Porsche adds Taycan electric wagon, stepping up Tesla challenge

Porsche's Taycan Cross Turismo full-electric station wagon is another step toward expanding the automaker's lineup, CEO Oliver Blume said.

"By 2025, half of all the new vehicles we will deliver will have an electrified drive, either fully electric or plug-in hybrid," Blume said in a statement announcing the launch of the Taycan Cross Turismo.

One in three of all vehicles Porsche delivered in Europe had an electric powertrain, Blume said. "With the Taycan Cross Turismo, we are taking another major step in this direction," he said.

The Taycan Cross Turismo is a more spacious version of the Taycan sedan that will broaden the Taycan line's appeal and help parent Volkswagen Group catch up with Tesla.

The wagon is 20mm taller than the Taycan sedan, or 30mm with the optional off-road package. It has adaptive air suspension as standard that can raise and lower the car to clear obstacles.

The extended roofline gives more headroom for rear-seat passengers. The vehicle has luggage capacity of more than 1,200 liters, loaded through the large tailgate at the rear.

The car has a 10.9-inch display and an optional screen for front passengers. Switching to "gravel mode" lifts the car just over an inch to navigate "light off-road terrain."

Like the Taycan sedan, the all-wheel drive Taycan Cross Turismo has an electric drive with an 800-volt architecture.

The Taycan Cross Turismo will go on sale in the summer with prices in Germany starting at 93,635 euros ($112,700), Porsche said. The U.S., Germany, the U.K., Norway, and the Netherlands are expected to be its five largest markets.

The vehicle will be offered in four different versions, all with Porsche's Performance Battery Plus, which has a total capacity of 93.4 kilowatt-hours.

The Taycan 4 Cross Turismo is the entry-level model. It has a range of 389 km to 456 km (242 to 283 miles) under Europe's WLPT test cycle and can accelerate from 0-100 kph (62 mph) in 5.1 seconds.

The Taycan 4S Cross Turismo accelerates from 0-100 kph a second faster in 4.1 seconds. Its range is 388 km to 452 km.

The Taycan Turbo Cross Turismo goes from 0-100 kph in 3.3 seconds. Its range is 395 km to 452 km.

The quickest variant, the Taycan Turbo S Cross Turismo, accelerates from 0-100 kph in 2.9 seconds. Its range is 388 km to 419 km.

The latest addition to Porsche's lineup of battery-powered cars was delayed to this year after the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted manufacturing plans.

VW Group's most profitable unit delivered more than 20,000 Taycan cars last year, just over 7 percent of its total sales.

The Taycan "was the first model from a traditional automaker to raise the tech bar versus Tesla for power and charge time and is uniquely profitable due to its luxury pricing," Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Michael Dean said in a note this week. "Its key drawback is a lack of range, with a base Taycan 4 achieving only 244 miles."

Porsche has argued the Taycan, priced at $185,000 in the U.S. for the top Turbo S version, was not designed for maximum range, but for driving performance that allows repeated acceleration without instantly draining the battery.

The Taycan's success has been a key plank in giving credibility to VW's push to unseat Tesla as the global electric car leader.

Porsche deliveries dipped just 3 percent in 2020, thanks to robust demand in China, its largest market. That helped the automaker maintain a double-digit profit margin when many mass-market automakers suffered a dramatic downturn.

Porsche has gotten off to a strong start to the year despite coronavirus restrictions persisting in some markets, with global deliveries and orders growing by double digits in the first two months, sales chief Detlev von Platen told reporters.

If demand holds up, Porsche could cross the threshold of 300,000 vehicle sales this year, though von Platen said reaching this mark would be "irrelevant" as the company is not focused on volumes.

The Taycan Cross Turismo is based on dedicated electric-car underpinnings called J1, which are also used by Audi's e-tron GT sports car. The brands are developing a separate EV platform that will debut next year and serve as the basis for a full-electric version of the best-selling Macan SUV.

Bloomberg contributed to this report.