That is quite a lot of legroom! Photographed in this clean workshop, Porsche seems to have cut a Taycan into half and trying to make a super-stretched limousine for a special customer.
Not quite. In fact, this is just another day’s work at Porsche’s interior engineering department. The team led by Klaus Bernhard is busy projecting the future needs of customers onto a car that doesn’t yet exist.
Bernhard and his team are experts in ergonomics and use the Package Functioning Model (PFM) to recreate as closely as possible to the ideal finished product. PFM’s internal ‘seating box’ allows Bernhard to enact all the daily interactions the users might experience.
“Getting into the car, how you feel inside, getting out again – we evaluate everything. These are the things you have to actually experience because just a few millimetres can make a difference between feeling comfortable or not,” Bernhard elaborates.
The PFM in this particular setting is modelled for the upcoming Porsche Taycan Cross Turismo. The main aim of the Taycan Cross Turismo is the increase in space, flexibility and versatility. This is the second Porsche sedan model to have a sporty fastback profile (some will debate that it’s an estate/station wagon), the first being the Panamera Sport Turismo.
Head of the Taycan model line, Stefan Weckbach said the company developed a completely new roofline, added roof rails, more generous passenger space and a bigger trunk for this model.
“We have also increased the ground clearance and optimised our suspension system so the Cross Turismo comes with a cross utility vehicle specific driving mode. This make sure it does well on gravel roads in terms of stability, performance and dynamics,” added Weckbach.
Meanwhile, Bernhard and his team have worked closely with the engineers and designers to optimise the best boot space for both usability as well as volume. Capacity is essential, but so too is the size and shape of the objects likely to be consuming it.
The fully-electric Porsche Taycan, with prices in Malaysia starting from RM 585k, has had an amazing first year of sales, and the addition of a more usable Cross Turismo will only further solidify Porsche’s lead in the premium electric vehicle segment.
