Well there’s no easy way to say this, but the beloved Taycan is gone, replaced by the beaver faced Bavarian. To EV enthusiasts this is blasphemy. Hell, even ICE diehards might agree! So let’s talk about why, then talk about how the two Germans stack up. It’s more interesting than one might imagine!

What Gives?

So why? Good question. The Taycan was the fourth, and best, Porsche I’ve owned, including the venerable 997 Turbo (more blasphemy!!!). It’s arguably the only real “drivers EV”, and not arguably one of the best EVs period. Wait, what was I talking about again? Oh right. Why is it gone? Well, first of all, it’s big. It certainly doesn’t look big, and four wheel steering is brilliantly implemented, shrinking the turning radius down below much smaller cars (hello aforementioned beaver toothed Bavarian and its Model Y stablemate), but at 77 inches wide and over 195 inches long, vs 72 inches and 188 inches for the BMW, there’s no getting around the fact that it’s a big car. As a two-car household, now housing three drivers (thoughts and prayers to anyone housing a teenage driver!), it’s important that both cars be accessible to everyone, and the Taycan just couldn’t fit that bill. It’s big, you sit low, and it’s expensive enough, and “flashy” enough, that it takes a certain type of driver to really be comfortable with it as a “daily”. There’s another practical matter in that ComplaintsHQ will be moving back to harsher winters, and while the Taycan can do absolutely fine in these conditions technically, it’s psychologically a “fair-weather” car. The last aspect is yet another practical one in that somehow time has flown, and the warranty is just about up. An out of warranty Porsche can be daunting under the best circumstances, let alone when it’s an all new, not yet “time tested”, platform. So that’s the net of it. Essentially personal reasons that don’t speak at all to how truly excellent the car is. Many many (many) cars have passed through these pages, and all have left their mark emotionally, but this time it’s genuinely a bit more bitter than sweet.

Let’s Make a Deal!

Ok so the Taycan is gone, and BMW number eight is now in the stable, so let’s talk about what BMW has been up to in terms of electrification. On paper, things don’t look good at all, but let’s start with economics. The 2024 i4 M50 I drove home in had a sticker of $79k, and an out the door price of $88k after wonderful CA tax. Final deal price? $71k out the door. How is this possible? Massive discounting from BMW, plus $7500 via the “lease loophole”, whereby you lease the car and capture the $7500 tax credit even if you don’t qualify for it, then immediately buy the lease out. I’ve honestly never seen this kind of deal on day one of a new model year. This either doesn’t speak well for the car, or for EVs in general, or maybe for BMVs market position right now, but let’s explore!

Driving Experience

The big question is how do these very different beasts compare from behind the wheel? Well to make it easy for anyone experienced with these brands, the i4 M50 and the Taycan compare the way an M340i and a 911 Turbo might. They’re very different classes, but each represents its heritage surprisingly well and is instantly recognizable to drivers who have spent any amount of time with these venerable quasi competitors. Porsche, as always, is the superior driving experience here. Steering is direct, perfectly weighted, with feel that is shockingly good considering the cars heft and size. The Bavarian falls short in each category, which has honestly always been the case, but does the job notably better than competitors (looking at you Audi, including the Taycan’s sister, and Tesla). When it comes to the chassis and suspension, things get a bit more interesting. Porsche, in a bit of irony, has been on a decades long quest to erase the 911s roguish reputation, through total neutrality, and it really shows on the Taycan. Chassis control is superb and the car seems almost impossible to unsettle. This again is a bit of “magic through torque vectoring”, (and four wheel steering) given such a large car. The Bavarian is noticeably more tail happy, which is fitting given BMWs adherence to its notoriously rear biased heritage. The end result is the BMW somehow feels a bit more rebellious than the electric Porsche, and maybe just a bit more fun because of it. Adding to this sense is the feel of the throttle. Both are quite linear, but the Porsche is weighted. It means business and you need to approach is as such. The BMV throttle is lighter. Not Tesla light, but close. The end result is the M50 feels quicker on the street, even though by the numbers the Taycan (Turbo in this case) destroys it. My informal testing yielded a 99%, flat earth, warm dry weather, best of 2.98 to 60, 10.9@124MPH quarter mile with a “I’ll take their word for it” top speed of 162MPH. As for the M, best to 60 was a manufacturer promise obliterating 3.3, with an 11.6@120MPH quarter mile, and a claimed top speed of 130MPH. Clear victory for the Porsche, but realistically both are cartoonishly quick and fast in excess of anything one would realistically need.

How about stopping? Here things get interesting. The Taycan had carbon ceramics, which I don’t love personally, and take getting used to in terms of feel. Porsche also eschews one pedal driving, so you’ll be working the pedal. BMW brakes feel like what they always do on a pseudo M, but one pedal driving is embraced here and it’s nice to see the option on an EV. Both do a near supernatural job of stopping these 5000lb monsters, bringing them down from 60 in ~104 feet. 

Suspension is important to note here, as the difference is significant. The Taycan provides air suspension all around, with the ability to raise and lower the car both on demand, based on learned location, or at the cars discretion. The BMW has rear air suspension, but only adaptive dampers up front. The car does… something, with the rear air suspension, but who knows what. Either way both cars have distinctly noticeable personality change across modes, being comfortable but nicely firm in “normal” and soaking up bumps, and being noticeably stiffer, but not jarring, in “full sport”. 

Speaking of modes, both have “launch control” and “extreme sport” power modes (Sport+ in Porsche parlance, “Sport Boost” in BMW), but I’ve found that there is very little performance difference between “sport” and “maximum sport”, and really no real world performance difference 0-60 when comparing “launch control” vs just mashing the pedal. Go figure.

Beauty, Beholder, Yadda Yadda

In summary, the tale of the “Porsche vs BMW” tape isn’t so surprising when it comes to driving. I enjoy driving them both for what they provide. The Porsche is the better “drivers car”, and feels more special, but the BMW is still fun and rewarding. Next up, let’s talk aesthetics. Looks are subjective, but the Taycan is a painfully obvious winner here. That said, the i4 looks like a 440, and the look has grown on me, grille and all. The car also looks significantly better in person, with more good angles than bad, and is unmistakably a modern BMW, for better or worse. This is a good thing in my opinion, as their main goal is to appeal to current fans.

Inside things are much less cut and dry. Both interiors are high quality, closer than one might expect actually, and well beyond non German competitors. The Taycan, oddly enough, is the more “digital” cabin. It’s also… Busier. The usage of screens is cool for sure, giving fighter jet, or perhaps spaceship, but as spaceships go, it’s a bit of Millennium Falcon. The curved instrument cluster display is lovely, but somewhat in contrast aesthetically with the center and passenger dash displays, and all of it clashes with the large vertical center console screen. It almost seems like the interior screen layout was put together by three competing engineering teams who all “won”. As for physical controls, they’re entirely absent. This isn’t something I personally care about, but is noteworthy.

The i4, by contrast, is much more harmonious. The single, large curved display might look “tacked on”, according to some, but it’s beautiful and very well integrated. The real estate is also utilized better, with the wheel blocking none of the cluster side, and the “center side” curved ever so slightly towards the driver. There’s no display for the passenger, but the main display is within reach. Physical controls remain for certain functions, including volume and “iDrive”, but not climate, for those who care.

Tech Talk

You can’t talk EVs without talking technology, and when talking technology, it’s not just what’s on offer, but also how well implemented it is. These are German cars after all, so the “what’s on offer” comes down to how many option boxes you tick, and how deep your pockets are, so I’ll go down the list, speaking generally, and make a note where my personal car was lacking something. We’ve already covered the screens, so let’s talk about what’s running on the screens. Here BMW is the clear winner. They’ve been at it for a while with iDrive, and 8.5 (the version in the 2024 i4) is one of the better legacy systems, with fast response, reasonably intuitive layouts, bright colorful design, and great integration of third party services like CarPlay, Android Auto, and Spotify. Porsche PCM6 is surprisingly good for Porsche, particularly CarPlay integration, but software remains a challenge for them overall. Things are noticeably less smooth, and integration a bit more disjointed (particularly the integration of all the different surfaces). Both instrument clusters offer you pretty limited configurability, with the Taycan providing a bit more variety to information that can be displayed in the left and right “dials”, but overall I think BMW takes the edge despite the limitations given the overall UX. The center display on the Taycan doesn’t flow as organically from the instrument cluster, and remains a bit laggy despite recent updates. 

There are no such issues in the BMW. iDrive 8.5 is fast and smooth, with consistent design language across the two panels. The (copious) menus are also a bit more intuitive, although both Germans can take a lesson from Tesla in this area for sure. One minor nit on the BMW is that they still refuse to give you a satellite map view in the native navigation, so fans of satellite view take note. Both do an excellent job of integrating CarPlay, which is especially surprising for Porsche, with the BMW integration with the native experience being just a bit more seamless. In addition to the plethora of screens, both cars offer a Heads Up Display, which I’ve come to consider indispensable. It wasn’t around in 2020 so my Taycan lacked it, but I’ve experienced it in other Taycans and, while excellent, the BMW implementation is superior, with bigger, brighter, graphics and more functionality.

Remote Control

Continuing on the software theme, we can’t talk about a modern car without talking about its “app”. Here Porsche again shows how much ground it has to make up on software. The BMW app is nearly as good as Tesla, and even features a “Sentry Mode” style remote camera view. The Porsche app is bare bones by comparison, and on the 2020 models even more bare bones, not even featuring remote lock/unlock. 

Speaking of cameras, here again BMW chalks up a victory, with the Taycan backup camera being almost weirdly bad, providing a kind of fisheye view that is actually difficult to look at. Disabling proximity guidance provides a flat view that is easier to digest, but you sacrifice the guidance lines. The 3D panorama, on the other hand, is solid, but even so, in all cases the BMW provides a significantly better experience.

Self(ish) Driving

Assistance systems are tricky to compare without isolated testing in identical conditions, and this is exacerbated by the fact that my Taycan didn’t have adaptive cruise control, while the M50 has every box checked. That said, professional reviewers give the nod to BMW DriveAssist Pro by a fairly large margin. Comparing it to Tesla (our Model Y has FSD) is tough. The Tesla is hugely more ambitious than any other system, and at its best is like magic, taking you from your garage, through the streets, onto and off the highway, right to your destination, with minimal intervention and surprisingly few “oh shit” moments. Other systems are essentially cruise control on steroids, holding their lane, maintaining distance and potentially changing lanes at request. The BMW does extremely well at all of that, and also provides a pretty confidence inspiring experience, also with minimal “oh shit” moments. All of these cars do a great job at safety interventions, including emergency braking (special points here to the BMW which does that in reverse as well), preventing you from drifting out of your lane, and providing warning and intervention on both cross traffic and blind spots. Self parking is more straightforward. Tesla and Porsche are both terrible at it (disclosure, my Taycan wasn’t optioned with that either), and BMW is shockingly good at it, which makes some sense given they were very early to introduce this feature in the 5 series ages ago. 

Life of Luxury

Assorted “lifestyle” features round out the comparison. These are little luxury touches that are increasingly becoming commodities (or at least common options), like front and rear heated seats. Focusing on the differences, the Taycan had both massaging and cooled seats, while the BMW offers neither (ventilated seats are an option, but weirdly not on the red leather interior – go figure). Ambient lighting abounds in both cars, but the BMWs is superior in terms of brightness and placement (for some, the more subtle Porsche approach might be considered better). The Porsche had both puddle lights and illuminated door sills, the BMW offers neither, but does illuminate the ground around the car in a nice pattern when unlocked (arguably superior). The Taycan has the now “EV signature” giant glass roof, whereas the BMW goes the old school route with a nice power moonroof, with power shade, that can fully open and tilt, which I prefer. Both cars offer rear zone climate, with dedicated rear climate control, although my Taycan didn’t have that option, while the M50 does, and both have standard “active air filtration” (“Biohazard Defense Mode” on Tesla, lol) that works quite well. 

In terms of audio, my Taycan had the Bose system, which was decent, while the M50 has the Harmon Kardon, which is excellent. The Porsche has power operated charging doors, on both sides of the car, which is extremely cool, but my drivers side one had stopped responding to touch and could only be opened from the inside control. The BMW has an old school “fuel door” type charging door, and only on one side. Low tech, and less convenient, but likely more reliable. Similarly the Porsche has Tesla style “touch screen controlled air vents”, while the BMW provides old school manually controlled vents (surprisingly cheap feeling), so another win for Porsche (although again, the BMW will likely be more reliable). Continuing the theme, the Porsche (and Tesla,it’s worth noting) have a power tilt/telescope steering wheel function that can be saved to the driver profile, while BMW insists on a manual (but again maybe more reliable) approach for the 3/4 series. 

Both cars have “comfort access”, meaning the car presents itself when you approach (unlocking, unfolding mirrors, making noises, etc), and “tucks itself in” when you leave. The BMW, however, does this more reliably, literally never missing a beat, whereas sometimes the Porsche requires physical touch to wake-up. Noteworthy is that the Porsche always requires physical touch to lock, a strange omission, whereas the BMW locks itself on departure. 

Last but not least, is storage space. BMW is using a “hybrid platform” for the i4, meaning it hosts all of their power plants, which leaves you with no “frunk” (although the dedicated EV platform iX has no frunk either, so maybe it’s philosophical). Personally I never used the frunk on the Taycan (or Tesla), so don’t miss it, but some might. Around back, both cars have fairly small trunks, with the BMW losing nearly all of its signature EV “under trunk” to the subwoofer, but the BMW, being a grand coupe, has a proper hatchback, complete with cargo cover, making ingress and egress far easier. It also has a much easier to operate “foot sensor” to open it. Inside space is surprisingly tight for both cars in the rear seat, with both having a “transmission tunnel” (the Taycan because it actually has a transmission, the BMW due to the “hybrid platform” thing). The Porsche probably has a bit more room for rear seat passengers, but it’s also a much bigger car, and harder to get in and out of.

These are EVs, Right?

Wrapping up the comparison, let’s talk about these two EVs as EVs. First up is range. Both under promise and over deliver, which is great to see (especially as a Tesla driver). My observation is that the BMW can solidly hit around 300 mi, driving as I do, a mix of on and off highway (~85MPH), while the Taycan gets close, but falls a bit short (270 or so). Considering the Taycan was on 21s, and the BMW is on 19s, this is pretty impressive efficiency for Porsche. When it comes time to top up, the Porsche is superior for both DC fast charging, with a peak of 270kW and an amazing charging curve, and an available (option, like all things Porsche) 19.2kW for L2. The BMW provides 205kW DC fast charging, also with a great curve, and a reasonable 11kW for L2. The net here is that short charging sessions (up to maybe 100mi added or so) will be close, but eventually higher peak, combined with awesome curve, will win. In both cases though, stopping to have lunch for an hour will easily bring you back to full on a road trip, which for me is all that matters.

Final Verdict

So although I probably forgot something, that’s about all I’ve got to say on this. Two great EVs, from two venerable German brands, that both do a solid job representing what these brands have always meant, despite the grumbling from the (largely anti EV) naysayers. They’re not Tesla, but they’re not meant to be, and in my opinion that’s a good thing. They play to their own strengths in terms of driver engagement and build and materials quality (which it seems no one outside Germany can touch), and are primarily designed to appeal to their brand fans, of which I must shameless admit to be one. In the end though, for me, it seems BMW always pulls me back due to the combination of performance, engagement, and practicality. The Taycan is the most well-rounded Porsche I’ve ever imagined could exist. A four door Porsche that looks amazing (sorry Panamera), drives like a proper Porsche despite being an EV (again, sorry Panamera) and is actually practical. If they could only make a smaller one, I just might be back, but until then, the 3 (er… “4 grand coupe”) series wins again.