Porsche Taycan would cost the SAME as the Tesla Model S – if not for Musk’s shenanigans

The new range-topping Porsche Taycan Turbo S costs a whopping £138,826 – almost £50k more than the Tesla Model S. But only because of Musk’s games.

The Teslerati have been out in force since Porsche revealed the Porsche Taycan earlier this week, declaring it to be massively overpriced and stupidly-named.

We can see their point, but the truth is rather different.

Yes, Porsche ‘Turbo’ was always related to the turbo plonked on the engine under the boot lid (and subsequently under the bonnet), but now Porsche uses turbocharging on its other models its become a mark of the range-topping models. And let’s face it, ‘Turbo’ has come to mean a boost in performance for everything from vacuums and washing machines to laptops and garden tools.

So it’s perfectly sensible to call the new range-topping models of the Taycan the Turbo and Turbos S. As it will be perfectly sensible for Porsche to use their familiar nomenclature on lesser Taycans when they arrive.

But what of the Taycan’s price, a rather large £139k in the UK for the range-topping Taycan Turbo S, especially when the range-topping Tesla Model S costs £91k? Well, therein seems to lie a tale.

Until spring 2019 the range-topping Tesla Model S cost around £130k in the UK, little different to the Taycan Turbo S. But then Elon Musk started to play games, games which now seem to have been aimed at giving Tesla the high ground on affordability when the Taycan arrived – and nothing else.

As Tesla transitions from a maker of expensive big EVs to a maker of mass-market EVs, it decided to slash the price of the Tesla Model S and Model X, cutting prices in the UK by almost £50k to £83k for the range-topping Model S, although prices have since crept up to £91k as Tesla keeps on playing price games.

It’s hard to see how Tesla could justify such massive price cuts when it’s lost money since day one, so the only logical conclusion is that Elon Musk and Co figured the Model S and Model X have had their day in the sun, so the best thing they could do was use them to make Porsche’s Taycan look wildly expensive when it arrived.

Even if that made the prices of the Model S make no economic sense whatever, and lost Tesla even more money.