It’s the Porsche Taycan – Porsche gives the Mission E a production name

The Porsche Taycan is the name Porsche has chosen for the production take on its Mission E electric car.

The Porsche Mission E arrived almost three years ago at the Frankfurt Motor Show in 2015, signalling Porsche’s ‘Mission’ to embrace all things ‘E’. And now it has a production name – Porsche Taycan (which we think is pronounced ‘Tie-Can’).

Porsche say the Taycan name is taken from an Eastern European dialect and can be translated as ‘lively young horse’ which, say Porsche, references the imagery on the Porsche crest. So now you know.

It joins Panamera, Cayenne, Macan and Cayman in Porsche’s lexicography of names, and although Mission E seemed an entirely sensible production name, Taycan will soon bed in.

But whatever name Porsche’s first electric car has, it still will be a big game changer for Porsche and, depending on just how well it performs in the real world and how much it costs, a big game changer for Tesla too.

Porsche has previously said the Taycan will cost about the same as a Panamera, which means it will go head to head with Tesla’s Model S, delivering over 600bhp of electric power with 4WD, promising 0-62mph in well under 3.5 seconds and 0-124mph in under 12.0 seconds.

Porsche say you won’t need to spend half an hour ‘conditioning’ the Taycan to get that performance and, as long as you have juice to play with, the Taycan will keep on delivering its power. Be a little more judicious withe the throttle and you’ll get a 300 mile range and be able to recharge in a very short time too.

All that applies to what we assume is the range-topping Taycan, but we’re expecting a trio of Taycan models to be offered with different power outputs and batteries when it does arrive as a production model early in 2019.

Porsche Taycan Mark Webber Test Drive Video