Porsche Taycan spotted being benchmarked against older Tesla Model S

Porsche has said that ‘Tesla is not a benchmark for them’ in the development of the Taycan, the German automaker’s first all-electric car. But it is clearly part of their plan as Taycan prototypes have been spotted being benchmarked against an older Tesla Model S.

While Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said that, he also admitted that Tesla is stealing away some customers and they are clearly trying to position the Taycan against the Model S.

Interestingly, Electrek reader and Model S owner Frank Cooreman from Belgium spotted a few Taycan prototypes and a Model S P85D near the top of the famous Stelvio pass in Italy.

Frank stopped and found out that the Model S was also being driven by Porsche engineers benchmarking the vehicle against the Taycan test mules.

He sent us a few images of the vehicles at the top of the pass (red Model S is Porche’s and the black one is Frank’s):

The automaker was most likely performing some energy consumption tests with elevation and regenerative braking tests on the way down.

Here’s a quick video of the vehicles going down the mountain:

Interestingly, they are benchmarking the Taycan against an older version of the Model S: the Model S P85D.

It was once Tesla’s top-of-the-line vehicle, but it has been discontinued for 2 years and the California-based automaker has since released two other vehicles with higher performance: Model S P90D and Model S P100D.

Those vehicles are known for their insanely quick acceleration.

While Porsche aims for the Taycan to have a fast acceleration with a 0-60 mph time in less than 3.5 seconds, it’s not where they plan to compete with Tesla.

They aim more to compete on track performance and being able to maintain a high output for long periods of time.

Earlier this year, a Porsche executive said that the Taycan will be able to go long distances at high speeds, like traveling on the German autobahn, or to complete a few laps on the race track.

They have been pushing the idea that going electric doesn’t mean that Porsche is losing its performance feel.

Stefan Weckbach, Head of the BEV Model Series at Porsche, said that the all-electric Porsche Taycan ‘drives like a Porsche, looks like a Porsche, and feels like a Porsche’.

The German automaker recently said that they are ‘entering the electric era with the new Taycan’ and aim to start production next year.