nberry:Wow, Nick and Crayfile you’re always in buy and selling your cars. It’s almost a full time job given the number you own. It’s must be a lot of fun.
Just doing my part to stimulate the economy
Keeping companies in business and employees employed.😎
For the first 3 quarters of 2021, Porsche sold 28,640 Taycans. outselling the 911 at 27,972 and the Panamera at 20,275.
They also moved 20,000 Taycans last year even in a pandemic. And people doubt how can they sell 20,000 a year. They should be closing in on 40,000 this year.
Needly to say, the Taycan is a resounding sales success, proving all doubters wrong about it's high price and 'short' range. People don't care and snapping them up quick.
But could it sustain the growth? Before it was the only game in town, the only luxury EV, now there is the cheaper cousin Audi e-Tron GT and also the Mercedes EQS.
I would be so much happier if my 2020 Taycan Turbo would have its buggy firmware straightened out. The nagging continuation of the bugs with no cure in sight is really aggravating and repeatedly detracts from the ownership experience.
There is a twist to Porsche "fault tolerant" firmware systems wherein the "faults" are nearly all self-correcting after a 15-minute nap. Therefore, there is no remaining fault to diagnose when the Taycan arrives at the workshop. The fault has corrected itself after sitting in the parking lot and then restarted.
I was at a Porsche gathering yesterday and commiserated with other 2020 Taycan owners, one of which had "lemon lawed" his first Taycan and was now driving a newer one. We all agreed that Taycans drive beautifully, but the user experience (other than the driving dynamics) seemed to be from a previous century ... one where "Y2K" fears actually happened.
I don't particularly care if the car can "fix itself" when the dash goes black or the navigation function won't load. If one uses the Taycan for transportation, I really don't want to budget an extra 15 minutes for a 10 minute trip.
I have a really intense love/hate relationship with my Taycan.
The 918, on the other hand, is a love/love relationship.
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
18-oct-2021 15:09:54
18-oct-2021 15:52:13
I think it’s Volcano Grey.
I also experienced a software glitch while driving a Taycan 4S recently. The car just turned off suddenly. Luckily, I was on a small road and was able to stop safely. After 10 minutes, the car “fixed itself” and started again. But it was very disconcerting, as the steering and brakes went numb. I think Porsche has recalled certain Taycans because of this glitch.
18-oct-2021 17:09:16
Leawood911:Liquid metal silver? $64k extra if I’m not mistaken.
No, ... I was too cheap. It's plain old Cayenne "Meteor Grey". But, ... it's difficult to distinguish from Liquid Metal Silver in photos
--
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
Wonderbar:I think it’s Volcano Grey.
I also experienced a software glitch while driving a Taycan 4S recently. The car just turned off suddenly. Luckily, I was on a small road and was able to stop safely. After 10 minutes, the car “fixed itself” and started again. But it was very disconcerting, as the steering and brakes went numb. I think Porsche has recalled certain Taycans because of this glitch.
There have been "interesting" and thankfully short-lived firmware bugs that are very disconcerting.
One bug I experienced was caused by a poorly-tested Over The Air update that generated "data bus contention" which affected the suspension control module. The car began to act as if it had infinitely stiff springs and started to buck and bounce down the road just after I heard the "ding" noise indicating an OTA update completion.
I had to slow down to 45 mph in a 65 mph zone to convince myself that I could still control the car. Of course, after a 15 minute nap, it fixed itself. The service center could find no stored codes after the incident. The dealer told me that PCNA tech center "knew all about the issue" when contacted an hour after my experience and said another update had been issued to roll-back the guilty update and would re-issue the original update the following day, minus the offending data bus contention "feature".
--
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
W8MM:Wonderbar:I think it’s Volcano Grey.
I also experienced a software glitch while driving a Taycan 4S recently. The car just turned off suddenly. Luckily, I was on a small road and was able to stop safely. After 10 minutes, the car “fixed itself” and started again. But it was very disconcerting, as the steering and brakes went numb. I think Porsche has recalled certain Taycans because of this glitch.There have been "interesting" and thankfully short-lived firmware bugs that are very disconcerting.
One bug I experienced was caused by a poorly-tested Over The Air update that generated "data bus contention" which affected the suspension control module. The car began to act as if it had infinitely stiff springs and started to buck and bounce down the road just after I heard the "ding" noise indicating an OTA update completion.
I had to slow down to 45 mph in a 65 mph zone to convince myself that I could still control the car. Of course, after a 15 minute nap, it fixed itself. The service center could find no stored codes after the incident. The dealer told me that PCNA tech center "knew all about the issue" when contacted an hour after my experience and said another update had been issued to roll-back the guilty update and would re-issue the original update the following day, minus the offending data bus contention "feature".
--
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
Haha, downside to OTA updates.
If the update had been performed at the workshop, the tech would have found that out on test drive and roll it back manually and report the issue.
Whoopsy:For the first 3 quarters of 2021, Porsche sold 28,640 Taycans. outselling the 911 at 27,972 and the Panamera at 20,275.
They also moved 20,000 Taycans last year even in a pandemic. And people doubt how can they sell 20,000 a year. They should be closing in on 40,000 this year.
Needly to say, the Taycan is a resounding sales success, proving all doubters wrong about it's high price and 'short' range. People don't care and snapping them up quick.
But could it sustain the growth? Before it was the only game in town, the only luxury EV, now there is the cheaper cousin Audi e-Tron GT and also the Mercedes EQS.
Nick, if I'm not mistaken the cheapest Taycan was is the reason for the higher production numbers.
The purpose of life is to enjoy the moment.
nberry:Whoopsy:For the first 3 quarters of 2021, Porsche sold 28,640 Taycans. outselling the 911 at 27,972 and the Panamera at 20,275.
They also moved 20,000 Taycans last year even in a pandemic. And people doubt how can they sell 20,000 a year. They should be closing in on 40,000 this year.
Needly to say, the Taycan is a resounding sales success, proving all doubters wrong about it's high price and 'short' range. People don't care and snapping them up quick.
But could it sustain the growth? Before it was the only game in town, the only luxury EV, now there is the cheaper cousin Audi e-Tron GT and also the Mercedes EQS.
Nick, if I'm not mistaken the cheapest Taycan was is the reason for the higher production numbers.
The Taycan 4 wasn't on sale for long, the bulk of the numbers were carried by the 4S. 4S really is the sensible choice in the whole range, just slightly more expensive but got loads more features and options.
But as some say, the 4S is still well into luxury market price range. Porsche knows their customers inside out.
On the other side of the coin, EQS should be around the same price bracket but do offers more. If one can get over the Honda Civic styling of the front end profile, it should do well.
Whoopsy:Haha, downside to OTA updates.
If the update had been performed at the workshop, the tech would have found that out on test drive and roll it back manually and report the issue.
Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on when the confluence of events to trigger the malfunction happen.
The big-deal update last Spring to bring the 2020 Taycans up to model-year 2021 features fixed some things and broke others ... much to everyone's dismay.
I don't think you appreciate the depth of Taycan firmware bugginess and how vexed the dealer technicians are about the situation.
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
W8MM:Whoopsy:Haha, downside to OTA updates.
If the update had been performed at the workshop, the tech would have found that out on test drive and roll it back manually and report the issue.
Maybe, maybe not. It all depends on when the confluence of events to trigger the malfunction happen.
The big-deal update last Spring to bring the 2020 Taycans up to model-year 2021 features fixed some things and broke others ... much to everyone's dismay.
I don't think you appreciate the depth of Taycan firmware bugginess and how vexed the dealer technicians are about the situation.
Yeah you are right I don't. On my Taycan, the only bugs I have seen is that CarPlay always take over the system without asking me. Like, does it know that maybe I wanted to listen to the radio instead of my phone? Another would be the touch sensor on the door lock, 75% of the time it doesn't sense me touching it. Outside of those two things, my Taycan has been flawless.
My Panamera actually had more problems with the infotainment system than my Taycan. The Taycan one have yet to crash, but the Panamera one occasionally do.
19-oct-2021 10:48:45
I don’t think it is the fault of the over the air update. It is the fault of the developers who wrote the software for the over the air update and of course the car software itself. Let us be very clear about that. I would never argue that because Porsche can’t seem to pull it off that it is better to go take the car to the shop for this and give up on over the air updates. Let’s face it, in the shop pretty much the same thing needs to take place. Multiply this times every car in the fleet and you have gone back ten years in tech.
If I was making these types of excuses and silly statements excusing these types of issues for my car I would be laughed off this forum.
19-oct-2021 12:07:52
Leawood911:I don’t think it is the fault of the over the air update. It is the fault of the developers who wrote the software for the over the air update and of course the car software itself. Let us be very clear about that. I would never argue that because Porsche can’t seem to pull it off that it is better to go take the car to the shop for this and give up on over the air updates. Let’s face it, in the shop pretty much the same thing needs to take place. Multiply this times every car in the fleet and you have gone back ten years in tech.
If I was making these types of excuses and silly statements excusing these types of issues for my car I would be laughed off this forum.
My uninformed speculation is that the development of the vehicle data system for the Taycan ran into a buzz-saw of conflicting requirements. The data-intensive hardware and communications backbone design was probably frozen before the marketing department was finished making demands upon it, thereby inducing "performance demand creep" which rarely turns out well.
Parasitic drain is the enemy of EV range. I speculate that a ton of functions were crammed into a small number of modules in an effort to be efficient in power consumption. Many more functions are forced to compete for CPU time and memory access simultaneously. In the Taycan EVERYTHING seems tied into the PCM and its display(s). In my loaner Cayenne, plenty of modules and functions apparently operate independently from each other and seem to not wait at all for other processes to finish booting. The various features ALL seem to be available within a few seconds. The Taycan, not so much.
All of Taycan's processes seem to boot sequentially and form a queue to start up. Taycan UI designers seem to have installed a very complicated boot priority scheduler that tries to remember in which state the infotainment system was last operating. Was the audio in FM? SiriusXM? Was the NAV function on top? This boot order massaging attempts to disguise the fact that the PCM boots more slowly than Windows did 20 years ago. One of the apparent changes from 2020 Taycan firmware to model-year 2021 code was a re-shuffling of the boot scheduler's priorities. It made things APPEAR to boot more quickly when in reality it merely put the most commonly complained-about slow-to-function items higher on the priority list. The hardware takes longer than it should to wake up from sleep.
My particular issues may be related to the number of electronic options on my build list. I have InnoDrive (w/radar cruise control), night vision display, Burmester audio, etc. It's just possible that boot-up conflicts must be resolved in favor of safety systems and boot re-tries are not handled elegantly. I don't know, but the hardware/firmware design seems to be substandard for what I expect from a company so obviously professional as Porsche.
Trying to do too much without ample resources seems like the cause.
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
19-oct-2021 14:13:02
That all seems reasonable especially the part about the marketing guys promise to provide features which the developers were not even planning on. Been there, done that - too many times. Waiting for you to get a Plaid - though I suspect you may one under wraps already.
I can only imagine the stress those software dev teams are facing each day. Not fun.
19-oct-2021 14:48:48
Mike-
Thank you once again for the interesting perspective on the Taycan. Once again, I express my disappointment; however, as you have pointed towards, the flexibility in Porsche optioning means most of the cars are uniquely different from other cars in the same product line. That makes software development, and more importantly, reliability and integrity much more difficult to maintain.
This is one area were Tesla has an advantage. There's very little differentiation of product mix beyond the four paint colors and two or three interior colors. The basic electrical/electronics architecture remains the same even regardless of option mix which typically is limited to full self driving or not. That standardization helps with development but at a cost to product differentiation, which we all know, is a mainstay of the premium brands. Interestingly, Audi in the States and several other markets, over the last few years have concentrated on a handful of packages reducing option variability.
19-oct-2021 15:38:17
19-oct-2021 15:44:51
Wonderbar:+1. Personally, I think Porsche has too many options. I would like to see more "packages" in the configurator to reduce all the choices.
However, this is what increases Porsche's profit margins so that is a bit of hard sell to management unless reliability suffers enormously during the transition to EVs.
Wonderbar:+1. Personally, I think Porsche has too many options. I would like to see more "packages" in the configurator to reduce all the choices.
It's much better now. They have streamlined the ordering guide and taking Premium Package will get you most of the wanted options.
Technology package will get you most of the secondary wanted options.
The tertiary options are what's left, like exterior cosmetic options, interior trim options, sound system upgrades,PDCC, PTV, etc.
Still more complicated than say Audi or Mercedes or BMW.
And finally they have one code for deviated stitching for the whole interior instead of 100 individual ones.
W8MM:Leawood911:I don’t think it is the fault of the over the air update. It is the fault of the developers who wrote the software for the over the air update and of course the car software itself. Let us be very clear about that. I would never argue that because Porsche can’t seem to pull it off that it is better to go take the car to the shop for this and give up on over the air updates. Let’s face it, in the shop pretty much the same thing needs to take place. Multiply this times every car in the fleet and you have gone back ten years in tech.
If I was making these types of excuses and silly statements excusing these types of issues for my car I would be laughed off this forum.My uninformed speculation is that the development of the vehicle data system for the Taycan ran into a buzz-saw of conflicting requirements. The data-intensive hardware and communications backbone design was probably frozen before the marketing department was finished making demands upon it, thereby inducing "performance demand creep" which rarely turns out well.
Parasitic drain is the enemy of EV range. I speculate that a ton of functions were crammed into a small number of modules in an effort to be efficient in power consumption. Many more functions are forced to compete for CPU time and memory access simultaneously. In the Taycan EVERYTHING seems tied into the PCM and its display(s). In my loaner Cayenne, plenty of modules and functions apparently operate independently from each other and seem to not wait at all for other processes to finish booting. The various features ALL seem to be available within a few seconds. The Taycan, not so much.
All of Taycan's processes seem to boot sequentially and form a queue to start up. Taycan UI designers seem to have installed a very complicated boot priority scheduler that tries to remember in which state the infotainment system was last operating. Was the audio in FM? SiriusXM? Was the NAV function on top? This boot order massaging attempts to disguise the fact that the PCM boots more slowly than Windows did 20 years ago. One of the apparent changes from 2020 Taycan firmware to model-year 2021 code was a re-shuffling of the boot scheduler's priorities. It made things APPEAR to boot more quickly when in reality it merely put the most commonly complained-about slow-to-function items higher on the priority list. The hardware takes longer than it should to wake up from sleep.
My particular issues may be related to the number of electronic options on my build list. I have InnoDrive (w/radar cruise control), night vision display, Burmester audio, etc. It's just possible that boot-up conflicts must be resolved in favor of safety systems and boot re-tries are not handled elegantly. I don't know, but the hardware/firmware design seems to be substandard for what I expect from a company so obviously professional as Porsche.
Trying to do too much without ample resources seems like the cause.
Oooo, you really full load your options.
W8MM:Leawood911:Liquid metal silver? $64k extra if I’m not mistaken.
No, ... I was too cheap. It's plain old Cayenne "Meteor Grey". But, ... it's difficult to distinguish from Liquid Metal Silver in photos
--
Mike
918 Spyder + Taycan Turbo + Tesla Roadster 1.5 & Model S P100D AP2 + BMWs (Z8 + 3.0 CSi) + Bentley Arnage T
The 918 is still an epic car, congrats again.
Saw a new Aventador SVJ recently, can't post a picture (owner hasn't seen the car yet, so I cannot post it, understandable) but it is some sort of silver similar to liquid silver, very nice. Paint job alone costs 80k EUR. Ouch.
RC (Germany) - Rennteam Editor Lamborghini Huracan Performante (2019), Mercedes GLC63 S AMG (2020), Mercedes C63 S AMG Cab (2019), Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk (2019 EU)