Wacky Automotive News, Part II

If I were to say the word, “Porsche,” your natural response would probably be, “911.” It is the iconic German sportscar, and has been since its introduction in 1963. It is sexy and fast, and many a teenage boy has lusted over it, dreaming about the day they might someday own one. Yes, including me.

Over the years, Porsche has built its reputation on high-performance. Their racing cars are legendary. Their street cars have always been powered by a sophisticated six-cylinder engine that traces its roots all the way back to the Volkswagen engine from which it was spawned. Today’s modern Porsche engines are highly advanced, of course, eons beyond their predecessors.

But things change.  As we look for a way to replace the internal combustion engine, everybody is scrambling to design and produce totally electric vehicles. 

In 1996, General Motors tried with their funny-looking EV-1. That didn’t work out for reasons that are both unclear and controversial. All of the EV-1’s were recalled and (supposedly) destroyed. After that, electric car progress was slow, hampered by battery technology that wasn’t improving as fast as people hoped.

In 2012, along came Tesla with the Model S, which is all-electric.  A boutique manufacturer of high-end vehicles, Tesla was seen as the “anti-GM.” Happily, the Model S was a pretty good design right off the bat. Battery life and the resultant range-before-charging were decent. But the scarcity of charging stations limited Tesla’s market to places like Los Angeles…bigger cities.

With Tesla’s success, we knew it would only be a matter of time until the major automakers woke up and joined the fray. In 2016, GM got back in the game with a model called the Bolt. Other automakers have committed to producing electric vehicles – including Volkswagen, which promises us a new version of the Microbus, which will be all-electric. (Tree-hugging hippies all over the world should rejoice.)

So along comes Porsche. They recently introduced an all-electric model called the Taycan (Turkish for “young, lively horse”). It is a low-slung, four-door car, unmistakably Porsche and is as drop-dead beautiful as you’d expect.

Porsche is bringing out two versions: the Taycan Turbo, and the Taycan Turbo S.

Say…what? Turbo?

When applied to a motor vehicle, the word “turbo” generally…usually means turbocharged. A turbocharger is a device fitted to a conventional internal-combustion engine to increase its power. The turbo uses hot exhaust gases to spin a tiny turbine wheel. This in turn spins another tiny turbine wheel, and this one is in the intake stream. This pressurizes the intake fuel/air mixture, which results in more power. You can take a little, weak engine, stick a turbocharger on it and make it have the power of a big engine. It’s like magic!

Confusingly, “turbo” can also be short for “turbine-powered” – usually an aircraft powered by turboshaft (i.e. “jet”) engines connected to a propeller. For instance, take the general aviation twin-engine airplane called the Aero Commander series. Over the years, various models of the plane have been powered by both piston and turboshaft engines. Externally, they look nearly identical to the untrained observer. The Commanders with the turboshaft engines are called “Turbo-Commanders.”  Which they shouldn't be.

The problem is that turbine-powered and turbocharged aircraft are very different and use vastly different fuel. A turbine engine uses jet fuel and cannot run on “avgas.” A turbocharged piston engine uses regular aviation gasoline (“avgas”) and cannot run on jet fuel. When landing to refuel, Aero Commander pilots have to be ever diligent that the refueling company puts in the right kind. It’s easy to make a mistake!  Accidents have happened.  (It is rumored that the historic B-17 that crashed recently in Connecticut may have been fueled with jet fuel.)

Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off on such a technical tangent just to explain the meaning of the word, “turbo” and how it is usually applied.

Okay, so the automotive world is laughing at Porsche for calling their all-electric car a “turbo” when it is clearly not turbocharged.

But Porsche is being clever. Very, very clever. The word turbo by itself has entered our general lexicon. It’s analogous to “hyper.” Like, ”Man, it’s hot in here. Put that air conditioner on turbo!” Or, "Man, my girlfriend was turbo angry with me for forgetting her birthday.” You get the idea. And yes, I’ve heard both of those expressions.

So Porsche appropriated the word “turbo” and applied it to their Taycan, even though the car does not have a conventional gas engine and is definitely not turbocharged. Heh. But it conveys the idea that the car is fast, no? You’ve got to give the marketing guys at Porsche credit. I think it’s both hilarious and smart.

I still want one - maybe even more!