Reminder that Porsche designed a nice looking electric car that didn't looks stupid

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NoMoOmentumMan@reddit

Throughout the history of the automobile we have heard the mantra "win on Sunday, sell on Monday", and watched as the competition pushed innovation.

So why on earth has there not been a single mass produced EV sports car made? It is great that you can pack the sports car performance (or rather, some of it-acceleration) into a sedan, econobx, or full size SUV; but where is the nimble sports car with some new suspension tech to balance the weight? Where is the sexing styling only a small form can offer? I get that there is a VERY limited market with a very sensitive price ceiling for this but it has to be somewhat feasible for a niche manufacturer (like Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren and the others) to pull off.

Added bonus, you get to each Musk's lunch since he has been taking deposits on the "new roadster" for almost 7 years.

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YouAreMentalM8@reddit

I believe the problem is: what does being an EV add to the sports car experience vs detract? It's already a shrinking, difficult segment to be in. Now you're potentially taking away major selling points (size, weight, engagement, sense of occasion) to add things people who are buying a toy typically do not care about (efficiency, even more speed - as if we didn't have enough already).

I'd love to know the actual data, but so few people who are buying new sports cars are using it as their only vehicle - I struggle to understand the benefit of it being an EV. If I want to drive something something quiet and comfortable I simply walk past my Miata and get into one of my other cars.

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lee1026@reddit

Formula E is awful and the rules basically means that wins there have nothing to do with production cars?

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mach1alfa@reddit

i would argue the racing is pretty good

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876oy8@reddit

the MG cyberster exists. haven't heard anything of it since it came out, but it exists.

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HeyyyyListennnnnn@reddit

It's expensive for something that feels kind of cheap and doesn't drive as well as it should for something daring to invoke suggestions of MG Roadster

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NoMoOmentumMan@reddit

A little less niche than MG

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budgefrankly@reddit

All sports-cars are niche.

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budgefrankly@reddit

So why on earth has there not been a single mass produced EV sports car made?

Tesla's Model S Plaid and Model 3 Performance are incredibly fast with decent handling.

EVs are peculiar in offering super-car performance in family-sedan shells.

If you want something that looks sporty, you do have the MG Cyberster, the Maserati Gran Turismo Folgore, the Lotus Evija and more.

I suspect part of the problem is people in the luxury space will always prefer a "slow" V12 over an electric car, in the same way they'll always prefer an inaccurate mechanical watch over a quartz one with perfect accuracy.

For the more average (relatively speaking) buyer Honda's N division has done wonders with the Ionic 5 N and Ionic 6 N and there's also always the 1500kg Alpine A290 which is just a rebadged Renault 5

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arcangelxvi@reddit

I get that there is a VERY limited market with a very sensitive price ceiling for this but it has to be somewhat feasible for a niche manufacturer

The problem is that the people who have the money have shown for the most part that they would prefer, for this class of vehicle, to buy something with an ICE. I’m sure that’s not the case for all of them, but I would imagine their relative numbers put you into a similar situation as to why we don’t really have entry level sports cars anymore.

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hbs18@reddit

So why on earth has there not been a single mass produced EV sports car made?

What is there on a Sunday for an EV sports car to win?

They're fundamentally the opposite of what makes a sports car a sports car. It's like trying to build a NA V12 that gets 40 city 55 highway.

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strongmanass@reddit

What is there on a Sunday for an EV sports car to win?

Formula-E. That said, Maserati tried to market their EVs on their Formula-E participation and that angle totally fell flat.

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BrunoEye@reddit

I think it's possible to make something really good once batteries get a little lighter.

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V8-Turbo-Hybrid@reddit

So why on earth has there not been a single mass produced EV sports car made?

The problem is that most sports car buyers are still stubborn, and most people who really like aren't really able to afford a sports car. Both reasons are why sports car EV still not working today, current battery tech and price are still not there for sports car.

Yes, it's also a problem issue for exotic automakers. Rimac has proven that his exotic not sold out, and small exotic automakers like Koenigsegg and Pagani still don't plan to go all electric because their buyers don't ask for it.

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AndreLeGeant88@reddit

I think the problem is that EVs are so heavy.

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NoMoOmentumMan@reddit

Well, so were pre-war Bentley racers.

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K_R_A_K_E_N_540@reddit

So did Xiaomi, Lucid, BYD, Maserati and many many other EVs. Mercedes and Ferrari making theirs look absurd is by choice.

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Bugatti252@reddit

I would say lucid didnt. Its a generic car with not realy true ground breaking design.

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Mysterious-Glove-179@reddit

Yes lucid’s cars look so cool! What Tesla wishes it looked like

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ahorrribledrummer@reddit

I think the Model S is still a great looking car despite only minor refreshes in 13 years.

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Mysterious-Glove-179@reddit

Agreed- I'm not a tesla guy but there is no denying it has aesthetic appeal. It's sleek and kinda low-slung

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accountforrealppl@reddit

aside from being like 2 inches taller to fit the battery (and even then there's some leeway) and generally being aerodynamic (also optional), EVs have far more stylistic freedom than ICE cars. In theory they should mostly look better, although everyday commuters will need to be very aerodynamic for range. But no excuse for a high performance EV to be ugly

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Recoil42@reddit

EVs have far more stylistic freedom than ICE cars. In theory they should mostly look better

Honestly, it's not that simple.

Design draws from history and culture and cues can be in conflict with the engineering. For instance, with an EV you no longer have an engine in front and can therefore make a nose more blunt, but blunt noses are traditionally associated with less power (with long noses signalling elegance) so now the stylistic 'freedom' of the EV works against you.

Many automakers are going to end up emulating ICE aesthetics for some time literally because ICE aesthetics are what we know as a culture, even if it's less optimal for EVs which is sort of what Ferrari is railing against with the Luce and part of why the Luce looks so bad to us. They should have shu-ha-ri'd but they didn't.

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m0nty555@reddit

Ehh, half of Ferrari line up is mid-engined so the front is short. I’ve never ever heard anyone say it doesn’t look sporty.

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Vhozite@reddit

This was my exact thought lol what are we even saying? Obviously cars with shorts hoods can look sporty

The Luce is ugly because it’s ugly lol

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dantose@reddit

I do love a long hood aesthetically, but make that a frunk and cram the batteries and such in the back to add weight over drive wheels.

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strongmanass@reddit

Jaguar did that. They got the same amount of hate as Ferrari.

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dantose@reddit

Jag got hate because the styling was a massive departure from the brand's history, same as Ferrari. Jag had already eroded much of its identity withe the F/E Pace (generic SUV) and XE/XF (moving towards generic sedan). If they were looking back at classic bodies like the 60s E type I think the reactions would have been more positive.

Unpopular opinion, I think the failure of the rebrand had more to do with the kind of dated surrealism of the ads more than the exterior styling of the concept cars. They are trying to pivot from sports cars to luxury cars, and the 00 could have been sold as that if the interior didn't look so weird and uncomfortable.

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strongmanass@reddit

I think the failure of the rebrand had more to do with the kind of dated surrealism of the ads

I agree it had to do with the video and I agree it was dated. But I don't think the response was due to the ad being dated.

if the interior didn't look so weird and uncomfortable.

Concept cars don't usually have realistic interiors. But I think some of the elements could translate really well to production - particularly if they're able to offer the material palette they showed. And if the screens hide away like the concept showed. This would be a huge improvement over Mercedes and BMW IMO.

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dantose@reddit

It's entirely possible I'm pushing my own thoughts on the broader population. I think the body style could work as a minimalist luxury pitch, but surrounded by weirdness of the ad, it reads as weird instead.

Tossing it in AI, take a look with a more sensible palette and in a less weird setting:

https://postimg.cc/jLd9mb13

To me, taken out of all the external weirdness, it stops looking weird.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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null_not@reddit

The nice thing about an electric vehicle is that you can design the battery pack however you want to get the optimal weight distribution no matter what the car looks like.

A rear motor car with a long hood can have that pack extend forward under that hood. Or if it's a car that is low to the ground the pack can be split between front and rear, or utilize a tunnel similar to a transmission tunnel. The design flexibility of EVs cuts in all directions.

The only thing that is apparently an absolute must is a 27inch computer monitor glued to the middle of the dash... Like, why? Why is this necessary?

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Several-Eggplant4460@reddit

Many automakers are going to end up emulating ICE aesthetics for some time because ICE aesthetics are what we know as a culture, even if it's less optimal for EVs. This is actually something the Ferrari design team have said they're railing against with the Luce and part of why the Luce looks so bad to most of us — it doesn't obey the traditional expectations of aesthetics which are rooted in a hundred years of internal-combustion engine packaging constraints.

And yet the Luce looks like every other EV... Literally, the silhouette looks exactly like a Prius.

The Luce actually looks like a nice EV... If it were a $40k Honda. There's nothing revolutionary about the design at all.

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budgefrankly@reddit

And yet the Luce looks like every other EV... Literally, the silhouette looks exactly like a Prius.

The Luce looks unlike any other car bar the Prius, and even then, it's a much more muted design than the Prius, whose current gen is a lot more aggressive and sporty-looking.

Honestly, my first reaction to the Luce was that the interior was fantastic and the exterior was bewilderingly terrible. The more I look at it, the less bad the exterior looks, but it's still a design that's dramatically at odds with the past and present of Ferrari designs.

For me the bigger concerns with the Luce are that its acceleration, range and charging-speed are all below par for high-end EVs: so essentially Ferrari find themselves in the position of selling a slow (relatively-speaking) car that one cannot track on the basis of its luxurious interior.

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frankchn@reddit

For me the bigger concerns with the Luce are that its acceleration, range and charging-speed are all below par for high-end EVs: so essentially Ferrari find themselves in the position of selling a slow (relatively-speaking) car that one cannot track on the basis of its luxurious interior.

Yeah, never mind the Chinese OEMs, all the paper specs (bar top speed) is matched by the Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric. If they had given it 2,000 hp or something way out there, then I think it would be a different conversation.

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Good_Air_7192@reddit

The reality is that people are obsessed with range that they never really need, so aerodynamics plays an even more dominant role in EV design.

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T-Baaller@reddit

yet with how CUVs dominate over fundamentally more aerodynamic cars, not to the point of giving up the emotional support of a high ride height.

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Good_Air_7192@reddit

Bit sure I really notice the 4 inches of ride height, but people seem to love it. Would be worse from a vehicle dynamics perspective, but I suppose CUV buyers don't care about that.

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hbs18@reddit

range that they never really need

I hate this argument so much, it's so out of touch with reality.

No, people don't drive cars for 600 miles every day, people want the range because they can't have it connected to a charger whenever the car is not in use. Waking up to a 100% charged EV every day is only possible when you have a garage for it.

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Good_Air_7192@reddit

I hate this argument so much. The average driver in the US travels 37 miles a day. Who is needing to recharge their car every day? Not the average person that's for sure, most people would get away with charging their car a couple of times a week...if that. Who needs a 100% charged car every morning you wake up? That's insane unless you drive hundreds of miles a day which is practically nobody.

People worry about that one long distance trip a year they might do, not what they actually practically need out of a car.

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hbs18@reddit

You are still not getting it.

Again, it's not about the one long distance trip or how long the daily commute is.

Adding range to an EV takes a long time. Many people in cities, at least where I'm from, have access to a charger once a week when they go to do their shopping. For the rest of the week, the EV is parked curbside on the street. People want to have as much range as possible because they don't want to have to organize their schedules around charging their car.

A gas car effectively does not have a range problem because it takes 2 minutes to add 700 miles of range to it. Range doesn't matter in a gas car because adding range is immediate.

In other words, gas tank size does not matter to anyone because in-garage gas stations aren't a thing.

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Appropriate_Lemon921@reddit

You shouldn’t buy an electric car if you live in a city, with no garage, and no way to charge it except relying on the inconsistent availability of public chargers. That is truly just stupid.

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Good_Air_7192@reddit

You are not getting it, literally not even following my point so much that you have now repeated the antithesis of what makes practical sense, don't really see the point of bothering any more.

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lee1026@reddit

If you are okay with less range, you are also okay with less batteries, which means less weight and cost.

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HeyyyyListennnnnn@reddit

That 2 inches (usually more like 4-6 inches) is a big deal. Beauty is in the proportions and increasing the height in one area means increasing dimensions in others to maintain proportions.

The reason the Taycan is so long but has so little interior space is because the battery pack exists. The length comes from designing the battery pack to make room for the rear passengers' feet. Take that away and you're back to raising the roofline to give the rear passengers headroom.

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Sebsibus@reddit

So did Xiaomi, Lucid, BYD, Maserati and many many other EVs. Mercedes and Ferrari making theirs look absurd is by choice.

All of these luxury EVs you mentioned earlier also sold terribly despite having fairly appealing designs.

I think the reality is that people spending €150k on a new car simply don’t want an EV, regardless of the design.

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bonnies_ranch@reddit

Ferrari yes, but I'm not too sure about merc. The design lines up with their new (awful) design language

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CashKeyboard@reddit

Mercedes are currently fielding two different design languages in parallel. I'm not entirely sure what the internal conflicts seem to be but there's a very big difference in C/GLC vs. CLS/VLE/GT4D.

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imightgetdownvoted@reddit

I kinda like the new AMG-GT

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James_Vowles@reddit

I agree, its only the front grill that is an abomination but something aftermarket might fix that, the rest of it is quite nice

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Geofferz@reddit

Username checks out

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roburrito@reddit

I don't know if I'd say that Xiamo designed a car so much as copied the Taycan for the SU7 and Purosanguenfor the YU7.

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Recoil42@reddit

Ferrari should've copied the Purosangue for the Luce, but didn't. We're right back to it being a choice and the "engineering constraints" narrative being a flimsy one.

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Lucifers_Tits@reddit

Exactly. People will say that the aero requirements for an EV force it to look bad but all of the above examples seemed to pull it off. The Lucid has one of the lowest drag coefficients of any car on sale right now and it looks great.

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cat_prophecy@reddit

Add Geely and Polestar into that mix. And Hyundai/Kia. And Chevrolet. And Ford.

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Ok-Improvement-3670@reddit

What’s wrong with the M-B AMG GT EV?

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E8282@reddit

Which is not a good thing.

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747WakeTurbulance@reddit

lol, Ferrari has for sure cancelled that turd even if they haven’t gone public with it.

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Sfekke22@reddit

There are good looking electric cars, Polestar does a bang on job in my book.

They’re different but quite timeless, classy and have really great proportions. I wish they came in more colours (some type of blue would be wonderful or red, I basically only buy red cars..)

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bhop_monsterjam@reddit

And the Audi e Tron GT

Sold like shit though

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artytank@reddit

I really wish these manufacturers would just make nice looking cars that happen to have EV engines. Rather then making them 'look like an electric car'.

I love the aesthetics of cars from around the 90s to the late 2010s. Give me a car that looks like those did.

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Trading_Cards_4Ever@reddit

Have to first get past the mindset that part of the appeal of owning an EV is that it follows the Tesla Model 3 styling and can be easily identified as an EV by onlookers.

Ferrari was also just lazy and let a former Apple employee design their EV instead of just designing a Ferrari that's an EV and giving it "EV style headlights" to make it easier to distinguish.

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gaius49@reddit

Which one are you thinking of?

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furrynoy96@reddit

Porsche Taycan is a better example

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victorpaparomeo2020@reddit

I have a Taycan and I adore it. Am on my second one too.

That said, imo, the Audi Etron GT remains the best looking EV on the road.

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The_Crazy_Swede@reddit

I don't agree. To me is the best looking EV by a long shot is the taycan sport turismo.

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victorpaparomeo2020@reddit

I actually have a Cross Turismo TS. The CT aspect being the reason I got it - I love me a wagon. And perhaps the best looking estate(as we call them) out there.

But I still think Audi’s version of the 4 door looks sublime.

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aprtur@reddit

Why the Cross Turismo instead of the normal one? Horses for courses, but I really don't like the plastic cladding, and the regular Sport Turismo forgoes all of that.

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SharkBaitDLS@reddit

Probably just cost. You can’t get the Sport Turismo in a trim lower than Turbo while the Cross can be had with any of the drivetrains and price points.

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aprtur@reddit

I was taking another look at it, and it's super bizarre with the trims and options for the Sport Turismo. In Germany, you can spec it exactly how you want and it's just "Sport Turismo" with no trim groups, then you have markets like here in the US where it's now GTS only, and you're locked into a ton of ridiculous options (can't go without a full glass roof anymore, but can in Germany, for example), and markets the Japan have no Sport Turismo at all anymore, only Cross Turismo.

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victorpaparomeo2020@reddit

Perhaps it’s the aesthetic. But I mountain bike so I drive on backroads and to get to the trails I ride. That was the idea at the time. And guess what, I did it twice as I’m on number two.

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Mother____Clucker@reddit

Did we just become best friends?

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ahorrribledrummer@reddit

The Taycan with the chalk gunmetal 5 spoke wheels is one of my favorite cars. Very unique styling without being ridiculous, and it looks fast as any Porsche should.

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Fbolanos@reddit

Very few cars turn my head anymore living in Miami where all sorts of exotic cars are everywhere. The Etron GT is gorgeous

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Proud_Purchase_8394@reddit

I love the way the etron GT looks, but the interior on the Taycan is so much better imo

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Alex__P@reddit

I have this weird thought that in photos the taycan looks better but in person the Etron looks waaaaaay better

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AaawhDamn@reddit

I got to test drive a couple at my job and to this day it is the only car I've driven that scared me. Granted I haven't driven many super high performance cars, at most some built mustangs and vettes. The Taycan was terrifying but I never felt more glued to the road.

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halcykhan@reddit

The Taycan looks better than the Panamera in most specs IMO

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BrownGhost10@reddit

Wish the wagons didn’t have the plastic cladding on the fenders.

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justaboss101@reddit

The sport turismo exists for exactly that reason

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BrownGhost10@reddit

I know just want them gone in general or just release an off-road variant.

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Penguinho@reddit

The Taycan looks great honestly.

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regardballs@reddit

agreed

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EmergencyRace7158@reddit

Say what you will about the Taycan it at least still looks like a Porsche. It takes their design language and adds a futuristic vibe to it. The Luce doesn't look like a Ferrari. If you took off all the badges you'd think it was some generic bland "mobility pod" that you'd see in the next GTA game.

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Ok_Emergency_2219@reddit

Look*

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mr_lab_rat@reddit

But this is very different class of a car.

Porsche made a direct competitor to Luce seven years ago with the Taycan It looks like a Porsche, drives like one, and the latest models are similar power specs to Luce for less than half price.

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Recoil42@reddit

The Mission R is neat, but it's non-production. There are much better examples you can use here, like the Taycan.

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Sun_Aria@reddit

I own a Mission R.

^in gran turismo

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dangerz@reddit

I love my I5N. Very unique style, really fun to drive, advanced tech, and with the press of a button it’s a blast at the track.

I don’t understand car people that hate EVs. I also have a 71 Vette that is my weekend and car show toy. They’re both awesome machines in their own right.

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