I drove 420 miles in one of UK’s longest-range electric cars – but noticed huge problem

Since cars first came on the scene in the late 1800s the world has been consumed with at least three key questions. How fast can it go? How far can it go and how much stuff can I put in it?

As technology has progressed two of these questions have remained positive constants with carmakers boasting of the speed and practicality of their new models. But when it comes to electric cars the biggest question remains – how long can you go without needing a recharge? To find out, I took a 2024 Porsche [1]Taycan 4S for a spin from south London to Manchester United’s Old Trafford.

The car has a WLTP range (the claimed distance you can travel on one recharge) of 420 miles which makes it one of the longest-distance electric cars on the market – third in fact. On paper, the journey looked completely feasible because the distance I was meant to cover was about the same as the WLTP range. However, it is important to make clear that a car’s range on paper – regardless of whether it’s petrol, diesel, or electric – is most of the time different in reality.

As it was, when I started my journey at 6am on a Thursday morning with the car’s battery at 99% it said I could go around 391 miles. Not enough to do the journey without charging up, but that wasn’t the point. the point was what was this GBP96,313, 143mph, 0-62mph in 4.3 seconds super saloon like to drive on a long 10-hour drive?

Christopher made it to Manchester and back without running out of electricity -Credit:Christopher Sharp Would I feel as I had in other electric cars a significant degree of range anxiety?

Would I feel uncomfortable after 10 hours in this expensive saddle? Would traffic and wet weather[2] turn this simple drive into the journey from hell? In short, no.

The key to long electric car journeys is planning and Porsche helps you out with that with a special app and software on the car that allows you to plan your journey. You tell the car how much charge you would like at the end of your journey and how much you would like when you charge up halfway. It then curates a plan allowing you to stop off at fast chargers en route to expedite the process.

Stick to that plan and do it at the start of your journey and you should theoretically be fine. That said, looking at the map I noticed that the further north one travelled the fewer chargers there were and this is perhaps the biggest problem facing electric vehicles. If another north-south divide has developed in the UK it is the inequitable spread of EV chargers across the UK.

This isn’t an issue if you’re going from one big city to another, but it needs addressing.