2027 Porsche Taycan First Drive: Fake Gears, Faster Software, and a Factory-Built Manthey Monster

As the Porsche Taycan enters its seventh year of production, it picks up some key features and improvements for the 2027 model year. To show off its handiwork, the Taycan team invited us to Friolzheim, Germany, just a few kilometers away from its Zuffenhausen HQ, to experience what’s new and exciting with its OG electric vehicle.

Since the heavily refreshed Taycan's debut two years ago, what we saw and drove in Germany amounts to a post-midcycle refresh. Cool stuff for sure, but nothing especially groundbreaking. However, continual improvement is continual improvement, and we think it’s a good thing. Especially when what’s new concerns two things near and dear to our heart, performance and updatability. But will these changes be enough to lure potential customers into Porsche dealerships before the Taycan’s replacement shows its face in two years’ time?

New Shoes, New Brains

Let’s get the small news out of the way first—the Taycan’s range increases from 680 to 700 kilometers. This bump is achieved solely through a new set of low-rolling-resistance tires. Not only is it a fool’s errand to try to convert the EU’s WLTP (Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure) into EPA mileage—for instance, an online converter will tell you that 700 km on the cycle is equal to 599 miles—but Porsche isn’t certain the tires will net the extra 20 km (12 miles) of range or if those tires are coming to the U.S. And if they do, Porsche doesn’t know how the new shoes will affect the Taycan’s 328-mile range. That said, we should point out that for 2027, all Taycans now come packing the 105-kWh Performance Battery Plus. That’s a great change.

Of much more interest to American Taycan buyers is the quite improved infotainment system. Internally known as MIB4—and no, not the terrible Hemsworth/Thompson Men in Black reboot that’s sitting at 5.6 on IMDB—this is the new system the VW Group has been rolling out for the past year or so, beginning with the MotorTrend Car of the Year–winning GTI and Golf R.

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Here in the Taycan, MIB4 offers more than five times as much processing power as the computer you’d find in a MY26 car. Key weaknesses Porsche wanted to address were connectivity and updatability; moreover, the look and feel of MIB4 matches the system that just made its debut in the E4 X1A Cayenne, aka the fourth-generation electric one. Long story short, E4 X1A is a brand-new platform (shared with the Macan EV, called PPE) that runs a different infotainment system. The Taycan, like the 911 and all non-SUV Porsches, is old at this point. MIB4 allows the legacy models to look and function like the new shizz.

The most obvious tell that a given Taycan is running MIB4 is if the Taycan image shown on the main screen is the same color as the vehicle itself. We’ve still never received a satisfactory explanation as to why it’s so difficult to paint-match actual paint to digital color, but apparently it is. Porsche, however, has now loaded up its screens with all the colors of the rainbow, including all 153 PTS (Paint to Sample) colors available on the Taycan. Even the new ones: Shark Blue, Loretta Purple, Rose Red, and Python Green. What if you really open up your wallet/trust fund and go for a custom Sonderwunsch (special request) color? Dunno, but stay tuned.

By far, the coolest (and simultaneously most dorky) part of MIB4 is how updates happen. Porsche split the hard drive into two partitions; updates are automatically and seamlessly downloaded into the blank half of the drive. Once error checking has given the thumbs-up, the system simply switches partitions. Instead of taking close to 30 to 45 minutes like Lucid, Rivian, and Tesla owners are accustomed to, with MIB4 the upgrade is just there waiting for you. Pretty cool.

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Perfect Fake Gears

All new 2027 Porsche Taycans have an actual two-speed transmission on the rear axle, and it’s damped so well, you can’t tell when it switches gears. For 2027, all Taycans also come standard with eight phony gears called E-Shift. As we’ve covered previously, it’s essentially a digital copy of Porsche’s PDK dual-clutch eight-speed transmission that’s supposed to make the sporty electric sedan more engaging to drive. You activate E-Shift by pressing a blue button mounted on the lower right side of the steering wheel, below the dynamic control toggle/push-to-pass button. Once pressed, the center screen mutates into a tachometer with an indicated 7,500-rpm redline, and an updated version of PESS (Porsche Electric Sport Sound) begins pumping through the speakers. Twist the dynamics knob from Normal to Sport/Sport Plus, and the PESS gets angrier and angrier. Twist the ring surrounding the E-Shift button, and you’ve put the fake transmission into manual mode.

Porsche gave us about 40 minutes of seat time in a pre-production 2027 Taycan GTS to experience E-Shift. Not that this news will shock you, but E-Shift perfectly mimics the look (tachometer) and feel of an automatic transmission. Leave it in Normal, and the “transmission” shifts (or “shifts”) at around 3,000 to 4,000 rpm. Crank it to Sport, and it “shifts” high up the range, and Sport Plus holds the “gear” all the way to redline. There are six gears used for acceleration, and two are overdrives. Twist the knob clockwise to engage manual mode, and, using the shift paddles, the driver now has full control over all eight digital ratios. If you don’t upshift, the transmission will even bounce against the rev limiter until you do, complete with noises and vibrations. The harder you punch the limiter, the more violently the Taycan reacts, just like an actual transmission.

We’ve seen phony EV transmissions before, most notably on the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N. Of note is that the Hyundai interrupts the motors while accelerating. The Dodge Charger EV does the same thing—literally dropping torque for a second to mimic shifting real gears. Porsche took a different, cleverer path.

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You know how all sorts of German cars have X seconds of overboost? Well, so as not to slow the Taycan down while accelerating with E-Shift engaged, the Taycan momentarily engages overboost—just for a split second—to make the car’s occupants feel something when the system “shifts” between fake gears. So, unlike the Hyundai and the Dodge, the Taycan doesn’t slow down while pretend-shifting. Does it speed up? Fractionally. Is this chicanery in effect when you engage launch control in Sport Plus? Naw, you can’t overboost an overboost. In that situation, the Taycan uses sound to make you feel something.

Why 7,500 rpm? Why not 9,000? Or 12,000? Or 15,000?! No real reason was given other than Porsche had to pick something, and the E-Shift redline is higher than, say, the Panamera GTS (7,300 rpm) and Turbo S (6,800 rpm). We did press one engineer on this point, and he eventually said something like, “Stay tuned.” Meaning that future OTAs could address this. Also, why go with PESS when you could have recorded the Panamera GTS’ normally aspirated V-8? Or the 918 Spyder’s flat-plane V-8? Or the 917/30’s flat turbo-12 in qualifying mode? We were told Porsche wanted to honor the heritage of the Taycan’s soundtrack. However, it’s technically possible to change this in the future. We’re happy to report that the base, single-motor Taycan will have a wimpier sound than, say, the GTS, which will, in turn, not be as loud and angry as the Turbo GT.

We can report that the updated PESS sounds good and angry, though it’s still clearly an EV noise. The sound is worlds better than Hyundai’s fake engine notes (rumored to be an Elantra N engine) and seems less in denial about being an EV than the Charger’s. Like many things Porsche, E-Shift is engineered perfectly. It totally, fully works as advertised. And we don’t think we’d ever turn it on. We said as much to several Porsche employees, including its new CEO, Michael Leiter. Each one smiled and understood our point. Still, if you’re on the fence about heading down the EV highway and a feature like E-Shift is the push you need across the threshold, welcome.

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Manthey Mania

If you pay any attention to Nürburgring lap times, you’re familiar with Manthey, pronounced, “Man tie.” If you don’t pay attention, it works like this. Porsche sets the production car lap record in one of its production cars. Lamborghini then builds something with double the power and torque (and price) and beats the Porsche. Then, German tuner Manthey bolts on a new part or twelve, and suddenly, without any powertrain modifications whatsoever, the Porsche retakes the record. Case in point: Way back in 2024, German hot shoe/factory test driver Lars Kern set the EV lap record on the Nordschleife with a time of 7 minutes, 7.55 seconds. Impressive, until a Chinese carmaker beat it by eight seconds: The Yangwang U9 Extreme did the deed in 6:59.18. However, armchair track rats were quick to point out that the Yangwang’s tires were essentially slicks. Porsche could have protested (to whom, exactly?), but instead it chose to do the sensible thing and get Manthey involved. The result? Herr Kern in the new-for-2027 Porsche Taycan Turbo GT with Manthey kit lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:55.53, handily beating all other EVs, cheater tires or not. The best part? You can now order this track monster straight from the factory.

In the past, if you wanted a Manthey kit for your GT2 RS, GT4 RS, or GT3, you had to order it from a dealer and either DIY it or find someplace to install it. Starting now, Porsche will build the Taycan Turbo GT Weissach with a Manthey kits right in its Zuffenhausen factory.

This is the very first Manthey product to ever be delivered to showrooms straight from a factory, as opposed to a dealer-installed kit. We suspect this will be the first of many. Also worth nothing is that if you are in possession of a 2025 or 2026 Taycan Turbo GT, the new Manthey kit can be purchased and installed. The question then becomes, how did Manthey, with the same powertrain and weight, figure out how to shave more than 12 seconds off the Turbo GT’s ’Ring time?

You need to understand that the existing Taycan Turbo GT Weissach is already insanely quick/fast. Aside from being the quickest car MotorTrend has ever tested, hitting 60 mph in 1.89 seconds and running the quarter mile in 9.2 seconds at 150.1 mph, we happened to be standing in the pits when Kern set the EV production car record, not only beating the Tesla Model S Plaid’s time, but also the time pro driver Randy Pobst laid down in a GT2 RS—and coming within 0.25 second of a McLaren Senna. Utterly preposterous performance for a four-door (though only two-seat!) sedan. That said, Porsche wasn’t just going to sit back and let Yangwang take the win.

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“Electric vehicles have a major advantage over gas cars,” a Manthey engineer told us. “There are 10 square meters of flat underbody surface. No exhaust pipes.” Manthey took advantage of this big flat area to install several aero channels to guide air precisely where it wants it to go, including to the massive rear diffuser. Speaking of EV advantages, yes, it’s heavy—the last Turbo GT Weissach we weighed clocked in at 4,911 pounds—but all that weight is in the right spot (i.e., down low in the chassis). Manthey ran some laps in the Turbo GT and ascertained that the biggest limiting factor was in fact the 265-section front tires. Solution? Take the magnesium 305 rear wheels off a 992.2 GT3 and turn them into fronts. The rears are 335s, and both run ultra-sticky Porsche-spec Pirelli P Zero Trofeo RS tires.

From there it was even more aero tuning; the Manthey crew was given access to the Porsche GT division’s wind tunnel in Weissach.

“No car designer was involved,” a Manthey engineer joked as we stared at the completely wild-looking front fender of the new Taycan using the company’s kit. It’s just extreme. The wider front wheels necessitated wider carbon-fiber bodywork, and as a result the Manthey version’s front end is 3.5 inches wider than the stock Turbo GT. Particularly stegosaurus-looking are the louvres above the front wheels that pull high-pressure air out of the frontal area. The rear wheels have functional aero discs. Why don’t the front wheels? “The brakes would melt them,” we’re told. Makes sense. The front brakes are indeed larger, growing from 16.1 inches to a ridiculous 17.3.

The massive rear wing is the goofiest part. In conjunction with the front splitter and rear diffuser, the wing is good for 1,230 pounds of downforce at 193 mph, Manthey said—in its street-legal setting. Raise it 3 inches (blocking the third brake light), and the total rises to 1,630 pounds. Neither Manthey nor Porsche could say exactly how much of the total downforce comes through the wing, but they were quick to point out the wing isn’t simply bolted to the trunklid. No, there are two carbon-fiber rods that rise out of the chassis forming the point of a scalene triangle inside the trunk. When the lid is closed, the wing connects to the carbon rods and delivers the downforce straight to the Taycan’s chassis. Wild, no? How much? Well, you’re talking around $125,000 on top of the $246,050 for a new Taycan Turbo GT Weissach. Yes, $369,000 is a ton of money for a fast EV, though it’s about half off of a Ferrari Luce and looks a whole lot better. But that’s a whole ’nother conversation the interwebs have already had plenty of fun with.