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Porsche Taycan and Audi e-Tron GT: An Electric Family Tree

As far as we can tell, Henry Ford and other auto pioneers made no attempt to imitate the nostalgic clopping of hooves or the smell of, er, hay.

But even as automakers look to wean drivers off internal combustion, they’re not abandoning valuable brand signatures honed over decades — the look, feel or even sounds of “old tech” analog cars. Think the muscle-car cues of Ford’s electric Mustang Mach-E, or the relentless scrutiny of towing capacity and other truck-stop bona fides for the Ford F-150 Lightning.

Then there are the new Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo and Audi RS e-Tron GT. These precocious siblings, which I drove and charged in New York, share a Volkswagen Group parent. Furthermore, they share a corporate “J1” electric platform and much of their formidable powertrains.

At first glance, the cars don’t appear genetically related. The Porsche is the Peter Parker dream of every station-wagon nerd, combining up to 750 all-wheel-drive horsepower with uncanny grip and superhero handling. The e-Tron GT is a smoldering, broad-shouldered autobahn sedan with up to 637 horses of its own.

These cars are priced beyond typical means — the most affordable Taycan Cross Turismo can be had for $95,050, and the lowest you’ll pay for the e-Tron GT is $103,445. Yet both offer hopeful evidence of how longstanding brands might shape-shift into electric automakers without becoming unrecognizable to paying customers.

The Porsche’s stingy, 215-mile rated range is its weakest feature.Credit…Chris Szczypala

Porsche Taycan 4S Cross Turismo

The 2020 Taycan sedan was the brand’s first modern all-electric showroom vehicle, but its vivid performance reminded people that Porsche was no newbie. Ferdinand Porsche designed his first electric car in 1898, followed by the race-winning Lohner-Porsche Electromobile in 1900. Ludwig Lohner, his development partner, credited inspiration to air that was “ruthlessly spoiled by the large number of petrol engines in use.”

A Critical Year for Electric Vehicles

The popularity of battery-powered cars is soaring worldwide, even as the overall auto market stagnates.

  •  Going Mainstream: In December, Europeans for the first time bought more electric cars than diesels, once the most popular option.
  •  Turning Point: Electric vehicles account for a small slice of the market, but in 2022, their march could become unstoppable. Here is why.
  •  Tesla’s Success: A superior command of technology and its own supply chain allowed the company to bypass an industrywide crisis.
  •  Rivian’s Troubles: Investors first embraced this electric vehicle maker. Now they worry it may not live up to its promise.
  •  Green Fleet: Amazon wants electric vans to make its deliveries. The problem? The auto industry barely produces any of the vehicles yet.

After Porsche put its $845,000 918 Spyder Hybrid on the street in 2013, a racing 919 Hybrid reeled off three straight 24 Hours of LeMans wins. You can feel all that racing and engineering heritage trickle into the Taycan Cross Turismo, and straight into your fingertips. Sedan or wagon, this remains the industry’s sweetest-handling, most fun-to-drive E.V., even if it’s slower in a straight line than the $131,000 Tesla Model S Plaid.

Some enthusiasts may be confounded by the long-roofed style of a Porsche wagon. To iconoclasts who still love them — count me in — the Cross Turismo will seem a beautiful, magic sleigh. Like another all-weather wagon that trolled brand traditionalists — the discontinued Ferrari GTC4Lusso — the Porsche becomes the new fantasy car for Instagram ski trips, only with zero tailpipe emissions to befoul the slopes of Aspen or Gstaad.

Versus the sedan, the body is lifted by 0.8 inches. A selectable air suspension can jack things up to Subaru heights, via a “Gravel” mode that optimizes the all-wheel-drive system, suspension and other parameters for slippery conditions. My version was a 4S, starting from $111,650 and reaching $136,300 with options.

Shod with 20-inch Pirelli winter tires, the Porsche escorted me from Brooklyn to New York’s Monticello Motor Club, days after an ice storm turned the track into a virtual hockey rink. Let it snow: The Porsche kicked up snowy roostertails and shredded the course and surrounding roads like a rally star — albeit one that weighs 5,033 pounds. On any surface, it’s a wagon that will carve circles around most any “sport” utility, with stability further aided by the 1,389-pound ballast of its low-slung battery.

At its maximum charge rate, the Porsche can fill its battery from 5 to 80 percent in about 22 minutes.Credit…Chris Szczypala

Dual electric motors divvy 482 horsepower among four wheels. A launch-control start boosts that to 562 horsepower, en route to 60 miles an hour in 3.9 seconds. The lineup peaks with a 750-horsepower Turbo S version, for $188,950. That version dispatches 60 m.p.h. in 2.5 seconds, as quick as the top 1,111-horsepower Lucid Air sedan. Optional, innovative tungsten-carbide brake rotors feature a nearly diamond-hard coating that never rusts and produces virtually no brake dust.

I do wish both the Porsche and Audi offered more-robust settings for regenerative braking to allow “one pedal” electric driving. Again, both seek to preserve elements of an endangered driving experience, including coasting like a “normal” gasoline car when you ease off the throttle.

As with the Audi, the Porsche’s stingy, 215-mile rated range is its weakest feature. The Taycan has proved its ability to exceed that official range in the real world by 50 or more miles, but that isn’t happening in brutal winter temperatures. With not enough stamina for the 220-mile round trip from Brooklyn, I had to plan a charging stop in Newburgh.

At least charging is fast. The Taycan introduced a powerful 800-volt architecture, versus Tesla’s 400 volts (and now surpassed by Lucid’s 900-volt Air sedan). That helps the Porsche slurp juice at a maximum 270-kilowatt pace, allowing refills to 80 percent capacity in about 22 minutes. That requires a 350-kilowatt charger like the one in Newburgh — part of the Volkswagen-funded Electrify America network. They are expanding their footprint, but remain scarce versus Tesla Superchargers.

Even though the charger pushed 150 kilowatts rather than 270 (cold again a likely culprit), the Porsche added 6.5 miles of range for every plugged-in minute. Over 40 minutes, including a charging ramp-down to preserve battery life, my estimated range rose to 210 miles, from 45.

The Audi e-Tron GT starts at roughly $103,000.Credit…Audi

Audi RS e-Tron GT

Perhaps more than any luxury maker, Audi has pushed to make its E.V.s reassuring and accessible: The e-Trons are Audis first, electric cars second. The original e-Tron S.U.V.s, especially, will pass for the same Audis that haunt every fair-trade coffee roaster and school pickup queue in America.

The e-Tron GT maintains that philosophy, subsuming its electric tech under a voluptuous grand-tourer body and a comforting blanket of Audi luxury. Only this time, it’s impossible to ignore the monsters below, which awaken with every prod of your right foot: dual electric motors that peak at 637 horsepower in the RS version. The next thing you know, the monster devours 60 m.p.h., a 3.1-second uprising that leaves you hanging on for dear life. Thank goodness for massive, optional carbon-ceramic brakes, their forceful poise welcome on fast, mini-Alpine descents in the Hudson Valley.

Add the Audi and Porsche to a growing list of 2.5-ton electric sedans with wild acceleration. The RS e-Tron immediately becomes history’s most-powerful Audi, topping two gasoline stablemates also sired by Papa VW: the R8 V-10 and Lamborghini Huracán supercars. The Audi GT costs less, though that’s relative, starting from $103,445. That rises to $140,945 for the RS version, and $161,890 for my heavily optioned RS.

Audi engineers tuned their own adjustable air suspension for a slightly mellower, luxury-cruiser vibe. Steering is creamy and precise, but transmits less pure, fingertip feel than the benchmark Porsche. The RS’s standard rear-wheel steering angles tires in the opposite direction of front wheels at up to 31 m.p.h. to goose agility or trim a turning circle, then turns tires in parallel beyond 50 m.p.h. for stability.

In contrast with Porsche’s engine-based digital soundtrack, Audi sound designers developed an acceleration tune that drivers conduct with their right foot, piped through the sparkling Bang & Olufsen audio system. Audi experimented with multiple instruments, including a didgeridoo, before crafting a digital mix of 32 sounds, both natural and synthesized, including a cordless screwdriver and a fan pushing air through an organ-like pipe. The riff, which responds algorithmically to vehicle performance, can be turned down or off. Unlike some grating E.V. soundtracks, it’s cool in modest doses, recalling an unearthly chorus from a Benjamin Britten space opera.

E.V.s have turned minimalist, screen-centric interiors — often in monochromatic tones — into a design cliché. But the e-Tron GT integrates modern tech, including striking “virtual cockpit” displays, with warmth and elegance, another Audi signature it’s not ready to abandon. Artistically bolstered front seats are the Eames chairs aboard the Enterprise, wrapped in honeycomb-stitched nappa leather or a herringbone tweed in an animal-free version. The back seat is tight, in the haughty style of luxury GTs: A passenger ought to feel grateful to get a ride.

Porsche’s Taycan and Audi’s e-Tron GT share an electric platform provided by their corporate parent.Credit…Chris Szczypala

That RS ride can last only so long, with an official 232-mile Environmental Protection Agency range, or 238 miles in the standard version. To its credit, the Audi can replenish miles with the best of them, with its own 350-kilowatt fast-charge ability. But let’s hope a forthcoming Porsche-designed “PPE” platform — shared among E.V.s including a Macan S.U.V., an Audi Q6 crossover and a Bentley — goes easier on electrons than this Audi’s 80 to 81 miles per gallon-equivalent rating.

That said, buyers who choose the Audi or Porsche are most likely adding one to a garage already groaning with longer-lasting options. For them, these shorter-range missiles will be a nice problem to have.

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