2025 Porsche Taycan Review and Test Drive

Astonishing to drive but kind of a pain to live with.

James Riswick | 

Feb 6, 2025 | 7 min read

James Riswick

Porsche has made the first significant updates to its all-electric 2025 Taycan sedan, with improved range, performance, and charging speed throughout the lineup. On a spec sheet, that helps it keep up with more recently introduced EVs, but in reality, the Taycan remains an outlier in terms of its extreme performance capabilities, which make it more like a four-door sports car than a luxury car.

The Taycan lineup is extensive, and each successive trim level represents a performance increase. There's the rear-wheel-drive, single-motor base Taycan and then a cavalcade of dual-motor, all-wheel-drive versions: Taycan 4, 4S, GTS, Turbo, Turbo S, Turbo GT, and Turbo GT with Weissach package.

All but the GTS and Turbo GT models can also be had as a Cross Turismo wagon, while the Sport Turismo wagon comes only in GTS specification.

James Riswick

Base prices range from the low $100,000s to the low $230,000s, including the destination charge to ship the car from Stuttgart, Germany, to your local dealership. The 2025 Porsche Taycan 4S I tested in Southern California was on the low end of that range with a base price of $120,495.

A box-checking spree of Porsche's vast options list ballooned the manufacturer's suggested retail price to $154,315, including the $1,995 destination charge. The highlights of the test car's upgrades were a set of 21-inch wheels, rear-axle steering, a fixed glass roof (without a shade, no thanks), "2+1" rear seats, a passenger-side touchscreen, adaptive sport seats, and a Burmester sound system upgrade.

James Riswick

Is the 2025 Porsche Taycan a Good Electric Vehicle?

My 2025 Taycan 4S test vehicle wasn't without its faults. For example, due to the larger wheels, its range was meager at 252 miles. Also, the cabin is cramped and hard to enter, and the trunk space is compromised.

Charging speeds and acceleration are exceptional, but the same can be said of a BMW i5 M60, Lucid Air Grand Touring, or Tesla Model S Plaid. Think of the Porsche as a four-door electric sports car, and you'll find it's outstanding at being that, providing a driving experience those larger EVs can't match.

James Riswick

More Beautiful Than a 911 and Slightly More Practical

The Taycan's design quite obviously resembles that of the Porsche 911. If anything, its longer, lower, and wider body makes it even sleeker. The trouble is that its proportions and body style result in significant compromises.

First, the ultralow body and seating position make it hard to drop into and hoist yourself out, while the small front door means taller drivers must contort themselves around the center roof pillar. I'm a sufficiently spry 41-year-old; the situation could be worse.

To sit in the back seat, you must navigate your feet through a narrow opening and duck to avoid clonking your head on the raked roof. That is one reason to choose the Cross Turismo (or Sport Turismo) body style, which has a taller rear-door opening. The other benefit of the Turismo wagons is cargo capacity.

James Riswick

The standard Taycan's design compromises the trunk, making it less useful than its 14.3 cubic-foot volume spec implies. That 911-shaped rear end basically chops off the last 20% of the trunk.

It's challenging to load, and while the 3.0 cu-ft front trunk is big enough to swallow a small roll-aboard bag, that just means you have a compromised trunk split into two locations. Based on my previous testing, the Cross Turismo's boxier cargo area has a greater advantage than its 15.8 cu-ft volume would suggest.

Once you've squeezed your stuff and self inside, the Taycan gets a lot better. My test vehicle's adaptive sport seats were exceptionally comfortable and held me tightly in place through high-speed corners.

James Riswick

The back seat's deep buckets are snugly comfortable, too. While my test car had the optional "2+1" middle seat, it was of questionable use, though there was enough space for my 4-year-old in his forward-facing Britax car seat. Getting both through the door was a royal pain, though.

The controls are acceptable. I like the Taycan's small climate control touchscreen on the center console instead of the touch-sensitive buttons in other Porsches, but the brand's old switchgear felt more luxurious and could be used without looking away from the road.

James Riswick

Good Tech, but Some Self-Inflicted Wounds

The Taycan creates some perfectly avoidable problems for itself. For instance, while having a charge port on each front fender is a terrific, rare feature, the standard power-opening mechanisms caused problems.

They open by sliding your finger under the little winglet that sticks out behind them, which is fancy, but the sensors weren't always responsive. At one point, the passenger-side charge door also got stuck halfway closed, while the car curiously reported that the driver-side door had a fault. The glitch never returned once I guided the door shut, but this wouldn't be an issue with a typical pop-open charge door.

Once inside, you'll find a configurable instrument screen with layouts built around Porsche's multiple-gauge design tradition. The touchscreen infotainment system is uncluttered and easy to use, and the wireless Apple CarPlay compatibility works without a problem. My test car also had a passenger-side screen, which added minimal value.

James Riswick

You can summon the native voice recognition system by pressing a steering wheel button or saying, "Hey, Porsche." My testing results were hit or miss.

"Find the nearest Dunkin' Donuts" brought up directions to a Knight's Inn 48 miles away, followed by a local pizza joint, which was at least around the corner. However, it immediately found the nearest Starbucks. Finding the closest hospital and an exact address proved successful, too. But then the system showed me a list of FM radio stations when I asked it to "Find the nearest Electrify America station."

The Taycan 4S comes with typical driver-assistance systems that work as they should without false alarms. Even the lane-keeping assist system wasn't overly excited to buzz the wheel and beep at me. Adaptive cruise control is either a stand-alone option or included in the Premium package. My car did not have the more advanced Porsche InnoDrive system that combines adaptive cruise control with lane-centering assist.

James Riswick

And Then You Drive It, and It's Astonishing

The Taycan 4S supplies as much as 590 horsepower and can go from zero to 60 mph in 3.5 seconds. That there are five versions quicker than this is kinda hard to imagine. Whether you're taking advantage of launch control, getting up to speed on the highway, or blasting out of a corner on a winding road, the acceleration is literally breathtaking.

The speeds at which the Taycan can take those corners are far more astonishing, though. The grippy tires and motors at both axles provide flawless traction. The adaptive air suspension keeps the body flat as a beam regardless of velocity and isn't so firm that mid-corner bumps flummox the chassis in Sport mode.

My test car's optional rear-axle steering helped rotate the car around hairpins and other tight, technical turns like a substantially smaller, lighter car.

James Riswick

Importantly, the Taycan doesn't make you feel like you're just along for the ride, as so many ultrapowerful performance cars do. There's plenty of communication coming through the steering wheel, and you can sense what the car is doing through the balls of your feet and the seat of your pants. The Taycan could accelerate slower and still be incredible. Quite simply, it is one of the best cars I've ever driven.

Despite taking full advantage of its acceleration and handling capabilities, I still nearly matched the EPA's efficiency estimate of 38 kilowatt-hours per 100 miles. I got 40, so the EPA's range is definitely feasible.

My test car's optional 21-inch wheels reduced the range to 252 miles from the 315 you get with the standard 19s. Charging is blazing quick, with 800-volt battery tech and a maximum charging rate of up to 320 kW.

James Riswick

The 2025 Porsche Taycan 4S remains one of the best cars to drive, period, but it's also challenging to live with. That can be said of most sports cars, though. Think of it as an all-electric, four-door sports car instead of a replacement for a traditional sedan, and it makes far more sense.

James Riswick

James Riswick has been testing cars and writing about them for more than 20 years. He was the senior reviews editor for Autoblog and previously served multiple editor roles at Edmunds. He has also contributed to Autotrader, Car and Driver, Hagerty, J.D. Power, and Autoguide Magazine. He has been interested in cars forever; his mom took him to the Toronto Auto Show when he was 18 months old and he has attended at least one every year since (OK, except in 2020). When he's not testing the latest cars, he has a babied 1998 BMW Z3 in James Bond blue, a 2013 Mercedes-Benz E350 Wagon, and a 2023 Kia Niro EV.