Besides, when the new Tesla roadster rolls out in 2020/2021, it is game over for everyone else anyway. At a price point of ~$200k, it'll kind of make the Porsche Taycan a joke. Unless you are a Porsche only individual. Which, to their credit, is a fairly sizable market.

I'm skeptical Tesla can even roll out the Model Y before 2021. Meeting deadlines has never been their strong suit.

Rimac pretty much stole the show in the electric supercar segment already.

Tesla's capex spending is lower than their depreciation, meaning they're not investing enough to maintain their existing production lines. There is no way they will be rolling out any new models any time soon.

Additionally the MS and MX interiors are starting to get a bit dated compared to the ultra-sleek Model 3’s interior - the MS’s interior design is still fundamentally unchanged since 2012. They did upgrade the infotainment system in early 2018 though, but that’s invisible to users who don’t notice smoother framerates.

Replying here because I can't to child.

Tesla's capex being lower than depreciation doesn't mean that they're not maintaining their production lines (but neither does it mean they're not - the two are largelty unrelated).

Depreciation is set by accounting policy, not by how much maintenance capex you'd need to spend to keep the facility in the same condition.

Side note, but when you see a missing reply option it's an attempt to slow down fast replies.

You can still reply though, you just need to click on the time stamp above the comment and you'll get a reply box for that comment.

From road and track: """At launch, Porsche will offer two versions of the Taycan—the Turbo and Turbo S. The Turbo will carry an MSRP of $153,510 at launch, while the Turbo S will cost $187,610. Both of those numbers are minus destination charge."""

I suppose that leaves room for a non-turbo (lol) Taycan closer to your prices sometime in the future.

What's the turbo doing?

I (lol)ed because "turbo" and "turbo-s" are a naming convention from their conventional cars that is fairly non-sensical on an electric car given that they don't have turbochargers.

Eg. Macan < Macan S < Macan Turbo

Of course, the two non-turbo Macan models above both turbochargers so the moniker really just means "the fastest model" in Porsche speak.

The combustion non-turbo 911s also have turbochargers, so yes, long time marketing label, not feature description.

hilarious :)

Plus the GT2RS has a turbo but doesn't have a turbo trim. And the various GT3 cars don't have a turbo.

That’s more a marketing thing and emissions driving them to use small turbo 4 cylinders. Up until 2-3 years ago the bae 911 was naturally aspirated

> that is fairly non-sensical on an electric car given that they don't have turbochargers

Lots of things have had "turbo" terminology over the years.

- PCs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Turbo_Boost

- Video games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II_Turbo%3A_Hyp...

- Folk music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-folk

In areas where it didn't already mean a very specific feature. If I bought a sound card and it had "turbo boost" I would laugh pretty hard too! And if Intel started selling 'turbo' processors that couldn't turbo, that might even be bad enough to get lawsuits...

I’m surprised people are getting so pedantic about using the Turbo moniker on an electric car. Sure, historically in cars it has typically referred to a type of forced induction commonly used on combustion engines, but it’s also been generally used to mean “FAST” in virtually every other marketing field for decades. I love cars, regardless of the means by which they generate forward motion, and couldn’t care less Porsche called this one a Turbo - it’s performance characteristics are entirely in keeping with what one expects from a Porsche with the Turbo branding.

There are a number of lower trims coming. Plain taycan will be single motor, I believe they mentioned a 4S that will be the lowest dual motor option and a GTS, all below the turbo.

Porsche has been saying all along the base taycan will be right around the base panamara price, around 90K. Makes sense since taycan shares rear suspension and interior parts with panamara, and unlike other ICE cars where BEV raises costs, the cost of motor + battery is likely to be around the price of a porsche engine. Panamara turbo is 150K just like taycan turbo as well.

Does the Taycan overheat and go into limp mode if you take it to the track?

The old Model S had a hard time keeping up with a Nissan Leaf on the track.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/16/how-did-a-nissan-leaf-b...

Does it pop glued coolant lines making you pay for track cleaning like the rest of track oriented Porsches? https://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-gt3-forum/592328-catastr...

if you're looking for the best car on paper, Porsche is probably not for you.

Well in terms of looks, charging network, city driving, autopilot, price and drag racing I'll take the Tesla. So far we've just seen a bunch of hand waving about how Taycan is better on the track... looks like there is a Model S being sent to Nurburgring to lay that to rest.

> looks like there is a Model S being sent to Nurburgring to lay that to rest.

It looks like that Model S might just be sitting next to the Nurburgring for a while once it gets there.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28942079/tesla-mod...

sounds like you're the target audience for tesla. nothing wrong with that, but everyone has their own taste. for the money, I'd much rather have the new GT4, but that's neither here nor there.

> charging network

The charging network available to the Taycan is the combination of different CCS charging network providers. They've been doing roaming deals with each other to simplify charging for their users. For example, Electrify America has roaming agreements with EVgo and ChargePoint:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/evgo-electrify-america-ch...

Road trips don't seem to be a problem in the Taycan. 408 miles, one 24 minute stop for charging:

https://www.carscoops.com/2019/09/porsche-taycan-makes-408-m...

There’s almost no chance Tesla is going to get anywhere near the Taycan. There’s been a few professional drivers who’ve given it a shot and breaking 9 minutes has been a challenge. For context, that’s the same lap time as a Mazda MX-5.

There’s almost zero chance Elon is going to find another 1:20 with the existing Model S. Just not going to happen.

https://youtu.be/Dphw4km60m4

At the end of the video the dude was barely able to break the 170 kph on straights.... The performance degradation throughout 2/3rds of a lap was atrocious. The driver was pretty decent considering he was hauling around a massive sedan, the guy knew the ring very well.

How about 0-60 or 1/4 mile where you haven’t spent 10 minutes warming the batteries first?

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