2021ish Taycan Turbo (..in green)
Discussion
Some controversial PH fodder here, very lucky to have recently taken delivery of a Taycan. First new car for me, first EV, first Porsche - is this interesting? Guess we'll find out if anyone replies..
The story so far:
It started when I learned of a car leasing scheme starting at work. Upon enquiry was told 'you wouldn't be interested, it's only for EVs' (I was running an F10 M5 at the time).
Well, there was this one EV that had captured my interest. On looking into it I started to quickly gain an understanding of how PAYE tax actually worked, along with how people actually buy new cars (leases, HP, PCP - all very new) - up until now the newest vehicle I'd ever bought was a 4 year old bike.
Vehicle history looks like:
Renault 19 8v
Rover 600Si (2.0, 16v)
Kawasaki ZX6R (2001)
Volvo 850 T5-R
Aprilia RSVR (2006)
E39 M5 (still have, WIP)
E46 330i
F10 M5
Some significant amount spreadsheeting later it appeared that a Taycan Turbo on a 3 year PCP would cost approximately the same a month as paying back the loan was on my 2014 F10 M5 competition. Of course, the financial comparison in paying down capital vs depreciation isn't apples to apples, but the M5 was bought AUC, and while utterly delightful and more car than you could ever need, had lost 10k in value in 2 years.
Before buying the M5 I'd tried to scratch my lifelong Porsche itch test driving a 996 Turbo (and a stage 4.25 GTR) at a very generous dealer in single visit. As you might see from my car history though, I've never really hit the sports car thing, and that particular 996 seemed a bit ropey anyway.
It looked like this was finally my chance to get into a Porsche, and a new one at that. It's safe to say I was not expecting that. I was faced with the (enviable) choice of keeping a car I loved and knew well, had zero faults with a levelling depreciation curve, and ordering something brand new with a completely different drivetrain.
I got a 4 hour test drive of a Taycan Turbo in Gentian Blue from Porsche Bournemouth, the car seemed more agile than the M5 and felt smaller to send down a road, despite having almost exactly the same exterior dimensions. Driving it had a feeling of instant 'rightness'. I was surprised (and pleased) by the zero adaption to it being an EV, people say EVs are quiet, but an F10 5 series is a really quiet place to be, so there wasn't actually much difference there. The ride however was far better composed than the M5, being smoother and better damped, while more controlled at the same time.
Needless to say I was convinced and started enquiring around Porsche dealers - wait times were horrific. Coming from only ever owning used vehicles, the idea of waiting 6 months to buy something was pretty shocking. I eventually settled on using Porsche Reading (GB HQ) as they had more allocations and offered an October build slot (I was enquiring late July).
A deposit was paid and the slot secured, so began the fraught process of finding a spec. Again, new car stuff, previously I've only had to worry about having a preference on specific elements of specification, not being the person who had to select them in the first place. Luckily, the Internet exists and between the an excellent thread here on PH, various Taycan specific forums and gratuitously copying a press car (https://e-performance.io/downloads/Vehicle-information-Taycan-Turbo-S-S-GO-163E.pdf), I formed a spec: sports seats, sport chrono, 150kW onboard booster (for faster charging abroad) and not much else.
Significant doubt was placed on the colour, I'd seen mamba green on a Panamera and it was my first choice. Later doubt crept in and I considered dolomite silver (which was very much like the individual moonstone metallic on my M5), it was also more under the radar. I ended up taking some advice and went with my initial choice, it's a bit marmite but I really like it:
The story so far:
It started when I learned of a car leasing scheme starting at work. Upon enquiry was told 'you wouldn't be interested, it's only for EVs' (I was running an F10 M5 at the time).
Well, there was this one EV that had captured my interest. On looking into it I started to quickly gain an understanding of how PAYE tax actually worked, along with how people actually buy new cars (leases, HP, PCP - all very new) - up until now the newest vehicle I'd ever bought was a 4 year old bike.
Vehicle history looks like:
Renault 19 8v
Rover 600Si (2.0, 16v)
Kawasaki ZX6R (2001)
Volvo 850 T5-R
Aprilia RSVR (2006)
E39 M5 (still have, WIP)
E46 330i
F10 M5
Some significant amount spreadsheeting later it appeared that a Taycan Turbo on a 3 year PCP would cost approximately the same a month as paying back the loan was on my 2014 F10 M5 competition. Of course, the financial comparison in paying down capital vs depreciation isn't apples to apples, but the M5 was bought AUC, and while utterly delightful and more car than you could ever need, had lost 10k in value in 2 years.
Before buying the M5 I'd tried to scratch my lifelong Porsche itch test driving a 996 Turbo (and a stage 4.25 GTR) at a very generous dealer in single visit. As you might see from my car history though, I've never really hit the sports car thing, and that particular 996 seemed a bit ropey anyway.
It looked like this was finally my chance to get into a Porsche, and a new one at that. It's safe to say I was not expecting that. I was faced with the (enviable) choice of keeping a car I loved and knew well, had zero faults with a levelling depreciation curve, and ordering something brand new with a completely different drivetrain.
I got a 4 hour test drive of a Taycan Turbo in Gentian Blue from Porsche Bournemouth, the car seemed more agile than the M5 and felt smaller to send down a road, despite having almost exactly the same exterior dimensions. Driving it had a feeling of instant 'rightness'. I was surprised (and pleased) by the zero adaption to it being an EV, people say EVs are quiet, but an F10 5 series is a really quiet place to be, so there wasn't actually much difference there. The ride however was far better composed than the M5, being smoother and better damped, while more controlled at the same time.
Needless to say I was convinced and started enquiring around Porsche dealers - wait times were horrific. Coming from only ever owning used vehicles, the idea of waiting 6 months to buy something was pretty shocking. I eventually settled on using Porsche Reading (GB HQ) as they had more allocations and offered an October build slot (I was enquiring late July).
A deposit was paid and the slot secured, so began the fraught process of finding a spec. Again, new car stuff, previously I've only had to worry about having a preference on specific elements of specification, not being the person who had to select them in the first place. Luckily, the Internet exists and between the an excellent thread here on PH, various Taycan specific forums and gratuitously copying a press car (https://e-performance.io/downloads/Vehicle-information-Taycan-Turbo-S-S-GO-163E.pdf), I formed a spec: sports seats, sport chrono, 150kW onboard booster (for faster charging abroad) and not much else.
Significant doubt was placed on the colour, I'd seen mamba green on a Panamera and it was my first choice. Later doubt crept in and I considered dolomite silver (which was very much like the individual moonstone metallic on my M5), it was also more under the radar. I ended up taking some advice and went with my initial choice, it's a bit marmite but I really like it:
Edited by puttything on Sunday 27th December 22:53
At this point I did what seemed at the time to be a sensible thing and prepared to sell my M5. Que some suitability flowery descriptive text on m3cutters ( https://forums.m3cutters.co.uk/threads/2014-bmw-m5...) and I got an enquiry at 22:00 the same night.
nb: People enquiring about a car from South London late in the evening is a red flag.
The private dealer asked some reasonably sensible questions before trying to lowball me on the price. We went back and forth on the price and as Ed Bolian would say, we met smack dab in the middle at just under my asking price. The dealer also sent me a deposit to secure the car, assuring me a ‘no hassle’ sale which they ‘wouldn’t need to worry about’ as ‘it’s a AUC car with a warranty’.
We agreed I’d take the car to them 70 miles away, and upon arrival the dealer and a colleague set upon looking at the car. They then looked at it some more, and about 15 minutes later finally found something to take exception to. This resulted in a revised offer of £1000 less than we’d agreed. Given we’d already agreed a price I ended the one sided haggling after another 20 minutes and drove the car back home.
I re-advertised the car and within a day had another firm offer with a far larger deposit from a very genuine enthusiast - anyone having credentials including running an E60 M5 must be serious. The transaction was concluded shortly later and it’s safe to say I was pretty sad to see that car go.
Delivery of the Taycan should have been early November but slipped due to the car apparently being sailed to Sheerness, not offloaded from the boat, taken back to Emden (Germany), and eventually being put on another boat.
Due to the delays, Reading loaned me a Panamera GTS. Utterly fantastic car, although I’m not sure I’d spec it triple black myself (a little too stealthy):
Despite being parked next to the chargers, it's not a hybrid, it's the twin turbo V8 (PDK is awesome).
Part of the problem of all this waiting was spec creep - getting into the calculations of monthly costs I realised I could spec it out a bit more, and (as the observant may have noticed) added the optional carbon aeroblade wheels - a bargain at only £5500.. In my defence, apparently the carbon does offer a weight saving, and it's unsprung weight right?
Eventually the collection was scheduled for the 4th of December and despite all the restrictions in place, Reading did a nice job of the handover.
Looks like someone stuck a plug in the side of it..
Definitely haven’t ever owned a car with this little milage before!
nb: People enquiring about a car from South London late in the evening is a red flag.
The private dealer asked some reasonably sensible questions before trying to lowball me on the price. We went back and forth on the price and as Ed Bolian would say, we met smack dab in the middle at just under my asking price. The dealer also sent me a deposit to secure the car, assuring me a ‘no hassle’ sale which they ‘wouldn’t need to worry about’ as ‘it’s a AUC car with a warranty’.
We agreed I’d take the car to them 70 miles away, and upon arrival the dealer and a colleague set upon looking at the car. They then looked at it some more, and about 15 minutes later finally found something to take exception to. This resulted in a revised offer of £1000 less than we’d agreed. Given we’d already agreed a price I ended the one sided haggling after another 20 minutes and drove the car back home.
I re-advertised the car and within a day had another firm offer with a far larger deposit from a very genuine enthusiast - anyone having credentials including running an E60 M5 must be serious. The transaction was concluded shortly later and it’s safe to say I was pretty sad to see that car go.
Delivery of the Taycan should have been early November but slipped due to the car apparently being sailed to Sheerness, not offloaded from the boat, taken back to Emden (Germany), and eventually being put on another boat.
Due to the delays, Reading loaned me a Panamera GTS. Utterly fantastic car, although I’m not sure I’d spec it triple black myself (a little too stealthy):
Despite being parked next to the chargers, it's not a hybrid, it's the twin turbo V8 (PDK is awesome).
Part of the problem of all this waiting was spec creep - getting into the calculations of monthly costs I realised I could spec it out a bit more, and (as the observant may have noticed) added the optional carbon aeroblade wheels - a bargain at only £5500.. In my defence, apparently the carbon does offer a weight saving, and it's unsprung weight right?
Eventually the collection was scheduled for the 4th of December and despite all the restrictions in place, Reading did a nice job of the handover.
Looks like someone stuck a plug in the side of it..
Definitely haven’t ever owned a car with this little milage before!
Edited by puttything on Tuesday 29th December 18:46
Thanks for all the replies, glad this is at least partially of interest to someone other than me
This is when I got it home (excuse the fence that looks like a complete state from this angle):
I finally got it on charge about 22:00 that evening at home, hooking up to my sophisticated newly installed charging apparatus.
Just kidding, it's a bog standard outside socket and an Ohme charger I got cheaply from my energy provider. Charging commenced at an electrifying 0.1 miles per minute (aka, 6 miles an hour, 2.3kW).
Quick note here on home EV chargers since I've got a thread now: everyone tells you if you have an EV you must have a 7kW charger installed (aka, a charger on a 32A circuit). I costed doing it, but made an intentional choice not to as I'd need to run a new cable out to the garage. Not that the project doesn't appeal, it's just that my usage doesn't really justify it - normally I'll do about 20 miles each way to work, and recently 0 miles to work.
Naturally, having made that decision and justification I come into the exact situation when I'd need it after approximately 12 hours of ownership - doing some reasonable miles during the day and having a big trip planned with an early departure the next!
Contrary to what my maths would have predicted, only about 30 miles of range was netted overnight.
An additional quirk of travelling around this time was that most of the Midlands had just been upgraded to Tier 3 restrictions, meaning all the places I'd like to stop for lunch were closed. While I'm sure hanging around in a rainy motorway services car park waiting for charge is what a lot of people _imagine_ having an EV is like I was determined to at least attempt to do better
Instead of taking the predicable route of A34, M40 etc up North from Southampton we planned to go West towards the Welsh boarder and up the M5 to skirt the restrictions and stay in Tier 2 land. Luckily we found an excellent pub option which had a charger too. Bonus.
The route:
We departed (via the Grandparents house for child deposition) to the Lock Keepers pub (https://goo.gl/maps/7jhmiVH7VtZ1vu39A) near Gloucester.
The trip was uneventful and cruising in the Taycan was enjoyable (even without the specification of adaptive cruise control) - we travelled at what I'd describe as normal and some would describe as 'inefficient' speeds without doing anything too crazy, but making use of the acceleration on offer when the situation allowed.
104 miles landed us at the charger with about 40 miles range remaining. The astute readers will have noted that the milage since the start doesn't quite add up. It seems the 235 miles predicted by the car were optimistic, in winter conditions full charge is more like 210/220 miles or 0.4kW/mile.
Just plugged in:
Despite looking ropey as heck, the charger in the carpark worked (although I had to get an app)!
We had a lunch which was good (would recommend) for about an hour and got to about 75% charge which was just about enough for the next 159 miles and 2 hours 30 to Ionity at Blackburn. Unfortunately I put the wrong charger into the built in nav and took an 11 mile detour, plus apocalyptic weather and traffic around Birmingham meant we were in the car for over 3 hours and got a little tight on remaining electricity..
Pulling into the charger at Blackburn in the rain the car was showing 3 miles range, opps!
Still, the car did was it was designed to do and sucked down 246kW from the charger meaning that by the time we'd walked to the services, taken advantage of the conveniences and eaten a Belgian bun it was showing 82% charged in 23 minutes.
That seemed like sufficient charge to make it to the Airbnb, but the fun didn't end there..
Charging in the rain, I appreciated the extra wide charging bays - why can't these be everywhere you want to park a car you care about?
tbc..
This is when I got it home (excuse the fence that looks like a complete state from this angle):
bolidemichael said:
Very nice... I spotted one in the same colour in Wimbledon a couple of days ago; in fact I saw three Taycans in the short journey to Richmond Park!
Thanks! imperium said:
Enjoyed the write up, i think I’d have gone for that green too, bold choice but looks very cool.
Thanks, I had serious doubts, but really glad I stuck with it. Easternlight said:
Thanks for sharing that, Great looking car and a great colour, far too many monochrome cars out there and you'll never struggle to find it in a car park!
A car I can only dream of.
Any more pics of the interior?
Thanks, I don't really have any good pics of inside at the moment - I'd go grab some but it's not here for reasons which I'll save for later as not to destroy the chronology of the thread! I went for the black interior (safe on the inside!), some of the advantages of the Turbo trim level (other than the bigger motors/power) is you get the full leather out of the box, and get a choice of the optional sports or comfort seats as a free option (I got the former) so it's quite nice inside. There is an optional Olea leather you can spec, haven't experienced that but I'm sure it's lovely too! The interior seems to be more 911 than Panamera in style, all feels very solid and Porsche like. The car I test drove had the vegan interior which was functional and felt nice - lots more 'racetex', but didn't have as much of a consistent look for me. A car I can only dream of.
Any more pics of the interior?
DanoS4 said:
well done been thinking about it myslef then I remember that I'm in a 996 myself and already on Santa's naughty list for buying the "wrong" Porsche
I've lusted after a 996 for so long, but I think I've been spoiled by the refinement of non-sports cars, so it just didn't work for me by the time I had the opportunity. Hopefully one day though! been thinking about it myslef then I remember that I'm in a 996 myself and already on Santa's naughty list for buying the "wrong" Porsche anomaly said:
Great write up, thanks. Lovely car and the colour is awesome. Enjoy!
Thanks! samoht said:
Love the colour, if I had a Porsche I'd definitely want one in a proper colour like that, may as well make other people smile rather than frown!
Really interested in these and in how you find it as an owner, the obvious one is how you find charging it especially on longer trips, and the other thing is how well the electric drivetrain is able to overcome the size and weight of the car and make it fun / satisfying to drive. So thanks for sharing and will look forward to updates :-)
Just updated on the first long range trip - the charging has been fairly boring as it's just worked so far. Power wise it seems similar to my F10 M5, but with less turbo lag / gear shifting, I'd say the experience is most similar to driving a big torquey V8. Really interested in these and in how you find it as an owner, the obvious one is how you find charging it especially on longer trips, and the other thing is how well the electric drivetrain is able to overcome the size and weight of the car and make it fun / satisfying to drive. So thanks for sharing and will look forward to updates :-)
CheesecakeRunner said:
Looks lovely. I couldn’t make one work for my driving so ‘settled’ for a Tesla. Maybe next time.
I’m surprised PCP worked out better than a salary sacrifice lease. I’m assuming that was what was on offer by your company in your opening post?
Yes, that was the offer - if I'm completely honest I relied on the accountants for the impact to my monthlies and left it there when the numbers added up for me :PI’m surprised PCP worked out better than a salary sacrifice lease. I’m assuming that was what was on offer by your company in your opening post?
Nickbrapp said:
I love it, certainly the most exciting car you can buy today I think, love the colour, please tell me the interior isn’t black?
Be Intrested to hear about range etc, are you having a home charger?
Sorry, bad news on the interior! That and charging updated below.. Be Intrested to hear about range etc, are you having a home charger?
puttything said:
The day after collection we took a trip from home (Southampton) to the Yorkshire Dales - a holiday and an opportunity for a road trip, plus testing out how the thing handled on a longer run. I'll backfill the details here a bit later..
I missed a step - 55 miles home from Porsche Reading, and popping out later in the way for a much needed post lockdown (at the time) haircut meant when I put the car on charge I was down to about 150 miles range. The remaining charge wasn't a deal breaker but was very aware that we were going all the way to Yorkshire (for a holiday break booked agggges ago) the next day and while I'd planned in a pub lunch stop with a charger it would have been good to have as much charge as possible in the car. I finally got it on charge about 22:00 that evening at home, hooking up to my sophisticated newly installed charging apparatus.
Just kidding, it's a bog standard outside socket and an Ohme charger I got cheaply from my energy provider. Charging commenced at an electrifying 0.1 miles per minute (aka, 6 miles an hour, 2.3kW).
Quick note here on home EV chargers since I've got a thread now: everyone tells you if you have an EV you must have a 7kW charger installed (aka, a charger on a 32A circuit). I costed doing it, but made an intentional choice not to as I'd need to run a new cable out to the garage. Not that the project doesn't appeal, it's just that my usage doesn't really justify it - normally I'll do about 20 miles each way to work, and recently 0 miles to work.
Naturally, having made that decision and justification I come into the exact situation when I'd need it after approximately 12 hours of ownership - doing some reasonable miles during the day and having a big trip planned with an early departure the next!
Contrary to what my maths would have predicted, only about 30 miles of range was netted overnight.
An additional quirk of travelling around this time was that most of the Midlands had just been upgraded to Tier 3 restrictions, meaning all the places I'd like to stop for lunch were closed. While I'm sure hanging around in a rainy motorway services car park waiting for charge is what a lot of people _imagine_ having an EV is like I was determined to at least attempt to do better
Instead of taking the predicable route of A34, M40 etc up North from Southampton we planned to go West towards the Welsh boarder and up the M5 to skirt the restrictions and stay in Tier 2 land. Luckily we found an excellent pub option which had a charger too. Bonus.
The route:
We departed (via the Grandparents house for child deposition) to the Lock Keepers pub (https://goo.gl/maps/7jhmiVH7VtZ1vu39A) near Gloucester.
The trip was uneventful and cruising in the Taycan was enjoyable (even without the specification of adaptive cruise control) - we travelled at what I'd describe as normal and some would describe as 'inefficient' speeds without doing anything too crazy, but making use of the acceleration on offer when the situation allowed.
104 miles landed us at the charger with about 40 miles range remaining. The astute readers will have noted that the milage since the start doesn't quite add up. It seems the 235 miles predicted by the car were optimistic, in winter conditions full charge is more like 210/220 miles or 0.4kW/mile.
Just plugged in:
Despite looking ropey as heck, the charger in the carpark worked (although I had to get an app)!
We had a lunch which was good (would recommend) for about an hour and got to about 75% charge which was just about enough for the next 159 miles and 2 hours 30 to Ionity at Blackburn. Unfortunately I put the wrong charger into the built in nav and took an 11 mile detour, plus apocalyptic weather and traffic around Birmingham meant we were in the car for over 3 hours and got a little tight on remaining electricity..
Pulling into the charger at Blackburn in the rain the car was showing 3 miles range, opps!
Still, the car did was it was designed to do and sucked down 246kW from the charger meaning that by the time we'd walked to the services, taken advantage of the conveniences and eaten a Belgian bun it was showing 82% charged in 23 minutes.
That seemed like sufficient charge to make it to the Airbnb, but the fun didn't end there..
Charging in the rain, I appreciated the extra wide charging bays - why can't these be everywhere you want to park a car you care about?
tbc..
Edited by puttything on Sunday 27th December 18:59
Thanks for all the comments, I'm linking all the images out of Google Photos and some times they appear for me but not via an unauthenticated browser, please let me know if any of them break as my testing is a bit inconsistent.
From Blackburn we travelled on toward the Yorkshire Dales, leaving the motorway and eventually getting onto some very wet and twisting lanes. Observations included appreciating the agility of the car when I had no idea where I was going and it was really dark, also the auto lights work really well illuminating the road ahead. Oh, and in low mode the car did bottom out on some of the more gnarly bits of road, the ride height was swiftly changed back to normal. Overall though not ideal conditions for a car I wasn't super familiar with but good character building stuff.
As you might have noticed from the picture at Blackburn, we were pretty behind on expected time, not least because of a relaxed lunch stop, but it didn't get any lighter after that. The words of the Airbnb host were going round in my head, the lane had been described as 'tight' and they mentioned 'we don't recommend attempting it in the dark for the first time'.
I've stayed at quite a few holiday lets with access via a track, and foolishly didn't think this could be significantly worse. Let's just say I wouldn't recommend attempting the approach to this one in a car you care about, at any time. I had the frankly terrible experience of starting down the track only for it to narrow severely after a corner, I couldn't see anything to reverse. I ended up climbing out of the car window (too narrow to open the door) to go ask the owner for some guidance up the track. The owner was very accommodating and got us through, but I'm ashamed to say (but in the spirit of openness mention) that I caught a wheel on a low lying rock on the way up. Some swears happened.
Anyway, the damage wasn't that bad (only a scuff on the metal of the rim), the stay was amazing, even for just a couple of nights and the host graciously let us plug in to recharge. He also guided us back down the track when we left. Turns out we had about 6 inches each side of the wings of the car down the lane - I had to fold the mirrors in to avoid rocks sticking out of the cobblestone walls.
After completing that ordeal we took a much more direct route home. I'd been planning it the previous night and decided despite the short distance (so a relatively inefficient charge from a high battery) we'd go back to Ionity in Blackburn to get at least 80% to set us up for a long stretch down towards Birmingham which would allow us to take the M6 toll.
Even with the relatively short time tooling around the Yorkshire lanes the car looked like it had just come back from the Somme, and I was sneakily keeping an eye out for a jet wash. Blackburn services came up trumps again with the nearby Shell allowing me to purchase some surprisingly reasonably priced wash time tokens. Not so lucky was the fact that the locals clearly used the place to clean out some sort of livestock transport before I got there, so I ended up using the a significant amount of the time cleaning the wash bay before attending to the car!
As mentioned, my public charging experiences have been rather undramatic so far, all the chargers have worked, been available, no issues at all. Despite that, it's definitely early days for this stuff and I think having a plan (and a backup) is a useful step. Hence sticking to Ionity (Porsche charging service means 350kW@30p/kW) and Instavolt (mostly 125kW@35p/kW) chargers where possible, with Osprey (aka Shell) as a decent backup.
The journey was hugely more pleasant than the one on the way up thanks to improved weather and was mainly passed listening to podcasts on the standard-on-the-Turbo middle-spec Bose sound system (Burmeister is available for just £6000 more of your pounds). In additional spec creep from the initial, I'd also added the acoustic glass option - I'm not sure how much difference it makes having not compared back to back, but it was reasonably inexpensive (as far as Porsche options go) and the main noise in the cabin in tyre and wind, so made sense to me.
The other side of the M6 toll was an Instavolt @ Stroud, I targeted this as it was about the right distance, a reliable charging network and most importantly... The legendary Harry Metcalfe (of Evo) charged his Taycan there when he reviewed it and I wanted to recreate the photo. Typing that I realise I sound pretty hopeless! :P
Anyway, we made it there no problems and grabbed a drink, a toilet and some juice:
nb. 125kW chargers in practice aren't much slower than the bigger Ionity chargers as the peak charge rate is achieved for only a small percentage of the battery charge with the former:
Image credit: https://insideevs.com/news/427335/porsche-taycan-d...
Obligatory photo:
Compared to Harry's thumbnail:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C-dSOf0jp4
From Blackburn we travelled on toward the Yorkshire Dales, leaving the motorway and eventually getting onto some very wet and twisting lanes. Observations included appreciating the agility of the car when I had no idea where I was going and it was really dark, also the auto lights work really well illuminating the road ahead. Oh, and in low mode the car did bottom out on some of the more gnarly bits of road, the ride height was swiftly changed back to normal. Overall though not ideal conditions for a car I wasn't super familiar with but good character building stuff.
As you might have noticed from the picture at Blackburn, we were pretty behind on expected time, not least because of a relaxed lunch stop, but it didn't get any lighter after that. The words of the Airbnb host were going round in my head, the lane had been described as 'tight' and they mentioned 'we don't recommend attempting it in the dark for the first time'.
I've stayed at quite a few holiday lets with access via a track, and foolishly didn't think this could be significantly worse. Let's just say I wouldn't recommend attempting the approach to this one in a car you care about, at any time. I had the frankly terrible experience of starting down the track only for it to narrow severely after a corner, I couldn't see anything to reverse. I ended up climbing out of the car window (too narrow to open the door) to go ask the owner for some guidance up the track. The owner was very accommodating and got us through, but I'm ashamed to say (but in the spirit of openness mention) that I caught a wheel on a low lying rock on the way up. Some swears happened.
Anyway, the damage wasn't that bad (only a scuff on the metal of the rim), the stay was amazing, even for just a couple of nights and the host graciously let us plug in to recharge. He also guided us back down the track when we left. Turns out we had about 6 inches each side of the wings of the car down the lane - I had to fold the mirrors in to avoid rocks sticking out of the cobblestone walls.
After completing that ordeal we took a much more direct route home. I'd been planning it the previous night and decided despite the short distance (so a relatively inefficient charge from a high battery) we'd go back to Ionity in Blackburn to get at least 80% to set us up for a long stretch down towards Birmingham which would allow us to take the M6 toll.
Even with the relatively short time tooling around the Yorkshire lanes the car looked like it had just come back from the Somme, and I was sneakily keeping an eye out for a jet wash. Blackburn services came up trumps again with the nearby Shell allowing me to purchase some surprisingly reasonably priced wash time tokens. Not so lucky was the fact that the locals clearly used the place to clean out some sort of livestock transport before I got there, so I ended up using the a significant amount of the time cleaning the wash bay before attending to the car!
As mentioned, my public charging experiences have been rather undramatic so far, all the chargers have worked, been available, no issues at all. Despite that, it's definitely early days for this stuff and I think having a plan (and a backup) is a useful step. Hence sticking to Ionity (Porsche charging service means 350kW@30p/kW) and Instavolt (mostly 125kW@35p/kW) chargers where possible, with Osprey (aka Shell) as a decent backup.
The journey was hugely more pleasant than the one on the way up thanks to improved weather and was mainly passed listening to podcasts on the standard-on-the-Turbo middle-spec Bose sound system (Burmeister is available for just £6000 more of your pounds). In additional spec creep from the initial, I'd also added the acoustic glass option - I'm not sure how much difference it makes having not compared back to back, but it was reasonably inexpensive (as far as Porsche options go) and the main noise in the cabin in tyre and wind, so made sense to me.
The other side of the M6 toll was an Instavolt @ Stroud, I targeted this as it was about the right distance, a reliable charging network and most importantly... The legendary Harry Metcalfe (of Evo) charged his Taycan there when he reviewed it and I wanted to recreate the photo. Typing that I realise I sound pretty hopeless! :P
Anyway, we made it there no problems and grabbed a drink, a toilet and some juice:
nb. 125kW chargers in practice aren't much slower than the bigger Ionity chargers as the peak charge rate is achieved for only a small percentage of the battery charge with the former:
Image credit: https://insideevs.com/news/427335/porsche-taycan-d...
Obligatory photo:
Compared to Harry's thumbnail:
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7C-dSOf0jp4
Edited by puttything on Sunday 27th December 22:25
catfood12 said:
Great thread OP, thanks for taking the time to document.
Just how bad is range anxiety ?..... 3 miles to go on your thread... That must have had you sweating, or is it all part of the fun ?!...
That run to Blackburn was fairly intense..! Having come out the other side though, and now the range of the car has adjusted to my driving it seems to do the predicted range no matter how you use it, so it makes it pretty simple to know how far it's going to go (and plan accordingly). Just how bad is range anxiety ?..... 3 miles to go on your thread... That must have had you sweating, or is it all part of the fun ?!...
I'd say in general it was no worse than when I blew past a fuel stop in my e39 M5 in France (on the way back from Barcelona) with 30 miles indicated range, only for the range to immediately drop to 15 and the next exit with fuel to be 50KM down the road.. I watched the range go to zero, then accessed the secret menu and watch the left and right tanks both drop to zero litres (we made it then too
). Obviously with the EVs you don't get as much range in the first place, or as good a noise.
Edited by puttything on Sunday 27th December 23:46
Max M4X WW said:
Good read, interested to hear about the cruise control (sorry!) it doesn't have adaptive at all? Or do you mean it just doesn't drive itself?
You get standard cruise control out of the box, any adaptive function is an option (which I didn't tick) and I think from there you can spec Innodrive which is the semi-autonomous thing. The Panamera I borrowed had adaptive cruise and I have to admit that it was impressive technology, the way it handled slowing and getting back up to speed when overtaking without any additional input was seamless. That said, I'm still interested in actually driving, and as I don't do a huge amount of commuting the absence of more clever cruise isn't a massive miss - but it did really stand out after hopping out of the Panamera straight into the Taycan!
ColdoRS said:
Yeah I understood it that way too - however I still imagine it would have been cheaper for him to stick with his M5? or stick to his previous car buying habits and by something older outright.
Keeping the M5 or something else I where I'd actually be paying down the balance would have been the sensible choice for sure. I came to the conclusion that I might well never have the opportunity to run something at this price point again (certainly the BIK situation seems like a one-off), so might as well go for it while I can! I ended the last update without concluding the trip, suffice to say that we made the rest of the trip back without issue, although we ran right down to ---- predicted range when I pulled onto the drive.
On reflection, reading that and of the posts I've made I feel a bit like I'm doing the EV thing a bit of a disservice. I should point out that a lot of these close calls on the range could have been avoided by me being a bit less impatient and putting more than a 5 mile margin of juice into the car when stopped. That also said, I don't want to make excuses for the technology, and I've been making as few allowances for the tech as possible and using it like I'd use any other car.
Anyway, having returned from the trip, the car was put on to refuel overnight - we had a second slightly less ambitious trip planned the next Friday.
The next day I got a message in the afternoon from the charger stating the car had stopped charging. A bit odd, given it was completely flat and had been connected less than a day - checking the Porsche connect app, it was showing 85% charged and... 90 miles range.
I assumed this must be something to do with the abuse I'd inflicted on the machine by running it down to almost flat and like in a regular car, if you do some abnormal driving the predicted range will be off until it re-adapts to the more usual style. Not having a chance to get out much during the 4 day week I set it to charge to 100% and didn't think much more of it.
The event I'd planned to attend was called Lap Land at Silverstone (https://www.laplandsilverstone.co.uk/) - you drive (slowly) around the circuit and see a light show, they also had a drive in cinema showing of The Snowman at the end. Seemed like the perfect cross over of family motorsport/car stuff, and frankly, I had a new car to use so was looking for opportunities.
Silverstone isn't next door to Southampton, but even in an EV in winter, it should be perfectly doable on a single charge:
Planning the journey and factoring the timings around small children, we were stopping for some dinner on the way up at a pub which happened to have a fast charger - this turned out to be pretty useful! Remember when I said the car had charged suspiciously fast? Well, we started the journey with a sure-to-convince-anyone-still-doubting-EV 105 miles range from 100% battery. I was, of course, confident that the predicted range would sort it self out as we got underway.
Not so, half way up the A34 and range was dropping at approximately 1% per mile. Hrm.. Apart from observing the increased consumption, or perhaps - regular consumption of a reduced capacity battery, zero accommodation was made for the state of the car and swift progress was made to the food stop (including a nifty avoidance of traffic towards the M4 junction - thanks Google Maps integrated Porsche nav).
Sure enough, having covered the 90 or so miles to the stop, the battery was showing 10%. Would half of it be re-discovered before it hit zero, would the range start ticking down at super-slow rate for the rest of the capacity? My internal monologue didn't have much useful input so after activating the beautiful electrically operated charging flap via a touch (£350 option) I dutifully plugged in the DC connector of the vacant 50kW charger.
The charger, following some fumbling with the correct series of touch screen presses happily took payment via a bank card virtually waved in it's direction on my phone and made the (seemingly obligatory) click-clunk-whirr that these devices do before they actually make electricity happen.
With the green pulsing led on the charge port signalling a reassuring ingress of power we went to have a completely unremarkable generic pub meal. Just under an hour of food consumption and child wrangling later I returned to the car to see the charger stopped - damn, perhaps it had aborted the charge for some reason? In fact, the charge had been successful - 100% successful and the battery was full.
A pleasing (to me) side effect of this EV thing is the maths is really simple:
- A 50kW charger provides 50kW of power in 1 hour
- The Taycan has a 93ish kWh battery, of which slightly less is usable
- We've only been here an hour, so not more than 50kW of power can have been deposited into the car
No time for further mental arithmetic though, we had a light show to go see. Got a nice comment on the car from one of the marshals on the way in, and I have to say the whole experience was very enjoyable, especially for the pretty reasonable £35/car entry fee.
At Silverstone - hopefully not the last time this thing gets on a circuit!
Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea, lots of pretty lights, but surprisingly hard to see where you're going:
At the drive in cinema - EV side benefit, you can keep the heater running at the drive in with no engine running:
The drive back was uneventful, apart a quick stop for a wee at Roadchef Sutton Scotney and some a free vend energy at the (reportedly) highly unreliable Ecotricty charger there.
Needless to say, range is an issue for EVs, but a 100 mile range is pretty useless. On the plus side, the regeneration started working when braking - it hadn't worked for the Yorkshire trip which may have contributed to some of the tight range moments!
Did a quick run to the office that weekend to verify the battery issue, and yep, it was still there. In positive news, I've hit a milestone and ticked over 1000 miles!
<rant>
Annoying service thing from Porsche Reading: the sales chap and the sales manager both said 'if you have any issues please let _me_ know straight away' during the collection. Not the service department, or any handover to a service manager (at BMW there was a dedicated service person I always spoke to at the dealership), but them personally. I got in touch about the issues so far on the 6th of December and they then sat on it for 2 days until I chased on the phone, they then didn't even get back to me the day after that. Why not just point me to the service department, or just don't tell me you'll call back tomorrow if you've got no intention of doing it?
</rant>
The issues so far:
- The brake pedal was making an annoying clunk at the top of the travel if you side step off it, seems like a small QC thing
- The brake energy regeneration didn't work and then did - could it be related?
- Half the battery has disappeared
An
This was a result the next day (15th of December):
To add insult to injury, my brother overtook the recovery truck in his work van on his way to work - queuing some jibes about the relative performance of the two vehicles:
As it stands, the car arrived at Porsche Reading at 12:00 on the 15th of December. A tech took it out on the 17th for 2 hours and covered 72 miles confirming the problem. It was referred to the Porsche GB, who sent it to Porsche Germany. They eventually came back on the 22nd of December with an instruction to change the entire battery pack with an update to follow on part availability and expected installation time. Nothing was forthcoming by and no one bothered to update me before they went home on Christmas eve.
Fun fact: the battery pack weighs 630KG, imagine that'll be quite a mission to ship over!
This last part (dear reader) takes the thread up to current-time, so the slow updates will likely become even more tardy. I'll update when I hear more!
Edited by puttything on Tuesday 29th December 00:44
Thanks for all the comments and support - I am at least getting some enjoyment from writing about the car even if I don't get to actually drive it at the moment! On the plus side, this does give me time to drop the motor out of the e39 and actually make progress on that project rather than wasting time enjoying myself in something new :P
I see the dealer are open today so will give them a quick chaser for a status update if I don't hear soon - they're not strong on being proactive with the communication so far.
The first was an (Audi) A6 Avant (supplied in pretty disgusting condition) which seemed perfectly capable if not the most exciting. Unfortunately that had to go back and in it's place, until something bigger is available, is a 1000 mile old A3 saloon. I didn't even realise they made an A3 saloon, this one is fairly anonymous unfortunately. I'd like to describe the 115hp 1.0 3 cylinder engine as characterful, but it feels like it's been completely neutered performance wise.
Having the systems working properly, the braking feels far better tuned to the car and it helps hide the weight better. A couple of times on the first trip I almost overshot when needing to do a proper stop.
I think your experience may have been the 'auto' setting which (apparently) adapts to the road conditions as you say. Not something I've felt like I needed, and it's probably going to stay in the cupboard under the stairs of never being activated along with the lane keeping assistance.
I'm glad your car is proving more reliable than mine! Have to say that this is probably the most faults (by functional area of the vehicle) I think I've ever had, buying used by comparison has been faultless!
I see the dealer are open today so will give them a quick chaser for a status update if I don't hear soon - they're not strong on being proactive with the communication so far.
alfabeat said:
Have they given you a courtesy car?
My understanding is when Porsche have a firm ETA for the fix I'll get a courtesy car from the dealer, but at the moment Porsche Assist have supplied rentals.The first was an (Audi) A6 Avant (supplied in pretty disgusting condition) which seemed perfectly capable if not the most exciting. Unfortunately that had to go back and in it's place, until something bigger is available, is a 1000 mile old A3 saloon. I didn't even realise they made an A3 saloon, this one is fairly anonymous unfortunately. I'd like to describe the 115hp 1.0 3 cylinder engine as characterful, but it feels like it's been completely neutered performance wise.
seefarr said:
First scratch on a car is a liberating experience - you no longer have to worry that it's perfect! Sorry to hear about the battery though, hopefully it'll be quick to ship over.
Hah, you're right - after the initial rage had passed I did feel like a huge weight had been lifted! okenemem said:
intresting, cant believe you have all that car and no assited cruise control
I had to draw the line somewhere on the options, and I may very well chosen the wrong place, and not used a ruler. For my usage though, it's OK - the next owner might think differently! samoht said:
I feel like regen braking is quite significant in a big heavy EV like this, in terms of range, it also (to me) contributes to the ease of use because you can glide smoothly to a halt with it. So I'd definitely want it working 100% of the time.
Agree completely, it was really obvious on the first trip that it wasn't regenerating because of the no green on the power meter, and I could actually hear the disks working.Having the systems working properly, the braking feels far better tuned to the car and it helps hide the weight better. A couple of times on the first trip I almost overshot when needing to do a proper stop.
Richard-G said:
great write up OP, ive had a test drive in one Turbo and a passenger ride in a 4S, Porsche have a strange regen braking system, it seemed to be adaptive depending on where you are on the roads, not ideal from a sports car when you want consitancy.
My preference so far is to have the regeneration setting set to 'on' - when you lift off the gas it provides some moderate deceleration which feels (to me) like engine braking and (again for me) makes it easier to make smooth progress. The default is 'off' where it just coasts, it feels amazingly frictionless but somewhat disconcerting as I found myself arriving faster places than I wanted to. I think your experience may have been the 'auto' setting which (apparently) adapts to the road conditions as you say. Not something I've felt like I needed, and it's probably going to stay in the cupboard under the stairs of never being activated along with the lane keeping assistance.
Richard-G said:
Wierdly i love the HVAC vents, i, like a child whent to move one with my hands and resorted to brute force just before the salesman corrected me and i ended up with a loads of snapped plastic in my hands!
Agree on the vents! Being slightly broken about these things I always seem to be tweaking vents in my cars to be parallel anyway, and tend to set them one and never touch them again. I've not yet found a need to adjust where the air goes in the Taycan. cheddar said:
Indeed.
My 13 year old £5k Toyota has adaptive cruise as standard (for clarity that's £5k for the whole car not just the cruise option).
It looks way less sexy than your Taycan but hasn't required a flatbed truck.
It is a bit mad - Porsche claim that owners want to individualise each car, but surely they could just put this sort of thing on there standard and get an economy of scale to not impact the base price too much?My 13 year old £5k Toyota has adaptive cruise as standard (for clarity that's £5k for the whole car not just the cruise option).
It looks way less sexy than your Taycan but hasn't required a flatbed truck.
I'm glad your car is proving more reliable than mine! Have to say that this is probably the most faults (by functional area of the vehicle) I think I've ever had, buying used by comparison has been faultless!
Edited by puttything on Tuesday 29th December 14:09
Update!
After Porsche having the car for 24 days (that's 12 more than I've had it) some progress has been made.
Having been issued with Audi A3 loaner (after 2 days with an A6) from Porsche Assist since the car went up to Reading on the flatbed, the dealer yesterday swapped the Audi for one of their Macan S courtesy cars.
I've think I've managed to unintentionally drive about 1/3 of the Porsche range now, which while not the plan, is still really enticing for a person of my disposition (I imagine it's a shared affliction around here) and makes the best of a bad situation. I've got to admit that the Macan isn't really for me, I don't really get the SUV thing but from the very limited amount of driving I've done with it due to the current circumstances it seems like a competent machine, the twin turbo V6 makes a decent enough sound too when pushing on.
Sorry, not a very good picture, the wide angle on my phone seems to make the wheels look ridiculously huge while making the car look like it's got a squashed wheelbase:
In more exciting news, the second service person assigned to oversee fixing my car (the first having left without any handover) has been really proactive with updates (including sorting that loaner Macan) and today called to say that the entire replacement battery pack hadn't only arrived but was fitted to the car. Just the underfloor to re-attach apparently, should be done early next week.
I mentioned previously the battery pack was 600KG, the chap informed it also has to be shipped specially because of the fire risk and let slip the quite impressive price tag - I don't think there is a forum sweepstake function so I'll just leave it below to people can have a chance to guess first:
£30k
After Porsche having the car for 24 days (that's 12 more than I've had it) some progress has been made.
Having been issued with Audi A3 loaner (after 2 days with an A6) from Porsche Assist since the car went up to Reading on the flatbed, the dealer yesterday swapped the Audi for one of their Macan S courtesy cars.
I've think I've managed to unintentionally drive about 1/3 of the Porsche range now, which while not the plan, is still really enticing for a person of my disposition (I imagine it's a shared affliction around here) and makes the best of a bad situation. I've got to admit that the Macan isn't really for me, I don't really get the SUV thing but from the very limited amount of driving I've done with it due to the current circumstances it seems like a competent machine, the twin turbo V6 makes a decent enough sound too when pushing on.
Sorry, not a very good picture, the wide angle on my phone seems to make the wheels look ridiculously huge while making the car look like it's got a squashed wheelbase:
In more exciting news, the second service person assigned to oversee fixing my car (the first having left without any handover) has been really proactive with updates (including sorting that loaner Macan) and today called to say that the entire replacement battery pack hadn't only arrived but was fitted to the car. Just the underfloor to re-attach apparently, should be done early next week.
I mentioned previously the battery pack was 600KG, the chap informed it also has to be shipped specially because of the fire risk and let slip the quite impressive price tag - I don't think there is a forum sweepstake function so I'll just leave it below to people can have a chance to guess first:
£30k
Spuffington said:
Out of interest, how did you get onto the Taycan and buying new? Did you see a finance offer published somewhere or did you take the thing by the scruff of the neck and just ask a dealer to quote? I'm looking for a new family wagon (currently in a MacanS) and I'm a master at man maths, so reckon I could get the numbers to stack up! 
Was an offer via work which fully realises the tax benefits, really lucky as I'd never be able to do it otherwise. As you say, with a bit of man maths it was the same monthly cost as the loan on my F10 M5, so pulled the trigger. MiltonBaines said:
Nice colour choice and I'm glad you like the car, but reading this all makes me even more convinced I'm not ready (nor really is the UK charging infrastructure) ready for an EV car.
I couldn't be doing with the hassle of planning a relatively simple route all based around charging points or the range anxiety it would give me.
Would it all have gone so smoothly were it not for COVID? Less cars on the road surely means less chance your target chargers would have been already taken by another EV.
Do EV owners ever find themselves queuing for a charger adding even more time to their journey or can the charging point be broken on arrival?
As I said nice looking car but sounds like a right faff to own, and that's before the £30k battery fails after 1000miles.
Totally fair points. The EV readiness thing will always be a question I guess - for me I expect the thing to work like a car, but I accept that there are different considerations to driving something with a different powertrain. I couldn't be doing with the hassle of planning a relatively simple route all based around charging points or the range anxiety it would give me.
Would it all have gone so smoothly were it not for COVID? Less cars on the road surely means less chance your target chargers would have been already taken by another EV.
Do EV owners ever find themselves queuing for a charger adding even more time to their journey or can the charging point be broken on arrival?
As I said nice looking car but sounds like a right faff to own, and that's before the £30k battery fails after 1000miles.
Yes, you need to plan charging if you're doing a long trip, but on the flip side you never have to make that initial run to the petrol station before embarking on a trip. For the record I've never seen more than one charger in use in the admittedly short amount of time I had the car - I wasn't traveling at peak times though.
The range thing makes a current EV less ideal for continent crushing (though I still intend to do that), but I'm used to touring on sportbikes, and on those you stop every 120 miles because you run out of petrol.
I think it's a matter of matching the mindset to the intended form of travel - you make compromises and plan accordingly if you take a plane, train, ferry - it's just another flavour of that (imo). Some won't be willing to do that and it's each to their own.
Edited by puttything on Saturday 9th January 11:03
JonnyVTEC said:
You’re bonkers for sticking to just 10A home charging IMO
I've got a pot set aside to cover the install / parts, but decided I'll probably spend it on ceramic coating instead, or at least first.. When I get to use the car for more than a couple of weeks my ideas on the necessity of high speed charging may change! MiltonBaines said:
But if you wake up in the morning having forgotten to fill up it's a 5 minute detour to sort it. With an EV you are screwed. How many hours to get a full charge?
I guess drive to a fast charger and it takes 20 minutes?Update! The new battery back is installed as of the end of last week, all that had to be done was the under-trays reattached.
Shortly after, someone in the workshop had a positive coronavirus test and 3 others have needed to isolate as a result, including the tech who was making good progress on the car. I guess I'll be waiting some more then!
And for content sake, here is a better picture of the loan Macan - it's done about 5 miles since I got it back here..
Edited by puttything on Friday 15th January 10:45
Update!
The car sprang into life over the weekend - given the news I'd had previously that the battery had been installed this seemed like a good indication despite the outbreak at the OPC.
Range looks more promising now:
This was followed by a number of enthusiastic communication attempts by the person in charge of aftersales at the dealer. It confused me slightly that the service team wasn't getting in touch any more, but I figured someone more senior picking it up could only be a good thing, right?
Well, not so much as it turned out. After playing phone call battleships most of Friday and scoring a lot of misses I tried again this (Monday) morning which was also wide of the mark. Apparently senior people spend a lot of time in meetings.
Got a phone call back mid morning (and managed to step out from the meeting I was in at the time to take it). After a brief introduction and assurance about the level of detail which would be gone into quality checking the car before it was handed back (it seems they want to deliver it as new again) the result of the escalation became clear.
The battery is the wrong one.
Apparently the battery, an item in the parts list which took several weeks to assemble, is a 2019 spec item. This only became apparently after installation while they coded the various battery related things to my car and couldn't get everything to talk. The upshot is that they're back at the beginning of the process, only just talking to Germany again to order the right part in.
So, back to waiting again. Like most I suspect, I don't have a great deal to use a car for at the moment, but still not brilliant progress. So far Porsche have had the car 33 days to my 10.
On the plus I guess the techs at the OPC should be getting pretty nifty at swapping battery modules in and out.
The car sprang into life over the weekend - given the news I'd had previously that the battery had been installed this seemed like a good indication despite the outbreak at the OPC.
Range looks more promising now:
This was followed by a number of enthusiastic communication attempts by the person in charge of aftersales at the dealer. It confused me slightly that the service team wasn't getting in touch any more, but I figured someone more senior picking it up could only be a good thing, right?
Well, not so much as it turned out. After playing phone call battleships most of Friday and scoring a lot of misses I tried again this (Monday) morning which was also wide of the mark. Apparently senior people spend a lot of time in meetings.
Got a phone call back mid morning (and managed to step out from the meeting I was in at the time to take it). After a brief introduction and assurance about the level of detail which would be gone into quality checking the car before it was handed back (it seems they want to deliver it as new again) the result of the escalation became clear.
The battery is the wrong one.
Apparently the battery, an item in the parts list which took several weeks to assemble, is a 2019 spec item. This only became apparently after installation while they coded the various battery related things to my car and couldn't get everything to talk. The upshot is that they're back at the beginning of the process, only just talking to Germany again to order the right part in.
So, back to waiting again. Like most I suspect, I don't have a great deal to use a car for at the moment, but still not brilliant progress. So far Porsche have had the car 33 days to my 10.
On the plus I guess the techs at the OPC should be getting pretty nifty at swapping battery modules in and out.
Thanks for the continued good wishes all, broken car sucks, but it could be a lot worse at the moment!
I spent so long debating the virtues of different options, clearly you've taken the correct approach my just selecting them all - guaranteed no regrets Enjoy it when it arrives!
Update:
Got a call on Thursday to tell me the Macan had been sold so they wanted it back - on Friday this was dropped off in exchange:
So I'm back in a Taycan, albeit not mine!
This one is a demo Taycan Turbo, so mostly identical - same drivetrain as mine and it's got the same sports seats with a black interior. Notable differences are the non-powered charging port covers on this loaner - I wasn't sure about that particularly frivolous spec choice but it definitely adds a sense of occasion (for me anyway)!
The main difference between this and mine is this one has a battery that works. I've used it once for a run to the shops and I've got to admit, it's a nice place to be and reminds me why I liked this car in the first place. The combination of refinement and performance is quite something, and a bonus electric thing I'd forgotten about - the heating working as soon as you turn the car on. It might be having ridden bikes for a long time that I rank the quality of the heating as one of the things that matters most to me in a car!
I'd completely forgotten just how fast it is too, certainly gave the packaging of the shopping a test.
I hear the replacement, replacement battery for mine is due early this week - maybe I will see it again before February!
culpz said:
Lovely car and love that colour! The only thing I'm not particularly keen on are the wheels. Much prefer the ones on the one that you test drove.
The Mission E design wheels are pretty popular with a lot of buyers of these from what I've seen - I think they look great in a solid colour but I'm not so sold on the different coloured rim myself. AB said:
I also absolutely love the colour. I have one arriving March but I bottled the green and stuck with Gentian Blue, I did however go with the same Exclusive Design wheels the same as the OP, I really don't like the 'Mission-E' wheels as per his demo.
Really looking forward to getting to grips with it as I ticked almost every single option available which is nearly £40k in options!
Did I mention, I'm really envious of the colour? I just prefer to blend in a bit more. Beautiful car OP.
It is a lovely blue - I did back and forth on the colour a few times, something a bit more under the radar did appeal but my e39 M5 is LeMans blue and the f10 I sold was Moonstone metallic (looks mostly silver) so I'm trying to diversify!Really looking forward to getting to grips with it as I ticked almost every single option available which is nearly £40k in options!
Did I mention, I'm really envious of the colour? I just prefer to blend in a bit more. Beautiful car OP.
I spent so long debating the virtues of different options, clearly you've taken the correct approach my just selecting them all - guaranteed no regrets
Enjoy it when it arrives! The Spruce Goose said:
Saw one in the flesh, and double take, they really are stunning looking cars. I don't think I've ever thought the same about Teslas which are just functional design with no style.
I saw the new loaner being backed down the drive when it was delivered and it's the first time I've seen one in motion from the outside, the exterior lighting looks great to me too. A Tesla just didn't tickle my fancy either, if Porsche hadn't made this I'd have probably ended up trying to buy a Panamera I think.. bolidemichael said:
You're correct about having the luxury of time during this lockdown period, so that you're not missing the car. However, it is a shame that you're paying for a car that isn't accessible for extended periods.
I'm trying not to think about it! J4CKO said:
Still, an amazing piece of kit, saw one in a strange turquoise at night when they first appeared, it moving off so quietly and looking so different put it on the list of cars I see that stand out in my memory, up there with the Cadbury Purple 720S and Matte Purple Mercedes SLR with purple neons underneath it.
Frozen blue maybe?J4CKO said:
Must say you are being pretty stoic considering you spent all that money and the car was broken and the service seems fairly poor. No Point in being a prima donna about it all but not exactly stellar.
30 grand for a battery is impressive like you say, kind of a concern when these cars get older but then I suppose Porsche engines disintegrating hasnt stopped people buying older 911s and the like, plus maybe cut them a bit of slack as its their first go and I suspect that battery pack will be being scrutinized to avoid it happening in future.
30 grand for a battery is impressive like you say, kind of a concern when these cars get older but then I suppose Porsche engines disintegrating hasnt stopped people buying older 911s and the like, plus maybe cut them a bit of slack as its their first go and I suspect that battery pack will be being scrutinized to avoid it happening in future.
CDB1983 said:
I had a go in one of these when my cayenne was being serviced. Looked like a very realistic proposition (at least until the world went crazy over COVID) really very impressive bits of kit and stunning looking things. Clever design in terms of the things like rear legroom however in my experience Porsche customer service leaves a lot to be desired.
Hope you get it back soon!
The service is really inconsistent, but has improved noticeably in the last few weeks. There are still big gaps though, I'll get 3 calls in a day when they want to swap the loan car, but no update on the repair for a week. Would it be too much effort just to bung me an email every couple of days, even if it just says "we're still working on it" ?Hope you get it back soon!
Update:
Got a call on Thursday to tell me the Macan had been sold so they wanted it back - on Friday this was dropped off in exchange:
So I'm back in a Taycan, albeit not mine!
This one is a demo Taycan Turbo, so mostly identical - same drivetrain as mine and it's got the same sports seats with a black interior. Notable differences are the non-powered charging port covers on this loaner - I wasn't sure about that particularly frivolous spec choice but it definitely adds a sense of occasion (for me anyway)!
The main difference between this and mine is this one has a battery that works. I've used it once for a run to the shops and I've got to admit, it's a nice place to be and reminds me why I liked this car in the first place. The combination of refinement and performance is quite something, and a bonus electric thing I'd forgotten about - the heating working as soon as you turn the car on. It might be having ridden bikes for a long time that I rank the quality of the heating as one of the things that matters most to me in a car!
I'd completely forgotten just how fast it is too, certainly gave the packaging of the shopping a test.
I hear the replacement, replacement battery for mine is due early this week - maybe I will see it again before February!
Edited by puttything on Thursday 28th January 16:52
Racing Sombrero said:
I was very negative to EVs up until the Taycan came around when a local chap added one to his porsche fleet in a great purpley blue colour, green is definitely the one though! He was going past me at fairly slow speed it made a great howling type sound, not sure if this is noticeable from the inside?
I've not actually heard it from the outside apart from videos on the 'net - on the inside it makes whirry electric motor type sounds with a back ground bass hum of what I assume is electricity happening. If you turn on the Electric Sport Sound it sounds like a V8 powered church organ.Update: Chased Porsche for an update after not hearing anything for a week - the new battery isn't even in the country yet. Arrives Friday and will, they promise, be fitted by early next week. I reminded them they've had the car for 50 days now. That's 50 of the 60 since the car was delivered.
I presume it's normal that you still have to make the payments on something like this while it's broken? I've not been in this situation before..
At least I have had a Taycan to use though - over past few weeks I've been tooling around on the occasional essential journey or nursery run in the white loaner which is a nice place to be.
Turns out during a (regular maternity related) hospital visit it doubles as a decent office with the large flat centre arm rest and will even charge a MacBook (albeit slowly) via the integrated USB C ports (yes, that's USB-PD for the nerds):
I presume it's normal that you still have to make the payments on something like this while it's broken? I've not been in this situation before..
At least I have had a Taycan to use though - over past few weeks I've been tooling around on the occasional essential journey or nursery run in the white loaner which is a nice place to be.
Turns out during a (regular maternity related) hospital visit it doubles as a decent office with the large flat centre arm rest and will even charge a MacBook (albeit slowly) via the integrated USB C ports (yes, that's USB-PD for the nerds):
Edited by puttything on Wednesday 3rd February 20:06
LiamD said:
I had something similar with a lease m135i in 2014 - they had the car for 21 days after I’d had it 12/13 days, in the end I got onto the uk chief exec and he agreed to write me a cheque the 21 days and a bit of compensation so worth asking - this also included them sending me a fully loaded 5 series from bmw uk for the last 7 days after I’d been using a x1 loaner from my local dealer
Thanks, I'll lean on them a bit harder to provide some sort of recompense. CDB1983 said:
That’s dreadful service especially having spent so much on the car in the first place.
I noticed this week when I took my cayenne for a service they are really pushing the taycan and are very convincing with making the numbers work on buying new.
Finance with my cayenne down as a deposit (150k pln/£30k gbp) would be around £450 a month which is give it take what I spend on petrol per week. If we had solar on the garage roof (80m2 south facing) it would actually make a lot of sense.
Hope you get yours back soon. I was genuinely pleasantly surprised at how the numbers stack up.
Wow, that's some serious milage - I thought I was putting in a lot of fuel when I did a tank every 2 weeks in my f10 M5! Man maths wise seems like a no brainer I noticed this week when I took my cayenne for a service they are really pushing the taycan and are very convincing with making the numbers work on buying new.
Finance with my cayenne down as a deposit (150k pln/£30k gbp) would be around £450 a month which is give it take what I spend on petrol per week. If we had solar on the garage roof (80m2 south facing) it would actually make a lot of sense.
Hope you get yours back soon. I was genuinely pleasantly surprised at how the numbers stack up.
Solar wise, does make a lot of sense from an off grid point of view, but with a decent time of use electricity tariff you can probably save the same amount of money (add in a renewables based tariff and you're doing the environmental bit too).
RC1807 said:
I'm sorry your car isn't back with you yet. That's properly s
t.
I really like the Taycan, but not from the issues you've had.
They're great when they work - this white one is lovely. t. I really like the Taycan, but not from the issues you've had.
Harry H said:
Interesting to know that 15 yrs after deciding to move away from Porsche having owned 3 different models on the trot the customer service still hasn't improved in terms of feed back.
You'd think by now they would have installed some sort of automated work flow that updates the customer on a regular basis.
In the end I'd just had enough of calling, hanging on, waiting for call backs for what seemed like days on end all for what I thought was a simple service. And when I did get some sort of response it was always delivered as if they were doing me a favour or I was being unreasonable for expecting my car back when they said they would. Which could of been tolerated if it was an actual favour but there was still a massive bill to be paid.
I tried 3 different OPC's over the years and they were all the same.
Shame because they make some great products. I'll happily pay a lot for great service. But when the service is less than average and the price is high one just feels ripped off. I suppose they get away with it because Porsche. Or maybe it was because I hadn't bought the top of the range and ticked all the option boxes
Have to say that whilst my Jag was the most unreliable car I've had the service really was top notch and they always went the extra mile.
Edited to add:- Great write up OP. Lovely car and very informative so far.
Thanks, it is utterly mystifying that they seem to think it's acceptable to give updates at a frequency of less than one a week. You'd think by now they would have installed some sort of automated work flow that updates the customer on a regular basis.
In the end I'd just had enough of calling, hanging on, waiting for call backs for what seemed like days on end all for what I thought was a simple service. And when I did get some sort of response it was always delivered as if they were doing me a favour or I was being unreasonable for expecting my car back when they said they would. Which could of been tolerated if it was an actual favour but there was still a massive bill to be paid.
I tried 3 different OPC's over the years and they were all the same.
Shame because they make some great products. I'll happily pay a lot for great service. But when the service is less than average and the price is high one just feels ripped off. I suppose they get away with it because Porsche. Or maybe it was because I hadn't bought the top of the range and ticked all the option boxes
Have to say that whilst my Jag was the most unreliable car I've had the service really was top notch and they always went the extra mile.
Edited to add:- Great write up OP. Lovely car and very informative so far.
Griff74 said:
Very interesting read and lovely car, shame about the issues you have had, but even some new ICE cars have major issues (including needing engines, gearboxes etc replacing), hope it hasn't taken the shine of it for you.
I have seen you mention a few times about having a 7kw charger installed and "saving up for it", you do know there is a government grant for it, which will pay most. if not all depending on the installation? And yes it does apply to company car drivers, we had an i3 which was business lease (leased as a company car through my partners own company) and it paid for about 85% of the install for us (we wanted a fancier charger etc).
Having a 7KW not only means that the car charges faster, is always fully charged (as you just plug it back in whenever you have been out) but also full preconditioning works (it won't on the OCU or granny charger as they are known), which not only pre-cons the interior of the car but the battery as well, so range is much improved, esp in winter.
I'll be honest, it's definitely taking the shine off it, although perversely it does give me something to look forward to in getting the thing back. I have seen you mention a few times about having a 7kw charger installed and "saving up for it", you do know there is a government grant for it, which will pay most. if not all depending on the installation? And yes it does apply to company car drivers, we had an i3 which was business lease (leased as a company car through my partners own company) and it paid for about 85% of the install for us (we wanted a fancier charger etc).
Having a 7KW not only means that the car charges faster, is always fully charged (as you just plug it back in whenever you have been out) but also full preconditioning works (it won't on the OCU or granny charger as they are known), which not only pre-cons the interior of the car but the battery as well, so range is much improved, esp in winter.
Ref the charger, good points - the main thing stopping me isn't the cost of the charger but the fact that I don't have sufficient electricity available at my (detached) garage. The current setup is very DIY and involves the previous owner running an armoured cable spurred off the kitchen ring main - it's definitely not going to take a 32a load!
That said.. A plus point of the current situation is I'm a little light on projects around the house so I've green lit the project to install a new duct out to the garage and I'll be digging it with my brother over the next few weekends. Plan is a new armoured cable along with some fibre to replace the cable-tied-to-the-trellis current connectivity. Pictures of holes in the ground to follow as I go!
Edited by puttything on Monday 8th February 13:59
Marc118 said:
Enjoyed reading the thread. Have you got your Porsche back yet?
An excellent question, and thanks for the prompt - it is! Here she is back at Chieveley services on the way back from Reading on Tuesday this week. Picked it after only 70 short days of the car being back @ Porsche Reading. Wonderful weather for the drive though
puttything said:
Update: Chased Porsche for an update after not hearing anything for a week - the new battery isn't even in the country yet. Arrives Friday and will, they promise, be fitted by early next week. I reminded them they've had the car for 50 days now. That's 50 of the 60 since the car was delivered.
^ I just double checked and this was the last update - following that the battery arrived and was fitted. Originally I was meant to be picking it up on pancake day (16th of Feb) which, in what seems to be typical fashion, took some cajoling to get a firm date. The battery was in though, actually installed the week before but an additional test drive was insisted on which took the pick up into the next week - what could possibly go wrong? I was promised a phone call when the car had been cleaned and was in the clear to collect on the day - as it happened I was off work due to having tons of holiday stacked up (surprisingly haven't managed to get away much this year). Negative thoughts started to intrude when there was still no phone call by 14:00. By 15:00 I gave in and called them - the service chap was busy, he'd phone back.
Bear in mind I'm in Southampton, the dealer is in Reading, it's over an hour to get there, leaving it to even the afternoon makes the timings tight. Even more importantly this was pancake day, which meant a firm deadline for dinner. Serious business.
At 15:30 I got a call back - bad news, on inspecting the car they found a chip in the drivers door, caused while the car was with them. On one hand, I'm grateful they spotted the problem, but did it really have to wait til the end of the day to let me know? There seems to be an attitude of 'well I'll be at the dealership all day sir so really don't mind when I phone you to let you pick it up'.
The result was the car would have to go into the bodyshop, the door would be resprayed and blended into the back door. The latter point there would prove important. New collection date? Well, it'll be done by Friday for you.
Roll on Thursday and a surprise phone call, the factory PPF for the rear quarter hasn't arrived so, and won't be here until Friday earliest so this week is a wash. Everyone reading already knows that the pick up the following Tuesday actually happened, but at the time I was pleasantly surprised that for the second time in my entire ownership a date has been given that hasn't been pushed back.
The plus side of all this not having my car is it's given me plenty of time to get used to using someone else's. Obviously the current situation has curtailed any trips of significance, but I think the usefulness of doing boring trips with a car shouldn't be underestimated. Runs to nursery in the morning, or to the shop for some random item have imbued a familiarity about the width of the car, getting slick at parking it, the different the ride height makes to the comfort¹ and all while not worrying quite so much about getting it dirty inside or the random thrashing of a child's muddy shoes.
¹ There is raised, normal, lowered and low. Lowered rides significantly better than low, and still looks pretty good!
Speaking of using the car for routine trips, here is a shot of it during a nursery pick up - having picked it up in December it feels like now is the first time I'm seeing the colour in the sun, and the paint really does pop:
The time waiting the car hasn't been idle for me either, partly for lack of anything else to do I pulled the trigger on a project I've been scoping for a while - putting proper power (and network) into my garage so I could install a proper charger.
Prior to now, the garage is electrified via a spur off the kitchen ring main (not my work) and network arrives via a single non outdoor rated CAT5e cable zip tied to the garden trellis inside a bush (this one is me). I'd been wanting to fix the network thing for ages, so some pre-terminated single mode fibre was ordered - that'll go in a duct with a new cable capable of supplying 63a to the garage.
This is the route:
WARNING: lots of pictures of holes, and very few of cars ahead.
Due to the positioning of, well, everything is was a choice of taking an easy path from the house to garage along the boundary, but having to route a high capacity cable through the loft and a shed to get there, or taking a more difficult path down the side of the house shown above, negotiating the giant bush and digging across the middle of the drive. The Google map shows the winner.
A happy combination of ignorance about what was in the ground, and the relative difficulty of removing it therefrom, and a brother who works on gas mains all day meant work commenced in mid February. Perhaps by some divine intervention, fate decided I didn't have to find out what it was like to be in a hole during typically seasonal weather and mere days before we were due to start the sun reappeared. I think it might be Spring!
I clearly got carried away and didn't take a good before, but here is the route with some shingle removed:
Ah, spray markings, you can see we're dealing with a professional here. You can also see that by the time I'd taken a second photo he'd already dug out 6 feet.
I started at the non garage end, first transplanting a rose bush (which is back and still alive as I write this), then digging down to undermining a wall which marked the boundary between garden and drive.
Early afternoon we had this, you'll note my end is not as deep (he's depressingly good at this). I'd like you to also note that my end had tons more rubble in it, honest!
Ducting goes in:
And interfaces with a bit of drain pipe which was left in as an access by the thoughtful original builders:
Terribly exciting inside view, the black string is the draw string, super important and also proof we made it! On right of shot you can view evidence of 2 of the previous attempts to get power into the building. Both of which, I found to my surprise were live when I tried to disconnect them...
This is where we left it for the day, I think you'd struggle to know we'd been there!
Fast forward one week and we just put in the final section.
You can see how far we got with the ducting from the previous effort here. Again, forgot to get a picture of before (this is with the gravel cleared) and also apparently, to prepare sufficiently at all. Under here is concrete:
Luckily by brother's approach to a problem is 'dig more' and with the help of a tool which is essentially a huge solid metal pole with a spiky end, the concrete was dispatched:
Again, my progress was pretty pathetic compared to my brother, but I took on the job of getting under the footpath while he dug the trench. This photo does serve as proof though that I did at least swing a spade - take note future generations!
Light at the end of the tunnel - I managed to get between the bottom of the concrete path and above the main waste pipe for the house. Astoundingly the drain is still also intact:
The receiving side of the path, pretty tight getting down here:
We discovered where all my services run along the way:
Rest of the ducting in! The conduit there is what the previous owner installed down to the office he built in the garden, it's got a CAT5e and some phone lines, works great, and is also full of silicone so no worries about getting anything else in there!
Access hatch in, should make it easier to pull the new services:
Current state of the end of the ducts, the box on the wall is the meter box for the house, so should be fairly easy to get a feed off of that:
Today (as I write this) I ran new parachord draw strings down all the ducts ready for the cable pulls, along with some finishing touches (and avoiding moving all the gravel back to cover it):
The observant among you will have noticed that we ran two ducts - the meter box backs onto my utility room which means there is water the other side of the wall. As a future project I'm hoping to get mains water up to the garage via the second duct, to avoid having to run a hose each time I want to wash the cars. - one thing at a time though.
That's it for now, hope you enjoyed this instalment of me moaning interspersed with pictures of holes and the occasional sentence about cars. We'll be back with more... the next time something happens!
Edited by puttything on Sunday 28th February 23:45
Edited by puttything on Sunday 28th February 23:48
Edited by puttything on Monday 1st March 00:17
bolidemichael said:
Good stuff and great work. The water to the garage will be a real bonus, I'd like the same too.
RicksAlfas said:
I think if I had water in the garage, I'd never go in the house.
Great work OP!
Ha, my scheme has been busted! Great work OP!
jjwilde said:
You might want to remove those photos as none of that meets building regs, it's actually a danger to anyone who buys your house.
It's buried deeper than the existing 100A mains feed to the house, additionally armoured in the duct, and the cable itself is armoured. I think it'll be OK?Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff