- the all-new, all-electric porsche taycan's interior is stuffed with displays and touch controls.
- it has the first ever curved display in an automobile, too, plus electronically controlled air vents as on the tesla model 3.
- porsche will fully reveal the taycan on september 4, a week prior to the frankfurt auto show.
porsche's upcoming taycan electric sedan is stalking tesla's model s, and we're finally getting close to its full reveal at the 2019 frankfurt auto show. now, to join the slow tease of taycan information—we've already ridden in a prototype model, and the details of free apple music have been announced, too—here is a sneak peek at its screentastic interior.
in fact, most of the taycan's dashboard is covered by displays, left to right, top to bottom. there is one 16.8-inch unit in front of the driver that serves as the porsche's gauge cluster, another (a 10.9-inch unit) to the right where most cars situate their infotainment displays, and a third, gigantic monitor ahead of the front-seat passenger with tiles that can be set to show phone, audio, and navigation information simultaneously.
oh, and there's an 8.4-inch haptic-feedback touchscreen laid nearly flat across the forward portion of the center console, ahead of a weird shifter like the one in the discontinued 918 spyder supercar. that's for the climate controls, but it includes shortcuts to the navigation, audio, phone, apple carplay, and settings menus. it also can display the current charge state while the car is plugged in taking on more juice. an optional four-zone climate control ups the screen tally even more, adding a 5.9-inch touchscreen to the rear-seat area.
the coolest feature by far is the gauge cluster's curved glass—which makes it the first curved screen used in a production car. it wraps gently behind the steering wheel, its concave face giving drivers an enveloping sense that the display is just for them. (of course, it always is, but the effect is sweet—trust us.) at its fringes are touch-sensitive controls for the headlights, suspension settings, and more. boldly, the cluster lacks a "hood" for shading it from sunlight; we'll have to wait and see if this proves a big mistake and allows the display to wash out during the day.
in spite of the interior's visual simplicity, porsche will offer customers plenty of ways to spend more money customizing things. (the basic look is, apparently, a nod to the original 1963 911 model—and if you look close at these photos, the odometer on this taycan reads "1963 km.") there are a host of primary interior colors, plus a host of metal and wood trim options. to appeal to greenies, porsche offers naturally tanned leather (olive tree branches are used in the tanning process), as well as a new leather-free recycled microfiber material.
further proof that porsche is after tesla types can be found in the air vents, which, similar to the model 3's, are electronically controlled—meaning their directionality is determined on a screen, not by sliding some little plastic slats around to direct air where you'd like.
one free configurability option pertains to the curved gauge display, which can be toggled to a classic mode with round gauges or a map mode where one of those gauges flips to display a round navigation map. as in other volkswagen group products, a full map option turns the entire screen into a nav map with an embedded speed readout and other critical info, while the pure setting lives on the opposite end of the spectrum, paring the visuals down and showing only speed and charge info along with rudimentary turn-by-turn navigation directions when activated.
porsche may have gone electronics crazy with the taycan's interior design, but it got one thing oh, so very right: the location of the starter button. drivers will turn on their taycans using a button positioned to the left of the steering wheel—where the ignition has lived on every porsche to date. why? because back in the day, the famed 24 hours of le mans endurance race would begin with drivers sprinting to their cars, turning them on, and driving off. placing the ignition to the left of the steering wheel and closer to the door gave porsche's drivers a tiny edge. sure, the taycan's starter button could be placed anywhere—it's electronic—but it shouldn't have been placed anyplace else. we can't wait to press it and drive the taycan for ourselves.