AGENCIES, Washington: Billionaire philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft Bill Gates is an automobile aficionado who has a number of Lamborghinis and Porsches in his stable. But, the choice of his latest toy – an electric Porsche Taycan has surprised many including Elon Musk whose Tesla brand is a huge manufacturer of electric cars and SUVs.
In a video on-line, the 64-year-old American business magnate praises Tesla for making electric cars popular – but then reveals he picked up the Porsche!
“Tesla, if you had to name one company that’s helped drive that, it’s them,” said Gates. “I just got a Porsche, a Taycan which is an electric car and I have to say it’s a premium-priced car, but it is very, very cool,” Gates added. “That’s my first electric car, and I’m enjoying it a lot.”
Bill Gates says his new Porsche Taycan electric sportscar is “very, very cool,” much to the annoyance of Tesla CEO Elon Musk who has labelled the former Microsoft co-founder as “underwhelming”
I was disappointed when Bill mentioned range anxiety. 99% of the days when you do a commute that is less than 200+ miles you don’t have to spend time charging.
If takes 5 min to put gas and you do it once a week you now have 260 min (or ~1,500 miles) for Supercharging @elonmusk
— Tesletter (@tesletter) February 18, 2020
The Taycan range is topped by the 750hp Turbo S which sells for around $200,000 in the US. The car does 0-100km/h sprint in just 2.6 seconds with top speed of 259km/h. The Taycan Turbo belts out 670hp and is slightly slower at 3.2 seconds to reach 100km/h.
Musk took to Twitter to responding to another user who wondered why Gates “decided to go with the Taycan instead of a Tesla.”
“My conversations with Gates have been underwhelming tbh (to be honest),” Musk tweeted.