One thing we know for sure is that there will be a Taycan Cross Turismo – that’s a variation on Sport Turismo,
Porschesprechen for wagon – variant.
It’s confirmed for production, and also for the U.S., Porsche reps tell us. And we also know that Porsche is already concerned it won’t be very successful in North America. Porsche’s North American CEO, Klaus Zellmer, told our West Coast Editor James Riswick that in the U.S., the Sport Turismo makes up about 10% of Panamera sales. American buyers view it as sitting
below the regular Panamera sedans, in stark contrast to Europe where the Sport Turismo represents half of sales. We think a Taycan Cross Turismo will be a niche model, and perhaps not offered in every powertrain variant.
Which variants below the Turbo and Turbo S will be sold? A GTS seems likely as a special model with a performance orientation, offering desirable extra equipment as standard but with lower output than the Turbo. It’s a standard across all Porsche model lines historically, although the
Macan and
Cayenne aren’t currently offered as such but have been in the past and may again be in the future. An offering below GTS would make sense, too. We’re hearing the possibility of a rear-drive, single-motor base model, although we haven’t been able to pin Porsche down on this beyond the general relationship between Panamera and Taycan offerings.
But others have heard hints that this will be the case.
Alex Roy heard late last year from a Porsche Global Brand Ambassador that a base Taycan, a 4S and Turbo will be sold, although this didn’t predict the Turbo S. And way back in late 2017,
Georg Kacher at Automobile, who is generally well-sourced, heard that there will be three powertrain variants at roughly 400, 536 and 670 horsepower, and a rear-drive model might be considered after launch. Again, this didn’t predict the Turbo S, which may not have been finalized when these conversations were happening. But they both point to Porsche considering a lower-powered model. The base Panamera makes 330 horsepower, and so 400 sounds about right for the base Taycan.
What we can say is this: There’s a $65,800 spread between a base Panamera ($87,200) and a Panamera Turbo ($153,000 non-hybrid). If we apply that rough math to the Taycan Turbo, which closely matches the Panamera Turbo’s price at $153,510, we are hoping that a base rear-drive Taycan could hit the market at around $90,000.
The caveat being that there’s no guarantee that Porsche will offer a Taycan at such a low spec. Zellmer told Riswick that the Taycan rides on a “very expensive platform” – essentially “spaceship technology,” to use his hyperbolic wording – and it’ll be exclusive to high-end Taycan and
Audi E-Tron models. Whether you read that as Zellmer saying that there won’t be a model below the Taycan using this platform, or that they won’t offer base trims, is open to interpretation.
At a minimum, we’re excited to see how the Taycan’s sleek styling works in production wagon guise.
The spy shots look exceptionally promising. Until then, the
Taycan configurator is live on Porsche’s site, if you want to spec your own Turbo or Turbo S out.
