I’m an estate guy. A fast estate guy specifically. My Audi S4 is an amazing choice, especially for a reasonable budget, but if you want an EV estate there isn’t much out there right now. Except for one. Porsche’s new Taycan Cross Turismo. It’s a tad expensive, starting at just shy of £80,000, with the higher power Turbo S model starting at £140,000 – although you can option it easily up to £180,000. Yeah, mental.
For your £80,000, you get 375bhp (469bhp in launch mode), a 5.1 second 0-62mph, and a 137mph top speed. Strangely, that’s pretty much the same 0-60 as this S4 is stock, and a fair bit slower top speed. Even with the limit set to 155MPH, that’s a fair difference – and derestricted they’ve been known to hit 180MPH. Plus, if you remap this and swap out the supercharger pulley you get 480BHP, and a 0-62 in the mid 3 second range. All for, in my case, £16,000. Hell, even a new twin turbo petrol S4 is only £45,000 or so.
The Turbo S offers better figures, a 0-62mph in 2.9 seconds, a peak of 751bhp – although that’s only in launch mode, it offers 616bhp when in more ‘regular’ use. That one starts at £140,000, only around £1,000 more than the saloon version. There are a few models in between, including the 4S – the one you’d buy – which offers 483bhp for £88,000 – and the Turbo which offers the full 616bhp but lower peak of 671bhp for just under £120,000 – again with no options.
Realistically, if you get the 4S and option is reasonably well, you’ll be walking away with a bill somewhere between £90,000 – 100,000. And for a lower-middle class man like me that seems… insane. I suppose it does line up well with their Panamera models, albeit with the Taycan Turbo S still being faster in the 0-62 run than the fastest Panemera, but it still seems like a crazy amount of money to spend on what I imagine is meant to be your ‘ultimate daily’.
Despite the Cross Turismo models all getting the larger 93.4kWh battery, the 241-283 WLTP estimated range still isn’t quite worth shouting about. Yes, it’s plenty for the vast majority of uses, and yes the charging network is growing rapidly here in the UK and across Europe, but when a base model Tesla Model 3 can match the Taycan’s larger battery rating, and the long range version offering around 100 miles more, it’s hard to see this as the perfect GT car. Even my S4 with it’s fairly thirsty 3L supercharged V6 can muster well over 300 miles of range on longer journeys.
But, it’s an estate! Finally! It even has a special (sold separately of course) bike rack that’s apparently specially designed to let you open the boot with bikes mounted – fancy I know. It’s got a maximum for 1,200L of boot space with the rear seats folded – about the same as a Golf hatchback – and 446 litres with the seats up. Again, as a contrast, this S4 has 490L of space in the boot, and 1,400L with the seats down – a fair bit larger then.
So this S4 is more spacious, can be just as fast, from new costs half as much as the base model Taycan, and makes a great noise. From my, obviously biased, perspective I’d rather have this. If you were going to buy a Panamera anyway, sure, the Taycan might be a good option. But if you are considering getting the Turbo or Turbo S models, you can get an Audi RS6 Avant for the same money that’s more practical, similar performance, still AWD, and more of a continent crusher than the Taycan.
From the perspective of a millionaire looking to add an EV to their collection, maybe as a great daily driver, I could see good reason for getting a Taycan Cross Turismo. It’s instant torque means it’s a unique driving experience, and assuming you leave it plugged in at home you’d likely never need to ‘fill it up’ outside of longer journeys. But I think that summarises this well. It’s a great second, or fifth, car. For the person who wants one car to do everything, like me, that doesn’t quite fit right. For now, an RS6 is likely the best choice in ‘ultimate’ cars, or in the real world my S4 is plenty.
