Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo Review 2024

Given that sister company Audi has built such a solid following with its high-performance RS estate cars over the years, it’s something of a surprise that we’ve had to wait until the dawning of the all-electric age for Porsche to get in on the act. But now it has, in spades. As our Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo review will explain, it has created a perfectly practical estate that is also one of the very finest driving all-electric cars you can buy.

The ever-burgeoning list of rivals for the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo includes the Mercedes EQS, the lavish BMW i7 and the mechanically similar Audi e-tron GT, as well as the driver-focused Jaguar I-Pace, and even the serious performance of Kia’s EV6 GT for a lot less dosh.

The most obvious rival, though, is the Tesla Model S, which offers similar performance and range, but is significantly cheaper. However, we should point out that the Tesla also feels very much cheaper in the build quality, cabin design and ride and handling departments…

The Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo is unquestionably a good-looking car. And how refreshing it is to find that the increasingly ubiquitous ‘divot’ at the back of the front wing actually serves a purpose here, ducting air down the sides of the car with what Porsche calls an ‘air curtain’ to make an already slippery shape carve along even more cleanly.

On board, and focused on a curved driver’s instrument binnacle which subtly apes the five-dial design from the Porsche 911 of the 1960s, we find a cabin that’s the very antithesis to the ever-increasing lashings of bling common in so many of today’s premium machines.

True, it is a very monochrome, workmanlike environment, but it’s fantastically well made, ergonomically superb and, despite the front seat design being focused on the drive rather than cosseting its occupant, extremely comfortable.

Headroom has increased over that of the standard Porsche Taycan by just a whisker up front, and a healthy 45mm in the rear seats, where a rather small door aperture gives access to just about enough room for two six-footers to sit one behind the other.

Priced between £80,200 and £149,300, there are five different versions of the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo to choose from – Sport Turismo, 4S Sport Turismo, GTS Sport Turismo, Turbo Sport Turismo and Turbo S Sport Turismo.

Porsche doesn’t really do trim levels, so moving up a model usually involves ever more power and undercarriage trickery rather than extra equipment and additional design features.

Our Driving section of this review will provide the details in depth. But all you need to know here is that, across the range, battery power rises from 79.2kWh to 93.4kWh, maximum power climbs from 408PS to 762PS and 0-62mph times fall from 5.4 seconds to just 2.8 seconds.

The ‘runt of the litter’ – the ‘entry-level’ Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo which we’ve driven most recently – is no runt at all.

It’s the only model in the range to sport just one motor, driving the rear wheels, and rides on steel springs chaperoned by the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) system. It’s such a joy to drive, you almost forget it’s electric.

The ride’s delightfully supple – never jarring yet always informative, abetted by a front axle that doesn’t have to share directional responsibilities with power delivery.

The steering’s all you’d expect from a gently portly Porsche, grip levels are remarkable and the brakes, despite needing something of an initial shove to get them interested in reining in over two tonnes of car, do the job required of them.

All of which equates to calm, stately, rapid and pleasingly quiet motorway progress, plus the capacity to effortlessly soak up the most sinuous of A roads at a fluid pace.

And such is the quietness of progress that you’ll regularly find yourself travelling faster than your senses suggest. A sporting EV to make you smile; rare indeed.

Porsche claims driving ranges of anything from about 222 miles at worst to over 300 on a sunny day with the wind behind, but all models benefit from 800v charging, and with it the potential to top up the battery from 5-80% in just over 22 minutes. Or, indeed, inhale 60 miles of driving range in just five-and-a-half minutes.

Unfortunately in order to use the car’s 270kW peak charging capacity, you’ll need to find an 800v charger, which in the UK is no easy task. 

You’d expect a car 4963mm long to conjure a generous wheelbase, and with a figure of 2900mm the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo doesn’t disappoint.

However, where the adoption of that boxy rear end makes for an extra 45mm headroom over the standard Porsche Taycan in the rear seats, there is less legroom in the back than we expected. 

Two six-footers can sit one behind the other, and a floor full of batteries has been articulated sufficiently to allow feet to slide under the front seats. However, knee room isn’t exactly generous compared to, say, the Audi e-tron GT, which shares this wheelbase length.

Perhaps the generous depth of the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo’s loadspace is to blame – it could be accused of stealing just an inch or two too much. 

Accessed via a powered tailgate, 446 litres of loadspace will expand to a sizeable 1212 litres with the rear seats folded flat. There is also an 84 litre ‘frunk’ under the bonnet, which, with a handsome variety of charging cables already safely stored underfloor at the back, is valuable extra storage space.

Unsurprisingly, the driving position’s first class, with firmish yet reassuringly snug fitting seats and a steering wheel that - but for those maddeningly popular warts on the inside of the rim sited exactly where some will wish to hold on – is a masterclass in sizing and tactility.

As a bonus, and somewhat at odds with a cabin dominated by finger-hungry screens, none of the steering wheel-mounted switchgear is touch-sensitive, including a roller-knob volume control, which is easy, fast and accurate. Perfect.

Some may find the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo’s interior a tad sombre, but we rather relish the focus on the cockpit as a workplace, with the minimal distractions of bling that this entails.

You can add a little colour to the trim and upholstery, but mercifully the choices of hue are not remotely shouty. And it is all beautifully built, with no hint of creak or squeak to be encountered anywhere.

The removal of moving parts presumably plays a large part in this perceived solidity: the only physical switchgear in evidence is mounted particularly stylishly on the steering wheel spokes, whilst even the air vents lack any means to adjust them by hand – you must control the airflow from the 8.4-inch touchscreen in the centre console.

As a result, we never did quite work out how to stop the vents blowing air directly into our face.

With the exception of the steering wheel-mounted volume control, every single Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo infotainment function is committed to three digital screens – or four if you include the optional passenger side fascia screen which allows your travelling companion to work on their back-seat driving skills from the front.

The driver’s instrument cluster is a rakish, cowl-free 16.8-inch digital screen with strong overtones of the classic 911 five-dial binnacle from 1963, although the outer two dials are no longer represented and the space given over to touch control of the lights and suspension settings.

Although stylish, the only downside to this screen is that it’s wider than the steering wheel, so some functions hide behind the wheel rim.

The main event is a 10.9-inch infotainment screen mounted atop the centre console. After a little head scratching and exploratory stabbing, it proves reasonably intuitive to use, and adequately quick in response to inputs.

Menus include all the toys you’d expect to find here, from sat-nav to DAB radio, and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are also on hand.

A separate 8.4-inch touchscreen below controls the air-conditioning, and also features a text input pad for entering sat-nav addresses and so on.

But in what world is index finger scrawl quicker than simply tapping the letters on a keypad alphabet? Especially if you’re not left-handed.

At the time of writing, the least expensive Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo will set you back a minimum of £80,200.

However, the car we drove effortlessly absorbed some £10,000-worth of optional extras, including the four-and-a-half grand Performance Battery Plus to add considerable extra range. 

Once you enter the realms of all-wheel drive with the Porsche Taycan 4S Sport Turismo, pricing begins at £91,700 – or over £96,000 with the beefier battery.

That’s still below the bottom line for a Mercedes EQS or BMW i7, yet nearly ten grand more than the cheapest Audi e-tron GT, and a nice second car more than the entertaining Jaguar I-Pace.

From here on up the range, every Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo variant boasts both twin-motor all-wheel drive and the larger 93.4kWh battery: the Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo costs from £111,200, the Porsche Taycan Turbo Sport Turismo from £126,800 and the Porsche Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo from £149,300. 

So what you’re paying for is increasingly cunning suspension and chassis electronics, plus greater speed.

The two least expensive versions of the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo are equipped with a 79.2kWh battery pack (71.0kWh usable).

This gives the single motor Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo a quoted WLTP range of 222-268 miles and, strangely, the twin motor Porsche Taycan 4S Sport Turismo a fractionally greater range of 222-274 miles.

The remaining three twin-motor variants, the Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo, Porsche Taycan Turbo Sport Turismo and Porsche Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo all boast a larger 93.4kWh battery pack (83.7kWh usable) and quoted WLTP ranges of 263-304 miles, 263-395 miles and 267-285 miles respectively.

The smaller battery, charging with AC at 9.6kW, will go from 0-100% capacity in 9.5 hours, that figure reducing to 4.5 hours with a 22kW charge.

Oddly, whilst these figures are matched by the larger battery in the Porsche Taycan Turbo Sport Turismo, those of the same larger battery in the Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo increase to 5.0 and 10.5 hours respectively.

All models benefit from 800v charging, and with it the potential to top up the battery from 5-80% in just 22-and-a-half minutes, or add 60 miles of driving range in just five-and-a-half minutes.

But in order to use the car’s 270kW peak charging capacity, you’ll need to find an 800v charger, which is not easy in the UK.

As with all pure-electric cars, the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo is currently road tax exempt. This will change in April 2025, however, when all EVs registered since April 2017 will be taxed at £165 per annum.

Porsche has managed to persuade a car that weighs over two tonnes in its most ‘basic’ form – and over 2.3 tonnes in variants equipped with all the bells and whistles – to ride and handle brilliantly.

So successful has been the company’s mechanical and electronic fettling, that even the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo – bereft of the sophisticated chassis and suspension systems that help keep the rest of the range on the straight and narrow – rarely gives you an inkling of its 2160kg handicap.

Equipped with steel-spring suspension including Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), and 19-inch aero wheels, the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo’s ride can certainly be described as firm, but it’s delightfully supple and always comfortable.

Despite its constant communication of road surface details to the driver, only the nastiest lumps and potholes intrude on its remarkable composure.

The perfectly sized and weighted steering wheel’s a delight to wield, offering both precision and more feedback than we can recall in any other EV.

Grip levels are outstanding, even without the bonus of all-wheel drive, and the car corners flat and hard despite the absence of the adaptive air-suspension and rear-wheel steering found further up the range.

It’s great fun, and the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo even keeps you entertained when you’re simply crunching out motorway miles…

One of the only times the Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo consistently reminds the driver of its weight is under braking. All Porsches are engineered to slow from 60-0mph faster than they accelerate from 0-60mph, so it isn’t as if the brakes don’t know their job.

It’s just that the first touch of the pedal does little but tell you that you’re dealing with something properly heavy here, and a good shove is required to get them seriously involved.

That you’re hurtling along in something heavy is also highlighted by Porsche’s decision to divorce throttle-lift regenerative braking from proceedings (with the exception of Sport+ drive mode) unless you activate it via a steering wheel mounted switch.

Actually, we think this is ideal engineering: lift off retardation in the manner of a standard automatic is exactly what’s called for when pottering in the urban environment. 

But on motorways and fast A-roads with the system deactivated, it’s amazing how much momentum that weight generates and how quickly the driver can learn to use it to range-extending advantage. 

From the Porsche Taycan 4S Sport Turismo upwards in the model range, adaptive air suspension including Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) and 20-inch wheels join the fray.

And the top-of-the-range Porsche Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo further adds Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus (PTV Plus), rear-axle steering and Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes (PCCB).

As a result, the way the car darts into corners and sticks to the road becomes even more impressive and more engaging, with our only caveat being the simultaneous additional weight.

Just how much of that added chassis and suspension sophistication is being put to work purely to disguise the weight gain? And might there, then, be an argument that the least expensive model in the range is the purest drive?

In the sportier drive modes, an augmented electric motor sound is piped into the cabin (called Porsche Electric Sport Sound) for a more theatrical experience – it changes tone when the higher speed gear is engaged. When it’s off, there’s very little wind or road noise to disturb you.  

The Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo’s 79.2kWh battery gives the car 326PS – and 408PS with launch control overboost.

Rear-wheel drive is courtesy of a two-speed gearbox to ensure that 0-62mph is despatched in 5.4 seconds without too much back-chat from the rear rubber, and maximum speed is 143mph.

Also using the 79.2kWh battery, the Porsche Taycan 4S Sport Turismo is equipped with both front and rear-axle motors for all-wheel drive.

435PS rises to 530PS with launch control overboost, giving a 0-62mph time of 4.0 seconds, and a maximum speed of 155mph.

Equipped with a lager 93.4kWh battery and all-wheel drive, the Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo’s powertrain generates 517PS rising to 598PS with overboost. 0-62mph takes 3.7 seconds, and maximum speed is 155mph.

Featuring the same powertrain ingredients, the Porsche Taycan Turbo Sport Turismo delivers 625PS and 680PS in launch control mode. 0-62mph acceleration is lowered to 3.2 seconds, and maximum speed rises to 162mph.

The Porsche Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo also features the 93.4kWh battery and two electric motors – with single gear transmission on the front axle and an acceleration-enhancing twin-speed gearbox at the back.

Power remains at 625PS but rises to a thumping 762PS with launch control overboost. Hence 0-62mph acceleration takes just 2.8 seconds. Top speed is 162mph.

The Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo has a five-star Euro NCAP crash test rating. Every model in the range comes with six-piston front brakes, traction and stability control, and LED matrix headlights. Tire Pressure Monitoring and cruise control are also standard. 

The Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo’s airbag system includes knee airbags for both front passengers and front and rear side impact airbags. Standard driver assistance systems include lane keep assist with traffic sign recognition and front and rear park assist.

Optional extras include a head-up display, lane change assist, night vision assist, a surround-view camera, and adaptive cruise control.

The Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo is not rated for towing.

The Porsche Taycan Sport Turismo standard equipment list includes LED matrix headlamps and Black exterior trim, steel-spring suspension including Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) and 19-inch Taycan Aero wheels.

The interior features an Accent Package in Black, front comfort seats (eight-way electric adjustment), partial leather interior, Porsche Communication management (PCM) including sat-nav and voice control, Porsche Connect with Apple CarPlay, wireless phone charging, 150-watt Sound Package Plus with 10 speakers, Advanced Climate Control (two zones), multifunction sports steering wheel in leather.

The Porsche Taycan 4S Sport Turismo builds on this specification with adaptive air suspension including Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) and Smart Lift function, 19-inch Taycan Turbo S Aero wheels, red brake callipers, LED main headlights including Porsche Dynamic Light System Plus (PDLS Plus) and black and high-gloss silver exterior trim.

The Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo further adds 20-inch Taycan Turbo S Aero wheels, tinted LED main headlights with matrix beam including Porsche Dynamic Light System Plus (PDLS Plus), Sport Design front apron and side skirts, high-gloss Black exterior trim and light strip with Black Porsche logo.

The interior features adaptive sports seats (18-way, electric) with memory package including steering wheel with electric height and fore/aft adjustment, seat heating front and rear, leather with Race-Tex features, Sport Chrono Package including GT multifunction sports steering wheel in Race-Tex and mode switch.

The Porsche Taycan Turbo Sport Turismo builds on this specification with Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus (PTV Plus) and Porsche Surface Coated Brakes (PSCB) with White callipers.

Interior equipment includes Accent Package Black, front comfort seats (14-way, electric) with memory package, seat heating front and rear, smooth-finish leather interior, Race-Tex roof lining and a BOSE Surround Sound System.

To this already comprehensive standard equipment list, the range-topping Porsche Taycan Turbo S Sport Turismo adds rear-axle steering, Porsche Ceramic Composite Brakes (PCCB) with Yellow callipers and carbon exterior trim inserts.

The cabin features front adaptive Sports Seats Plus (18-way, electric), with memory package, two-colour interior, Sport Chrono Package including GT multifunction sports steering wheel and mode switch, roof lining Race-Tex and a BOSE Surround Sound System.