We drive Australia’s quickest and most powerful production car ever

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2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT

It doesn’t take long to realise just how prodigiously potent the new 2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT is – just 6.53 seconds, to be exact.

That’s how long it took me to accelerate from standstill to 200km/h in Porsche’s record-breaking electric car. And no, that’s not a typo; TWO HUNDRED kilometres an hour. In a smidge over six seconds!

Little wonder then that Porsche’s Manager of Special Vehicle Model Line Taycan, Christian Mueller, said of performance numbers and how they relate to electric vehicles: “I think … the focus for the future would most likely be zero to 200 [km/h]”.

But the Taycan Turbo GT is more than just a headline-grabbing number, so much more.

It is, first and foremost, the quickest-accelerating, most powerful series-production Porsche ever made. And the accolades don’t stop there, the Taycan Turbo GT, when it lands here mid-2024, claiming the mantle of the quickest-accelerating, most powerful new car ever on sale in Australia.

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How much is a Porsche Taycan Turbo GT?

The 2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT, due in showrooms mid-2024, is priced from $416,600 plus on-road costs.

There are several no-cost options available including the Weissach Pack, a panoramic fixed glass roof, adaptive cruise control, seat heating front and rear (excluding Weissach Pack) and floor mats for Turbo GT with Weissach Pack only.

A total of six colours are available, including two exclusive to the Turbo GT – Pale Blue Metallic and Purple Sky Metallic. Porsche says they will remain exclusive to the Taycan Turbo GT for one year before making their way to the wider range.

Key details	2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT
Price	$416,600 plus on-road costs
Engine	Dual electric motors
Transmission	Two-speed
Power	815kW
Torque	1340Nm
0–100km/h	2.3sec (2.2sec with Weissach Pack)
0–200km/h	6.6sec (6.3sec with Weissach Pack)

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To create the Taycan Turbo GT, Porsche put the already potent and freshly updated Taycan Turbo S through a dramatic weight loss program (the Turbo GT is 75kg lighter than the Turbo S) while also adding plenty of performance-enhancing muscle. The end result is a maximum 815kW/1340Nm electric monster that can cover 0–100km/h in a claimed 2.3 seconds and 0–200km/h in an eye-watering 6.6sec.

But, if that’s not fast enough for you, the no-cost optional Weissach Pack shaves a further 70kg (for a total of 145kg compared with the regular Turbo S), improving 0–100km/h to 2.2sec and 0–200km/h in 6.3sec. Gobsmacking!

The Turbo GT joins the heavily refreshed Taycan range that has undergone, according to Porsche, “not your average facelift”, bringing better battery technology for vastly improved driving range and faster charging, and more powerful electric motors for dramatically improved performance. You can read our detailed review of the changes and how they’ve affected the Taycan range, as well as our first driving impressions from the international launch here.

But, Porsche also took the opportunity to unveil its halo car in the Taycan line-up, the Turbo GT, which takes every improvement from the wider range before adding its own unique spin to the GT formula to create a genuine electric car with supercar-like performance.

The core of its performance comes from dual electric motors – one at each axle – that develop 580kW during regular driving. However, a Formula E-inspired push-to-pass ‘Attack Mode’ boosts output to 700kW, available in 10-second bursts. And that’s before Launch Control is activated, which combines all the performance elements for a monstrous 815kW and 1340Nm and those already mentioned supercar-like straight-line performance numbers.

That’s a massive leap over the MY25 Porsche Taycan Turbo S, already not exactly a wallflower, which can muster 570kW during everyday driving, boosted to 640kW with push-to-pass before unleashing 700kW with Launch Control. Its 0–100km/h claim is 2.4sec.

Like the rest of the Taycan range, the Turbo GT’s battery pack measures in at 105kWh, giving a WLTP-tested driving range of 554km, down on the Turbo S’s 630km. 

Porsche claims the Turbo GT’s battery can be replenished from 10–80 per cent in just 18 minutes. Additionally, Porsche claims the system can add 315km of driving range in just 10 minutes, while AC charging is capped at 11kW. Porsche quotes a charge time of nine hours on AC charging alone.

Key to the Turbo GT’s performance boost over the regular Turbo S are more powerful pulse inverters in the rear electric motor – 900 amps against 600 amps – which deliver more power and more torque. The semiconductor material inside is made of silicon carbide, which helps improve efficiency, while the two-speed gearbox has been designed for greater robustness, allowing it to cope with the higher torque output of the Turbo GT.

Central to the Turbo GT’s weight loss are carbon-fibre reinforced plastic front seats, a “lightweight luggage compartment”, the deletion of the soft-close power tailgate, and carbon fibre used on the driver’s door pillars, mirror caps, side skirts and other parts.

To help extract even more straight-line performance, the addition of the Weissach Pack (a no-cost option) trims a further 70kg. The most noticeable feature of the Weissach Pack is the deletion of the rear seats, turning the Turbo GT into a two-seater.

Other deletions include the analogue Sport Chrono clock on the dashboard, the floor and boot mats, driver’s side charge port, while the sole remaining charge port on the passenger side is operated manually instead of powered. And the standard-fit Bose sound system has been replaced with a set-up without rear speakers.

Both Turbo GT models are fitted with enhanced aerodynamic aids, including a new front diffuser with air deflectors located on the underbody. The regular Turbo GT features an adaptive rear spoiler with a gurney flap, while the Weissach Pack adds a carbon-fibre-weave fixed rear wing. Total downforce is rated at 220kg.

Energy efficiency	2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT
Energy cons. (claimed)	18.4kWh/100km
Energy cons. (on test)	83kWh/100km
Battery size	105kWh
Driving range claim (WLTP)	554km
Charge time (11kW)	9h (claimed)
Charge time (50kW)	1h 38min (estimated 10–80%)
Charge time (320kW max rate)	18min (claimed 10–80%)

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What is the Porsche Taycan Turbo GT like to drive?

The end result of all those enhancements is a track-focussed sports car, albeit one with four doors, that redefines what an electric car can do, because the Taycan Turbo GT is about more than just attention-grabbing straight-line speed, so much more.

Porsche already proved the Turbo GT’s performance credentials with the fastest-ever lap for a four-door electric car around the famed Nürburgring Nordschleife, stopping the clock at 7min 07.55sec, some 18 seconds faster than the previous mark set by a Tesla Model S Plaid in 2023. Ouch.

As a punctuation, the same car blasted around Laguna Seca in 1min 27.87sec, the fastest-ever lap for a series-production electric car around the US circuit. 

Porsche is so confident of the Turbo GT’s chops on a racetrack, it invited global media, including Drive, to test the most powerful and quickest series-production car it has ever made in its natural habitat.

The venue is Circuito Monteblanco in southern Spain, an FIA Grade 2 homologated racetrack able to play host to Formula One testing. Its 18-corner, 4.43km layout features a blend of tight corners, sweeping bends and a long main straight, the perfect canvas for a car Porsche says, “has been built for the track”.

There are some nervous moments when you first slide into the Turbo GT (with Weissach Pack), not least of all because harnessing all of that stupendous power and torque seems, on paper at least, a formidable task. Remember, with the Weissach Pack on board, this is a car capable of accelerating from 0–100km/h in just 2.2sec. That is, according to many and varied sources, quicker to the benchmark than an F1 car (circa 2.5sec), a daunting prospect.

Inside, the Turbo GT is much like the regular Taycan. The most obvious difference is the carbon-fibre weave seats draped in Race-Tex with leather accents that fit snugly around your body. The rest of the Taycan’s handsome interior largely carries over, with Turbo GT-specific embroidered logos on the headrests and a Race-Tex steering wheel with 12 o’clock marker the most noticeable differences.

Glance over your shoulder, however, and the absence of rear seats is a reminder that this is no ordinary Taycan.

And that becomes obvious as soon as you escape pitlane and mash the accelerator. The surge of speed is other-worldly, with neck-snapping g-forces and a punch to the stomach that’s at once exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure.

But, the Turbo GT soon shows the full breadth of its abilities, because once you navigate the first corner, the dynamic ability on display is every bit the match for its neck-snapping speed.

Simply, the Turbo GT is as capable attacking corners at pace as it is accelerating in a straight line.

The Monteblanco circuit encompasses 18 corners, of varying tightness and profile, each requiring a different approach. From flat-out kinks taken at 180km/h to sharp right-handers that require hard braking, to more conventional 90-degree right- and left-hand turns, each successive corner highlighted the Turbo GT’s dynamic abilities.

That’s in part down to the standard-fit Porsche Active Ride (PAR) system that has been specifically tuned for the Turbo GT. As it does in the broader Taycan range, PAR uses electronically operated hydraulic pumps at each damper that are constantly adjusting and varying damping to keep the Turbo GT’s body flat at all times. The result is a Turbo GT that feels more connected to the track, one that communicates every movement, which in turn breeds confidence behind the wheel.

And as my confidence builds, so too does the speed increase, each successive corner, each lap, faster than the one before it. The exhilaration of sling-shotted speed out of corners is matched by the prodigious stopping power of the standard-fit lightweight ceramic brake discs all round (Porsche’s carbon-ceramic composite brakes are available as a no-cost option). And the Pirelli P Zero R tyres wrapped around the 21-inch forged alloys specific to the Turbo GT provide decent levels of grip.

It’s a remarkable car, one that can be driven with intent around a racetrack, defying expectations. Here is an electric car that performs and behaves like a proper sports car. You might scoff, thinking there’s no way a 2220kg electric four-door can come close to a sports car around a racetrack.

But let me reassure you, the work that has gone into creating the Taycan Turbo GT is nothing short of sensational. It’s a technological masterpiece, one that takes what you think you know about electric cars (they’re fast in a straight line, they’re heavy because batteries, and they can’t go around corners like a car with an engine) and turns it on its head.

For its party trick, and to showcase the Turbo GT’s straight-line performance, Porsche set up a Launch Control zone on the main straight. And it’s as simple as coming to a complete stop, standing hard on the brake with your left foot while simultaneously pressing the accelerator to the floor with your right, and when you’re ready, releasing the brake.

The surge, when it hits you (and it hits you instantly) is other-worldly. Before your brain can compute what’s happening, the Turbo GT is already well past 100km/h and pushing on to 200km/h.

I chickened out on my first run, the sight of Monteblanco’s near-180-degree first corner approaching at a pace my brain couldn’t quite compute, which meant I backed out of the acceleration run early and stepped hard on the brakes. I needn’t have worried, though, the Turbo GT’s brakes more than up to the task.

That emboldened my second Launch Control, and this time, after 6.53 seconds, I hit, and then exceeded, the 200km/h mark and still had plenty of space and time to pull up the circa two-tonne electric sports car with ease and dignity. Remarkable.

It really is an astonishing car, the Turbo GT, pushing the limits of electrified performance beyond what we’ve known to this point. But the real surprise isn’t in how quick it is in a straight line. 

Instead, it’s about the whole dynamic package. This is a car that can be driven – and driven hard – on a racetrack, like so many of the German brand’s halo sports cars.

About the only thing missing is the glorious howl of a classic Porsche flat-six combustion engine, replaced by an angry – and synthetic – electric whine piped into the cabin. You can switch it off, of course, but I left it on in order to have some aural markers for my time behind the wheel.

Of course, belting around a racetrack in Attack Mode isn’t exactly conducive to frugal energy consumption. Porsche claims, when driven like a normal car on regular roads, the Turbo GT will use 18.4kWh per 100 kilometres. And while that may well be possible, out here on the track, after several blistering, full-throttle laps, we saw an indicated 83kWh/100km. Based on that number, you’d get a little over 100km of running, or around 23 laps of the Monteblanco circuit before needing a top-up.

While our time behind the wheel was limited to the racetrack, there’s no question the Taycan Turbo GT will feel equally at home on the road. We’ll reserve final judgment until we start seeing Australia’s quickest-ever production car cycle through the Drive garage.

But, for now, the 2025 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT is a testament to the brand – one that demonstrates there is a future for sports cars in a post internal combustion world.

The post We drive Australia’s quickest and most powerful production car ever appeared first on Drive.

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