The 2022 Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo Is a Station Wagon Stunner

Time for the now-requisite Porsche name explainer: Taycan refers to the model, the company's electric car (that's really closer to a four-door 911 than a smaller Panamera, but that's neither here nor there); GTS means this is one of the company's Goldilocks models, which balance all-around performance against price to create one of the better bargains in the Porsche fleet; and Sport Turismo means it's a station wagon, not to be confused with the ostensibly soft-roader-esque Cross Turismo models.

Putting it simply: it's an electric sport wagon that's mean to be a ton of fun to drive.

Normally, I'd let the tension build a bit by describing other characteristics of the car before dropping drive impressions, but not this time. After all, you don't have to wait long for the full rush of acceleration; poke the accelerator at any speed between 0 miles per hour and...oh, let's pretend I topped out at 80, and the Taycan tucks and blasts off like a labradoodle after a tennis ball.

Ask Porsche, and they'll tell you the marquee horsepower number for the Taycan GTS is 590 ponies — just one less than the bahnstorming Audi RS 6 Avant. Technically, that's true — but only when you use launch control, and only for a couple of seconds at a time. The more relevant number is 509 — the maximum continuous output of the two electric motors. While it's impressively quick, it's not insanely quick — at least, not by the standards of modern super-sporty electric cars. (The Audi E-Tron GT RS still feels a bit quicker on the road — which makes sense, because it packs 16 percent more max power under normal operations.)

Again, though, calling it anything but stupid quick only makes sense by the ludicrous (pun intended) standards of modern performance EVs. Compared to just about anything else on the road that isn't a supercar, it's a lightning bolt. And as with all EVs of this nature, it's how it accelerates that's even more revolutionary than how fast it does: with no revving or dropping cogs (well, apart from the occasional 2-1 downshift from the rear motor's box, but one shift barely counts), acceleration is all but instantaneous.

The Taycan may be an EV, but first and foremost, it's a Porsche, which means it needs to be plenty of fun to drive — and as a GTS, that assignment gets taken even more seriously. Toss this Taycan through a turn, and you'd never guess how much it weighs; it moves like it's closer to 4,000 pounds than 5,000. (The official curb weight, by the way: 5,190 lbs.)

Credit goes to all sorts of places: the low-riding battery pack that keeps the center of gravity low, the GTS-specific suspension tuned for enhanced lateral handling; the dynamic chassis control active roll bars; the (available) rear-axle steering; Faustian bargains, maybe. In the end, though, the results speak for themselves: I was taking 25 mph recommended turns at 55, and the car still wasn’t at its limits.

And unlike some modern performance cars, it's not just fast, it's fun to drive. The steering is a delight, with almost instant turn-in; there’s the tiniest bit of lightness at center but otherwise it’s sharp and exceedingly good. It feels exceedingly natural — again, like all modern Porsches, it reminds you of what cars should steer like.

When the time comes to brake, the Taycan GTS packs a set of impressive stoppers to bleed off speed: 15.4-inch brake rotors up front and 14.1-inch ones out back. Being an electric car, however, you won't use those beasts to slow down as much as you would in a gas vehicle; the Taycan can dump power back into the battery at up to 290 kW under deceleration, providing all the slowing power you'll use most of the time.

While most Taycans look pretty much identical — a base model could easily be mixed up for a debadged $200,000+ Turbo S — Porsche decided to make the GTS stand out a little with a Sport design body kit that changes the lower part of the front fascia, remoulding the sheetmetal and adding new black elements. The overall effect is to make the Taycan's genial alien face slightly more aggressive; it takes some of the baby fat out of the cheeks, makes the car look it’s fitter and more lantern-jawed.

On the sides, the side skirts are adapted from those found on the Taycan Turbo S, while out back, a body-colored spoiler (unique to the Sport Turismo; Cross Turismo models have a black one) dominates up high, while added matte and gloss black elements can be found low on the stern. Combine the standard air suspension that drop it low in Sport Plus mode and the optional 21-inch wheels, and you have a wagon that looks almost immorally sexy from the side.

The Sport Turismo body style — which, for now, is restricted to the GTS, although don't be shocked if other Taycan trims also soon offer it — is basically identical to the Cross Turismo's body, just shorn of those body cladding exterior panels that give the C.T. a slight crossover appearance. It also rides at the same height as the sedan, rather than at the (very) slightly higher altitude of the more Outback-like version.

The change in roofline boosts the cargo capacity in the stern, albeit not by a ton; the Sport Turismo boasts 15.8 cubic feet of cargo space to the sedan's 14.3 cubes (plus, of course, the 2.9 cubic feet in the frunk that both offer). But as is par for the course with wagons, vans and SUVs, the boxier proportions and wider aperture make loading and unloading easier than with the sedan and its mail-slot opening.

On top of that, the two-box roofline also opens up the back seat a little. Legroom is unchanged, but the Sport Turismo (and Cross Turismo) pack 3.6 inches more headroom than the Taycan sedan.

That may not sound like much, but it makes a world of difference in terms of usability if you plan on actually seating humans in the second row. In the four-door model (and the closely related Audi E-Tron GT), I couldn't squeeze my frame into the back without contorting both legs and torso into a position comfortable only to Cirque du Soleil acrobats. With the added headroom of the wagon, though, I was able to sit upright and, well, quasi-comfortably (with the front seat pushed up far enough that it was barely more comfortable than the back seat, but still).

Point is, where the second row of the Taycan sedan is effectively little more than an extremely accessible parcel shelf, the second row of the wagon is actually usable as a place for adults to sit. If you're looking to tote tall folks around in back often, I'd still recommend an S-Class (or at least a Panamera Executive), but the Taycan Sport Turismo is actually usable as a family car in a way the sedan arguably isn't.

One other argument in favor of the wagon: The Sport Turismo and Cross Turismo offer an attachment point for an optional aft-mounted bike rack that can carry up to three e-bikes, yet swings out of the way of the trunk lid...and has been tested at 155 mph.

Forward of the B-pillar, differences between GTS Sport Turismo and other Taycans are fewer. The GTS does come standard with grippy Race-Tex faux suede in lieu of leather on the seats and steering wheel, but you can swap that out for leather if you'd like; I probably would, if only in order to option the Comfort seats over the aggressively bolstered ones that come standard. (They're not uncomfortable by any stretch, but for long drives, my long legs need something with less sidewall in the thigh area.)

The glass-panel, almost-all-touchscreen interior remains a better example of the breed than many, although a few extra physical controls wouldn't hurt. One example: the steering wheel has an analog volume-control dial, but shuffling between stations requires using the touchscreen — which, in turn, means switching in and out of Apple CarPlay navigation, turning what should be a one-step process (twist dial or press button) to a complex one.

Our roughly 200-mile loop from Marina del Rey through Angeles Crest and then back would, almost certainly, have been doable on a single charge; Porsche hasn't revealed the Taycan GTS's official range, but given that independent tests have found the 4S Performance Battery Plus can do 272 miles on a charge and the Taycan Turbo can do 275, I'd fully expect the GTS to land right in the same ballpark — or possibly even beat that, thanks to the car's updated software.

Of course, that's when driven conservatively — an idea that very much defeats the purpose of any Porsche, let alone a GTS. After climbing from sea level to nearly 8,000 feet and blasting along winding mountain roads, my Taycan was down to around 30 percent battery, so Porsche elected to have us top up at an Electrify America charger.

On the plus side, the charger had plenty of open spaces for our cars, and only one of the six we were near was offline. On the other hand...well, given the paucity of EV fast chargers, having any offline could be a major pain for users — the difference between being back on the road in 20-30 minutes and waiting twice that long for other drivers to finish up. Plus, for reasons Porsche's PR folks couldn't explain, the 350-kW EA charger didn't seem to want to blast electrons into my Taycan as quickly as the car could have taken them, charging closer to 150 kW than the 200 kW it should have given the state of charge.

Ultimately, it still moved plenty quick; I was up to 50 percent within seven or eight minutes, which was more than enough for my needs. Still, for road trippers (or apartment dwellers dependent on public chargers), the sub-optimal public charging experience remains one of the biggest blocks in the way of the march of the electric car.

The biggest strike against the Taycan GTS, then, isn't so much any fault of the car's as it is the nation's. If you happen to live in an area where you can charge at home every night and fast-charging stations are frequent (and functional), you could easily live with the Taycan as your daily driver. If, however, you make a habit of long drives in / to rural areas where Level 3 chargers are few — and especially if you do so in range-sapping cold weather — it might be a bit too much of a compromise proposition.

Might. Because the Taycan GTS Sport Turismo's positive attributes — from atmosphere-pleasing zero-emissions driving to supercar acceleration to its playful nature to its surprising usability — are so compelling, the added pains of having to plan out long road trips as though invading Normandy don't seem quite so bad. And hey, with thousands of new electric vehicle charging stations expected to sprout up over the next few years, odds are good living with an EV is only going to get easier as time goes by.

Base Price: $134,650

Powertrain: 93.4-kWh lithium-ion battery + dual electric motors; single-speed gearbox on front motor, two-speed gearbox on rear motor; all-wheel-drive

Horsepower: 590 (peak during launch control), 509 (continuous)

Torque: 626 lb-ft

EPA Efficiency: TBD

Seats: Four, maybe five in a pinch

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