Tesla Model S Plaid - Now Cheaper Than a Porsche Taycan

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The Tesla Model S Plaid is now cheaper than a Porsche Taycan - and much better in specs too.

Tesla Model S Plaid - Now Cheaper Than a Porsche Taycan

Tesla has been on a price cutting tear this year, and its vehicles are now starting to cost less than cars that have way worse specs than a Tesla. It makes me wonder how the competition is going to survive if a Tesla is cheaper and better in every way.

If you look at the price of the Tesla Model S Plaid right now, it's $89,990. That's very close to being under $80,000 and qualifying for the $7,500 U.S. tax credit.

When you look at the cost of a base model of a Porsche Taycan, you see that the cost is $90,900. The Tesla Model S Plaid is almost $1,000 cheaper. The prices may be very close, but the Model S Plaid blows away the Porsche Taycan in specs.

With Tesla lowering prices so much, it makes me wonder if we will see the Model S Plaid get below $80,000. As I mentioned before, that would be very significant because it would then qualify for the U.S. $7,500 tax credit, effectively lowering the cost by almost $20,000 from where it is today. That is a steal for the world's most performant vehicle in volume production.

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Comparing Specs Between the Two

The specs of the Tesla Model S Plaid are very impressive. With it, you get a Lithium-ion battery that you should charge to around 80% regularly and 100% for road trips. You also get:

A 0-60 mph time of about 2.0 seconds

A 396-mile range

All-wheel-drive (AWD)

With the base model of the Porsche Taycan, here is what you get:

A 0-60 mph time of 5.1 seconds

A 225-mile range

Rear-wheel-drive (RWD)

The base model of the Porsche Taycan is worse than a Model 3 RWD, which costs less than half of it at $40,000. That's crazy to me.

Why would someone get a Porsche Taycan when you can get a RWD Model 3 with a 272-mile range?

Batteries degrade over time, and expect an EV battery to degrade 10% to 15% over its lifetime on average.

Is the Porsche Taycan base model going to sell any units? To die-hard loyal customers, maybe, but I don't see much more than that.

What do you think about the base model of the Porsche Taycan compared to the Model S Plaid? Which one would you get if you had to choose?

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Jeremy Johnson is a Tesla investor and supporter. He first invested in Tesla in 2017 after years of following Elon Musk and admiring his work ethic and intelligence. Since then, he's become a Tesla bull, covering anything about Tesla he can find, while also dabbling in other electric vehicle companies. Jeremy covers Tesla developments at Torque News. You can follow him on Twitter or LinkedIn to stay in touch and follow his Tesla news coverage on Torque News. Image Credit, Tesla, Screenshot

Submitted by DeanMcManis (not verified) on September 8, 2023 - 5:31PM

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Just to be clear, the Tesla Model S was always significantly cheaper than any comparable Porsche Taycan. With the highest performing Taycan "Turbo" S starting at $195,000. But with the latest Tesla price reductions, the top performing Tesla Model S Plaid is now slightly less expensive than even the base model Porsche Taycan ($90K). And Tesla's entry Model S now starts under $75K, and provides over 400 miles of driving range! Porsche will soon be coming out with their Macan EV crossover at a lower price, but then that will square off against the impressive Model Y. Still, I doubt that any price lowering will tempt away any die-hard Porsche fans. Porsche knows what their buyers want, and they are not really competing against Tesla as much as they are building EV versions of their popular ICE performance vehicles to satisfy their loyal customers who prioritize high build quality, fit and finish over lower cost and better acceleration performance.

Not sure whether it is relevant to compare Tesla and Porsche. We are talking about 2 different leagues with different type of customers.
It is like comparing a 5 star luxury hotel and a club. The club offers much more than the 5 star hotel: much more activities, higher quantity of food with a buffet, great kids club, great shows during the night, etc.
Well guess what, the 5 star hotel is at least 4 times more expensive and has different customers who like different things that probably some of the club’s customers don’t event understand.