Many people spend New Year’s Eve enjoying overpriced experiences at bars and restaurants, paying five or even 10 times normal rates for the exact same thing but with sparklers. Not me. I said farewell to ’24 by buying a stupid car from far away to save money, then driving it all the way home.
For the past year my wife and I have been daily-driving a 1991 Bentley Turbo R. But as fun as that has been, for the last few months I have really been missing having an EV. For Los Angeles’s warm, traffic-filled streets and stop-go traffic, EVs make total sense—and certainly for residents with a Level 2 charger at home.
I’ll update you on the total costs of driving a 33-year-old Bentley for 12 months soon. But, as I contemplated what to buy next, I noticed that the Porsche Taycan experiences depreciation in a way that reflects the greater market forces acting on the EV industry as a whole—definitely not on its merits as a quality automobile. The realization dawned that a well-chosen Taycan could provide a one-stop solution to my three-pronged problem: wanting to drive an EV, to have an interesting car, and also to buy something I would not be able to afford new.
Don’t be gentle, it’s an electric rental.
First I rented a Taycan through Turo for a few days to let my wife get some seat time and to check out how it had held up under the enhanced wear and tear of working as a rental. That was enough to commit to the general idea of purchasing one. As is the case with most of our family car purchases, the specifics would be left up to me. But my better half made one limiting rule: It would need to be a wagon.
I couldn’t disagree—not only is the long roof Taycan Cross Turismo better looking than the sedan, it features more rear-seat room, better rear visibility, tons more usable cargo space, and comes standard with the long-range battery, AWD, and height-adjustable air suspension. In the used market, the premium for a Cross Turismo against a same-year rear-wheel-drive base model variant is between $10,000 and $12,000.
I need to add a quick sidebar here: If you do want the sedan, then the base, rear-wheel-drive Taycan is a crazy good value. It’s basically an electric, four-door Cayman, and it might be the best used buy in the entire Porsche range right now, with $50,000 enough to buy a low-mile example in a good color.
But I needed a Cross Turismo. So I mounted an online search for the cheapest examples in the country and found a suitable candidate almost immediately. It’s a 2022 Taycan 4 Cross Turismo, fresh off lease with all of the standard features, plus 18-way adjustable seats, rear-axle steering, co-driver screen, Bose stereo, and the full extended two-tone leather interior. It was also in Detroit—so around 2300 miles from my house—but I will tell you about the journey in another story.
When new, this Cross Turismo had an MSRP of $139,000 as optioned, plus tax. Two and a half years, and 26,000 miles later, I sent a wire for $64,800, plus tax—just 47 percent of the car’s original value. This car came with another huge bonus thanks to Porsche’s Certified Pre-Owned warranty: three years of unlimited-mile, bumper-to-bumper coverage, with the option to extend this to a fourth year for $2700.
Was it perfect? No, and some cosmetic issues contributed to the low price. There was a six-inch scratch on the front bumper, some rock chips, and some of the black plastic trim had faded. The gray leather on the driver’s seat was also a little dingy, I presume from the first owner’s dark suit pants. All of these issues would later be remedied by my team at Westside Collector Car Storage and some Ammo Reflex ceramic coating. The car is now back up to 99 percent cosmetically.
It certainly doesn’t feel less than half as good as a brand-new example. The 18-way seats are phenomenal, and the driving position is low, with the view forward framed between the fenders as it should be in a Porsche sports car. The Cross Turismo gets standard air suspension, so it feels more like a small Panamera than a big Cayman, if that makes sense. I would never have paid for the optional passenger display screen in a new car, but it is actually brilliant for road-tripping—I can leave the Porsche route planner showing while using Waze or Google Maps on the main display at the same time. (I don’t believe you can do this on the facelifted Taycan, which has an active filter so the driver can’t see the passenger screen.)
The active lane centering is far from perfect, but it did relieve the tension in my hands and wrists over hours and hours of monotonous adaptive-cruise-control driving, mostly at 74 mph to maximize range.
There were some hiccups: a headlight error warning, when no error existed in practice. I also encountered two phantom braking incidents when the ADAS detected something that wasn’t there and dropped the anchors. Several times I was warned to take over driving when ADAS was disabled, and twice a pop-up informed me that the automatic emergency braking was unavailable due to dirty sensors. In fairness, this was in the Midwest in wintry conditions.
I have already booked an appointment with my local Porsche dealer for some open recalls. I’m going to get a new portable charging cable, despite never having used the one that comes with the car, and there will be software updates for a variety of systems, which may resolve the ADAS issues. The quality of paint, bodywork, wheels, and interior are all tip-top.
I am really looking forward to using this car for the next few years and seeing how it holds up. Is the Taycan the Porsche of EVs, the EV of Porsches, or both? How much use will I get from the unlimited-mileage warranty? And, the big question, how much will the thing be worth when I’m done with it?
So that’s two years in a row starting January with a new and potentially ruinously expensive car purchase. One more will make it a fully fledged tradition. But, for me, this is a better way to start the year than wearing a party hat at an overpriced dinner. Or, even worse, by staying home and doing nothing at all. Wish me luck!
Matt Farah is a lifelong car enthusiast who began his automotive career at dealerships, rental agencies, and detail shops before discovering the power of YouTube in 2006, with his channel The Smoking Tire. Farah has a Bachelors of Fine Arts from the University of Pennsylvania, with a concentration in Photography, helping not only create YouTube content but also providing his own photography for his Editor-at-Large position at Road & Track.
He has hosted and produced television series on NBC Sports, G4 Network, SPEED, and Esquire. The Smoking Tire Podcast is #1 in the category every week of the year. Now at 800+ episodes, The Smoking Tire podcast is the definitive guest stop for who’s who in the auto industry. Farah’s Westside Collector Car Storage is a game-changer in luxury, concierge parking that expanded to a second location in 2023.
