The Porsche Taycan's Dashboard Is Mostly Screens

Count them up: the Porsche Taycan’s interior is fitted with five screens. As the Frankfurt Motor Show reveal of the company’s first production electric vehicle draws closer, we’ve been given a look at the cabin, showing a domination of massive displays.

Let’s start with the one drivers will spend the most time looking at. Rather than a conventional instrument cluster, the Taycan will use a 16.8-inch screen. Like a lot of modern Mercedes, it’s not surrounding by a traditional cowl, which is intended to give a “slim and modern appearance in the style of high-quality smartphones and tablets”.

Unlike those cars, however, this one’s formed in a shape more commonly associated with gauge clusters. It’s housed in glass with a polarising filter to make it less reflective. Either side of the display you’ll find touchscreen portions to control things light the lights and chassis modes. You can also change the look of the display via modes called Classic, Map, Full Map and Pure.

There’s a 10.9-inch infotainment screen just off to the side of the digital cluster, and optionally, you can sit another next to it for the passenger. Both sit behind one panel of glass.

Below the infotainment screen is an 8.4-inch haptic feedback touch panel that deals with climate controls. This is becoming an ever more common thing in premium cars, but the Taycan takes it a step further - you can’t even change the direction of the vents manually, as it’s all done on-screen.

It’s a similar concept to the central vent Porsche has been fitting in many of its recent products, but here, it’s the case for the whole cabin. “Traditional, mechanically-operated louvres belong to the past,” Porsche reckons, and although we’re not sure we agree, you may not need to fiddle with them anyway. Set to ‘Diffused’, the vents move around themselves as necessary. Say hello to “draught-free air conditioning”.

The fifth and final screen is another optional one. It’s a 5.9-inch touch panel that’s fitted if you’ve specced four-zone climate control. Again, it provides haptic feedback.

Despite the liberal festooning of screens, it’s still unmistakably a Porsche cabin, and not just because of the familiar-looking steering wheel. The overall shape is reminiscent of the 992’s interior, which is down to Porsche using the same point of inspiration for the Taycan - the original 911.

As for the outside, it’ll be a few more weeks before we see that properly, although we do already have a good idea of what the Taycan will look like.