Staff reports
Is there finally a car that is capable of making Tesla sit up and take notice? It certainly looks that way as Porsche’s first foray into an all-electric sports car, the Taycan, has been designed — and proven — to reach full power output even when accelerating multiple times in direct succession.
In fact, numerous hot laps around a circuit are no problem for the Zuffenhausen charmer.
In an initial test, a pre-series version of this 440 kW (600 PS) all-wheel drive car accelerated from 0–200 km/h 26 times in succession. The Sprint Challenge was held at an airfield in Lahr in southern Baden. Average acceleration times documented on the “Fully Charged” YouTube channel were just under 10 seconds. The difference between the fastest and the slowest attempts was a mere 0.8 seconds.
The test runs were carried out in both directions on the airport’s taxiway. The entire strip, about 2.3 kilometres long, was used during the tests. The outside temperature was 82.4 degrees Fahrenheit.
According to Porsche, a full range of technical innovations in the Taycan guarantees breathtaking acceleration figures, traction power typical of a sports car and a superior, permanently-available power output.
- The two powerful electric motors at the front and rear axles are the so-called permanently excited synchronous motors (PSM). They feature a rotor with high-grade permanent magnets that generate a natural magnetic field. As a result, the rotor moves in sync with the magnetic rotating field of the stator, hence the name PSM. A pulse inverter specifies the frequency of the rotating field in the stator, therefore determining rotor speed. The design, function and excellent thermal behaviour of permanently excited synchronous motors allow them to deliver the high performance typical of Porsche.
- A special feature of the Taycan’s electric motors is the so-called hairpin winding, in which the solenoid coils of the stator consist of rectangular rather than round wires. The wires are bent, and before they are inserted into the stator’s laminated core their shape looks like a hairpin – hence the name “hairpin”. The open ends are welded together using a laser beam. Hairpin technology makes it possible to pack wires in a more condensed way and therefore integrate more copper into the stator. This increases power output and torque at the same level of volume. Another important advantage for a high-performance car like the Taycan is that a hairpin stator can be cooled considerably more efficiently.
- The Taycan is the first production vehicle with a system voltage of 800 volts rather than the normal 400 volts for electric cars. Among other things, this delivers continuous high power and charging capacities to enable both fast driving and fast loading, while also reducing the weight of the high-voltage cabling.
- In combination with the drive train concept (PSM and 800-volt technology), thermal management ensures a high reproducibility for when power is demanded. The cooling system is tailored to the needs of the individual vehicle and enables the performance, which is typical of a sports car, to be achieved multiple times in succession when required. Porsche has achieved a wide spread between performance and range. In winter, intelligent thermal management also enables efficient and demand-oriented heating functions.
The Taycan has a top speed of over 155 mph. It accelerates from 0–62 mph in significantly less than 3.5 seconds and its lithium-ion battery has a gross capacity of around 90 kWh. The Taycan will be presented in September and launched onto the market at the end of the year.