Love it or hate it, EVs are making a big stride in the automotive industry for many reasons. And sports carmakers like Porsche are taking it as a challenge. But most car enthusiasts who love their turbocharged or NA cars worry that EVs aren’t as exciting as an ICE car. During our Leica 100 Expedition, we got to drive the Porsche Taycan 4S 2024 and I’ll say this: despite being an EV, the Porsche DNA is very much alive. So, here’s what we can share about the car in this Porsche Taycan 4S Experience Review.

Porsche Taycan 4S 2024 Experience Review

Let’s Get the Numbers out of the Way

For starters, the Porsche Taycan 2024 comes in a plethora of variants to choose from – you have the vanilla Taycan that offers the “essentials” and it goes all the way upto their recently announced “Weissach” Taycan Turbo GT which is a souped-up Taycan with menacing power waiting to be unleashed with a tap of your foot. However, forget about the performance of Taycan cars because throughout our Leica 100 Expedition Trip, we had access to three Taycans: two of which were the Base RWD Taycan.

And then there’s the one we drove – the Taycan 4S 2024 with AWD – which happens to be the most powerful one among the bunch. Now how powerful you might ask – well, thanks to Porsche Malaysia – they shared the crucial numbers with us, which you can check out below.

 Taycan 4S (AWD)Taycan Base (RWD)
Maximum Power (kW)380320
Maximum Power (PS)517408
Max. Overboost Power (Launch Control) (kW)440320
Max. Overboost Power (PS)598435
Max. Torque (Launch Control) (Nm)710420
Acceleration (0-100km/h) (s)3.74.8
Top Speed (KM/H)250230
Max. Range (WLTP) (KM)642678

For Starters, I love the new Look

Personally, the 2019 Porsche Taycan – in fact, the first EV from the Stuttgart-based automakers – was already looking pretty impressive. But since it was a first-generation car, it sure had its quirks – just like any other EVs did in the market in the early phase. But that “Early adopter” phase opened up to feedback which now we see reflected in this new face-lifted Taycan – which blends right in with their portfolio of cars.

The front end of the new Taycan looks beautifully bespoke and it looks like they have blended the best of what a Panamera offers with some of the features the OG Taycan already had – creating this lovechild Taycan we have here.

The beautiful HD-matrix headlight gives character to the car as if you are looking at the eyes of the car.

And then there’s the beautiful tail of this back – the sexy back I might add, which has tail lights spanning from one end to the other, giving a lightbar setup which just looks stunning.

It gets better because, if you think the new Taycan and Panamera are the same cars, that’s where you are wrong. Dimensionally, the Taycan is slightly smaller than the Panamera. But since the Taycan is an EV, you do have more space to store whatever you want – both in the trunk and in the “fronk”.

The front storage space comes in very handy when you don’t need the expansive rear storage the Taycan has.

Another thing worth noticing is the fastback body design of the Taycan – which I love more but a lot of people might be surprised at the smaller rear window – which caught me by surprise. But hey, it’s enough to look at what’s going on behind.

Porsche is smart enough to put two charging ports on either side – so, you don’t have to worry about getting the car in just one direction. Something you do not find in other EVs in general – and the touch slide gesture to open feels more futuristic than any other EVs could do.

I am a huge fan of the Crayon colourway of the 4S, and in case you’re wondering, this colour is a special order that sets you back MYR 17,516 – just for the colour.

On the Inside

Diving into the car, we are greeted with this cockpit-like setup which I am a fan of. While I may not drive a Porsche (yet!), the continental car experience goes synonymously with this setup as it all began with Continental cars – and that includes my lovely Volvo S80 I still drive to date.

That said, what catches my attention immediately with the Taycan 4S is the plethora of displays all around me. The instrument cluster gauge is a complete display, in the middle – you see the infotainment display and there’s even a display for the passenger with a privacy guard, so no one else can see what the passenger is using it for.

There is one more display in the centre, however, with haptic feedback buttons – which was a bit of a shocker. I prefer buttons in general but seeing how Porsche has implemented haptic feedback into that climate control unit, I can see myself living with it. You do have the usual glovebox compartment on the passenger side, on the doors, below the centre console and right below your armrest – which is where you will find USB-C ports for charging and connecting to Android Auto or Carplay.

The power and gear shifters are positioned right below the instrument cluster display – which feels funny as it looks like some switch.

The steering has all the essential controls and can be used to customize your display – which has a distraction-free mode that only shows the Speed-o-meter that I love.

The steering wheel is covered in leather and feels good to hold and drive – as it’s not too skinny and Porsche knows what they are doing. Keeping the drive mode selector on the steering is a good choice as it gives you the ability to change it immediately. The instrument cluster display has touch buttons to control the car’s air suspension and such.

The seats on the front – for both Driver and Passenger are standard equipped Comfort seats with Memory Package and I need to say that these are some comfortable seats alright. I am happy to report that the memory function for these seats exists on the door panel instead of consolidating everything into the infotainment system. The adjustments are pretty versatile as you can do a proper 14-way adjustment – which I had to do of course, because we took turns to drive throughout the trip.

On the back, you do get a similar setup seat, which sinks in and gives you a secure seating position. Something a lot of people don’t talk about because – this setup gives rear-seated passengers a more comfortable ride experience – as the new Taycan has more range, making it a very capable cruiser-like car. There are USB ports on the back for charging, and dedicated climate control AC controls at the back with a display.

In my case, I preferred sitting in the front as opposed to the back as the legroom was a wee bit limited and after sitting, I only had about a hand-length of wiggle room.

The Experience with the Taycan 4S

While our experience with the Porsche Taycan 4S was limited to two days, I must say that I almost experienced most of what the car could offer. I drove the car on highways, in the city, on rough roads – giving me enough experience to talk about the car. Let’s start with the highway experience: the Porsche Taycan 4S is absolutely sublime. What got me extremely impressed is the ride experience, as the car uses air suspension with PASM which gives the ability to switch from sporty to comfort rides.

On the highway, there’s no need for me to switch to Sports mode as we were driving in a convoy – but after building enough gaps between our Taycan 4S and the Taycan in front of us, we stepped on the accelerator and noticed how well it handles the speed and the suspension gives the best feel possible on the road. With the grounded feel of a Sedan and with Porsche’s DNA of combining speed and agility – you can truly feel that this is a real Porsche in an EV flavour. It’s a cruiser – get that cruise control up and running and you got yourself a stunning car to go the extra mile.

Switching terrains from Highway to town, we experienced how well the tricky terrain gets handled by the car, with the suspension as well. There are modes you can set through the infotainment system – and we used the Lift mode, which gives the Taycan 4S a higher ground clearance – and helps with keeping the bottom of the car safe. Better yet, the Porsche Active Ride magic is real here – with everything in the car staying almost still and the tyre and air suspension doing what it does – what a marvel of engineering.

After our experience on the tricky terrain, we went back to driving into Ipoh – once again the Air Suspension does help with inclines and making sure it doesn’t bottom out. Better yet, the car has the smarts to save the location in its system – so the next time you are there, it automatically does it for you.

The other thing I must talk about is the Sound System: and a good car should have one. Powered by Bose, these are tuned to deliver the oomph in the car – with its powerful bass and slightly less tuned treble. Being the DJ on the road, I immediately cranked up The Weeknd’s Hurry Up Tomorrow, Kendrick Lamar’s GNX and some of my go-to playlists for that music magic. It was a pleasure. This same speaker handles the “sound” when you accelerate and it’s one you will leave turned on the whole time.

The battery Capacity

When we left the Porsche Centre Ara Damansara, where the car had 100% battery – by the time we were done with the day on day one – we relied on a single charge, with about 40-ish% remaining that night. This is pretty impressive and also one of the biggest improvements with the new Taycan. For starters, the batteries under the hood are based on 800-V technology which helps with the reduced weight and keeps the circuitry less complicated.

Because of its AWD setup and 36km less range than the base Taycan, the 642 km range provided by the Taycan 4S with the Performance Battery Plus is still plenty more than the older Taycan 4S which was at just 327km. But if you do opt-in for the Performance Battery, which only provides a 559km range – it is still more than the 2019 Taycan 4S could do. These are WLTP numbers, for your information.

I genuinely wanted to experience the charging because Porsche claimed that it supports upto 320kW Charging speeds which can get the battery from 10% to 80% in just 18 minutes, but of course in a best-case situation. But even then, it’s crazy fast. Charging the remaining 20% will take longer as the graph plateaus and the speeds get reduced. The best way to maintain good battery health would be to charge it to 80%. Too bad, we didn’t get to experience the charging – hopefully, one day. However, using your home charger would take 11 hours to complete the charging – which is expected as the speeds are a lot lower.

Anything I am not a fan of?

This is a tough one to comment on because the limited time we had with the Porsche Taycan 4S allowed us to experience certain parts of the car – but let me address some of the quirks I wasn’t really a fan of:

  • The Rear seats are great, but I wish the legroom was better for one.
  • It has a heavy accelerator and extremely light brake pedal, which I feel could be adjusted because it did take a while to get used to.
  • Though I don’t have an issue with this, the rearview mirror happens to be pretty small for many.
  • The only two assistance systems that come default are the Adaptive Cruise Control and ParkAssist with Surround View. But I get why because rather than putting your trust in technology, it’s best to control things yourself which I prefer more.

But that is it really. Regardless of these minor quirks, which pretty much I can say that I am nit-picking at this point – is not a dealbreaker.

At the End of the day – Conclusion

The two fruitful days that we had with the Porsche Taycan 4S 2024 weren’t enough to experience everything but it was enough to know the magic Porsche has packed behind this lovely EV. This may seem like a hot take but I appreciate the EVs made by real car manufacturers like Porsche because you see the right choices made around the car. What needs to be in the form of buttons is retained and what can be digitalized all around the car has been digitalized.

But my oh my, the sheer driving pleasure and experience I’ve had with this car is something I will miss for sure. And trust me, you are not paying for an EV with a Porsche badge, which is a misunderstanding and a wrong perception. You are paying for a Porsche with a Porsche DNA which runs on EV. There’s a difference. I hope to try the Sport and Sport+ modes one day and hope that this isn’t the last time we get to experience a Porsche and we get to check out more in the future.

Thanks, Porsche Malaysia for this experience – it’s truly one to remember.

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