What comes to your mind when you see the word ‘Taycan’? If you aren’t new to these streets, it could mean the sudden surge of on-tap electric power delivery. Electric supercars are a new breed of motorsport athletism, but how would they fair off-road? Bijon de Kock of Novitec Group takes the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo off-road to find out if it’s any good.
The Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo is an exciting car. It is the practical go-anywhere all-electric version of the sports sedan variant.
You get high good ground clearance, a hatch, body cladding, and the X-factor - practicality. The Jeep Wrangler doesn’t need to hold its breath yet, but the Cross Turismo offers stiff competition to the Audi A6 Allroad and the Mercedes-Benz E-Class All-Terrain.
Kock agrees it isn’t your normal Taycan. It’s not just the 4S, but the Cross Turismo. It comes with the same type of all-wheel-drive system you get in a Taycan 4S, but with a much higher ground clearance. Where the normal Taycan pulls over, the Cross Turismo excels.
Porsche gace us a reveal video of the Taycan Cross Turismo in 2021, and if you had the chance to watch it, it’s developed to thrive on the road less traveled. Kock thinks the ‘Cross Turismo’ badging is subtle, and it deserves the title ‘Taycan 4S Dirt.’
To show off its capabilities, Porsche included a ‘Gravel’ button. When depressed, the Cross Turismo’s personality changes. Not in terms of power, but driving dynamics. It raises itself with a ground clearance of nearly 15 centimeters in total, giving you the advantage to explore roads a Porsche Taycan normally wouldn’t.
Kock drives the Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo into an uneven field with puddles of water. The extra ground clearance helps avoid scrapping heaps of earth from the front lip. He admits the cool thing about this Porsche is that you still get the same performance platform as the 4S.
However, due to its off-road capabilities, it’s not as agile anymore in the performance department, and as Kock puts it lacks some of its iconic Porsche characteristics.
A Cross Turismo With the 93.4 kWh performance plus battery will get to 100 kph (62 mph) using the Sports Chrono package and launch control in 4.1-seconds. That’s a tenth of a second slower than the Taycan 4S with a performance plus battery. The Taycan 4S is also 10 kph (6 mph) faster than the Cross Turismo in terms of top speed.
According to Kock, the Porsche Taycan 4S Cross Turismo with the performance battery plus will get you in town a lot further than it would on the open road. He says it’s because it uses less juice and has better regen.
A full charge will get you between 287 and 330 miles (462 to 531 km) of range in town. On the open road, it’s 220 miles (354 km) depending on speed and conditions.
Humphrey is a car enthusiast whose love and passion for automobiles extended into collecting, writing, driving, and working on cars. He got his passion for cars from his Dad, who spent thousands of hours working on his old junky 1970 E20 Toyota Corolla. Years later, he would end up doing the same with a series of lemons he’s owned throughout his adult life. Full profile
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