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Porsche teases Taycan trim levels, over $130,000 price for “Turbo” variant
Porsche is expected to start the production of the Taycan, its first all-electric car, sometime in 2019. As the carmaker prepares to dip its feet into the premium EV market, some details about the upcoming vehicle are now starting to emerge. Take, for one, the names of the Taycan’s trim levels, as well as their corresponding price range.
Auto journalist Alex Roy recently shared a message he received from a Porsche Global Brand Ambassador as a response to an inquiry about the Taycan. As noted by the journalist, Porsche appears to be adopting a rather unique naming scheme for its Tesla Model S rival, particularly for the vehicle’s top trim.
Following is an excerpt from Porsche’s message to the journalist.
“I am following up on your inquiry on the upcoming Porsche Taycan. We are expecting to see the new model in about one year from now. Porsche is going to build three models — the Taycan, the Taycan 4S, and (the) Taycan Turbo. Pricing will start in the low $90,000 for the Taycan, high $90,000 for the 4S, and over $130,000 for the Turbo before options.”
Immediately noticeable is Porsche’s use of the word “Turbo” to denote the high-performance version of the Taycan. Such a naming scheme is a bit unusual for an electric car, considering that the vehicle would not have a turbo per se. That said, Roy noted in an article on The Drive that Porsche does tend to use the “Turbo” brand as a means to distinguish a halo vehicle from other cars in its lineup.
Thus, as unusual as it might be, calling the top-tier electric car the Taycan Turbo might actually be a very strategic move for the German legacy carmaker. After all, using familiar terminology on the electric car could help the company’s dedicated fanbase be more open to Porsche’s transition towards electrified mobility. Apart from this, using the “Turbo” designation for the Taycan’s top trim also gives the impression that the vehicle is a flagship car — one that the company intends to support for years to come.
Pricing-wise, the Taycan appears to be starting at a price above the entry-level Tesla Model S 75D. If the information provided by the Porsche Global Brand Ambassador proves accurate, the entry-level Taycan will start roughly $12,000 more than the entry-level Model S, which starts at $78,000. The midrange Taycan 4S, though, appears to be directly aimed at the Model S 100D, which starts at $96,000 before incentives.
Quite interestingly, the Taycan Turbo’s $130,000 starting price actually undercuts the Model S P100D’s current $135,000 starting price. That said, if the specs that Porsche announced for the vehicle — such as a 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds, a top speed of 155 mph, and a range of 310 miles per charge — are true for the Taycan Turbo, the vehicle would be slower off the line and have a slightly shorter range than Tesla’s flagship performance sedan. This would make the Taycan Turbo’s specs, down to its proficiency on the track, more comparable to the Model 3 Performance, which starts at a far more affordable price of $64,000.
Tesla’s early strategy for charging units operating within its Robotaxi fleet reveals that the company surely has not lost any of that scrappy DNA that took it from an unlikely success story to the most valuable carmaker in the world.
An observer at a Tesla Supercharger in Austin spotted ten total Robotaxi vehicles arrive: one Cybercab and nine Model Y units. A Tesla employee was waiting at the lot and allowed each unit to park itself; every car that arrived had nobody in it.
Tesla wins FCC approval for wireless Cybercab charging system
The Tesla employee would walk around and plug each car in, adjusting the parking if needed:
So look at what I found. This is how Tesla charges unsupervised robotaxis at a public supercharger. Here is a driverless Cybercab showing up with no one in it. There are 9 other Model Ys that showed up too. A Tesla employee is walking around and plugging each of them in. She also moves the cars if they are not positioned well enough to charge. I love this process. One person charges multiple robotaxis at once
— Abhimanyu Yadav (@WorldlyReviewer) October 3, 2026
It’s a very interesting strategy, but extremely understandable at this early point in the Robotaxi program. It’s only been out for about 15 months, and Cybercab just entered the fleet in early September.
On top of that, Tesla is still working tirelessly on its wireless charging apparatus, and a new patent was just published regarding that product last week.
However, this is just another example of how Tesla still has plenty of that scrappy DNA leftover from the “production hell” days, when CEO Elon Musk slept on the floor of the factory, employees were working crazy hours, Tesla was building Sprung Structures to build cars in, and the company was tiptoeing on the brink of bankruptcy.
@Teslarati Sheer magnitude of the entire production system is hard to appreciate. Almost every element of production is >75% automated. Only wire harnesses & general assembly, which are <10% of production costs, are primarily manual.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 12, 2020
For now, Tesla is utilizing a simple system for recharging its ride-hailing vehicles, and that is a Tesla employee doing it manually until another solution presents itself. Sure, it’s not the most high-tech thing, and it certainly is not what people might have expected at this point in time, but it works, and it’s keeping the entire suite running.
Tesla is expanding its Robotaxi service hours by pushing the time back by one hour, keeping the ride-hailing service operational until 11 p.m., one hour later than previously.
CEO Elon Musk confirmed the change and offered a specific reason the expansion has been gradual: the system still needs to reliably avoid small pets that are difficult to see after dark, as they commonly blend into the color of the road, especially when they’re grey.
The latest adjustment restores only a fraction of the operating window the service once held. When paid Robotaxi rides began in Austin on June 22, 2025, vehicles ran from 6 a.m. to midnight.
In September 2025, Tesla lengthened the day to a 2 a.m. close, producing a 20-hour window that stayed in place for most of the following year. By early August of this year, the cutoff had already been pulled back; an August 26 update formalized hours of 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. across Austin and several other markets.
The October move to 11 p.m. therefore leaves the Austin day one hour shorter than the original launch schedule and three hours shorter than the 2025 peak.
Musk addressed the constraint directly after the announcement. “The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night,” he wrote. “Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.”
Robotaxi operating hours moved from 10pm to 11pm.
The main thing we’re trying to solve is making sure that we don’t run over pets when they’re hard to see at night. Literally trying to avoid grey kittens on grey tarmac in the dark.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2026
The example points to a low-contrast perception problem in which a small animal can blend into the road surface under limited lighting.
Tesla’s vehicles rely on cameras and neural-network processing rather than lidar; Musk has previously argued that advanced vision software can extract useful information even in low light by analyzing photon counts, but the pet-detection case remains the stated limiter in later hours.
The modest schedule change arrives alongside faster growth in the purpose-built Cybercab fleet. Texas registration data tracked by observers showed the Austin Cybercab count rising sharply in recent weeks, reaching 169 vehicles after more than 100 were added in a short span.
Tesla has indicated that a broader shift toward 24-hour operation is tied to the upcoming FSD v15 software release expected this month on Robotaxi vehicles. Until that capability is validated for the edge cases Musk described, the company continues to add service time incrementally rather than jumping straight to overnight coverage.
The one-hour extension gives Austin riders a later option for evening trips while the underlying detection work continues.
Tesla has snagged a deal with IMC Logistics to supply the company with 50 Semi units for its logistics operations.
IMC handles drayage and landside logistics and has over 2,700 asset trucks in its fleet. In its over forty years of service, it has established more than 50 locations across the United States and spans operations from coast to coast.
Jim Gillis of IMC said that the addition of the Tesla Semi will help IMC move toward a “zero-emission service for long-haul lanes.”
The move is one that has become more common over the past few years, as more and more companies doing large-scale logistics have moved to sustainable powertrains, using either Tesla or others.
🚨 IMC Logistics announced that it will add 50 Tesla Semis to its fleet https://t.co/ymh1Ca2IuX
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) October 5, 2026
Tesla’s Semi program just entered its first truly public phase, as the company handed over its first production units to companies in September, although a pilot program with companies like PepsiCo. and Frito-Lay has been ongoing for years.
IMC announced its intention to purchase 50 Semi units from Tesla in September, and according to VP of Marketing and Public Relations on September 29 to Trucking Drive, the company will take delivery either this week or took delivery late last week.
With surging prices of diesel and high logistics costs, Tesla and the Semi could truly revolutionize how companies manage their fleets. With the advent of Full Self-Driving, the Semi will potentially cut down on driver fatigue and increase productivity, while decreasing the cost of operation per mile by being cheaper to refuel.
Tesla had a dedicated Semi handover event at the Semi factory in Sparks, Nevada, a few weeks back, as it officially introduced its truck to many company fleets that have been waiting to add these sustainable powertrains.
Tesla reveals early Robotaxi charging strategy, showing scrappy DNA
Tesla Robotaxi expands hours, Musk explains why it’s been a challenge
