Taycan is the least reliable of all EV's

[Vim Schrotnock]

Puts my experience, and quite a few folks on this forum into perspective.

https://www.whatcar.com/news/reliability-survey-most-reliable-electric-cars/n26158

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[gtm]

Puts my experience, and quite a few folks on this forum into perspective.

https://www.whatcar.com/news/reliability-survey-most-reliable-electric-cars/n26158

I'm going to guess that Porsche owners are just a little more particular about what constitutes a problem, particularly at our price point. A lot of problems isn't too surprising. What I did find surprising, and encouraging, is that battery problems did not make the list. Maybe it's not as big a problem (statistically) as it seems on this forum. 22,000 total cars across 178 models so the Taycan sample could be a pretty small number of cars. Even so occupying the bottom spot is not a good look for Porsche.

Meanwhile, on the electric SUV list the Mach-E has a 100% reliability score. "Of the owners who responded to our survey, not a single one reported a fault with their car, ..." Now I have to question the survey methods. Not a single owner? In what universe would there be a group of owners not one of whom had an issue?

 

[PCFishman]

The top 2 most reliable cars are produced by German auto makers and the 3rd is Japanese. Japanese cars may not be the fastest or fashionable but they are always far more reliable irregardless of the type of propulsion.

I concur the data set utilized was not broad enough

 

[WuffvonTrips]

Maybe it's not as big a problem (statistically) as it seems on this forum. 22,000 total cars across 178 models so the Taycan sample could be a pretty small number of cars.

As few as 13 Taycans could account for all the of the reported Taycan fault percentages (8%, 15% and 31%), assuming rounding to nearest integer.

 

[iamai]

Mach-E has a 100% reliability score.

Ha, ha!
What a joke. I was an unfortunate owner of one 21' Mach-E GT Performance Edition and had experienced the High Voltage Junction Box relay meltdown for which Ford only recently issued a recall. Pretty much every model year had the HVJB failure because Ford designed it with insufficient cooling. In addition, during the one-year of ownership, i had many software bugs which were introduced over-the-air. I would rate the Mach-E higher however than the 22' Rivian R1T.

 

[hifi239]

This has been discussed before. Taycan gets clobbered in these surveys because of the heater fiasco. The heaters were sourced from a 100-year-old reliable company. Earlier, Porsche did replace heaters with heaters that weren't redesigned to keep cars on the road. They replaced my heater with a redesigned one. The new one works. I'm good. And yes, Porsche and Mercedes owners will be more upset by things like that.

 

[Tooney]

This has been discussed before. Taycan gets clobbered in these surveys because of the heater fiasco. The heaters were sourced from a 100-year-old reliable company. Earlier, Porsche did replace heaters with heaters that weren't redesigned to keep cars on the road. They replaced my heater with a redesigned one. The new one works. I'm good. And yes, Porsche and Mercedes owners will be more upset by things like that.

As it should.

 

[rs38]

I've never had a breakdown away from home, but the sum of all complaints, days at Porsche workshop, recalls, updates etc. is way too much. And it was so much worse 2-3 years ago with unstable connect services.

 

[Scandinavian]

This has been discussed before. Taycan gets clobbered in these surveys because of the heater fiasco. The heaters were sourced from a 100-year-old reliable company. Earlier, Porsche did replace heaters with heaters that weren't redesigned to keep cars on the road. They replaced my heater with a redesigned one. The new one works. I'm good. And yes, Porsche and Mercedes owners will be more upset by things like that.

I am on my 4th heater now! of course Porsche drivers should complain about heaters breaking down. Not fun to have the family with small kids in the car when you are a few hundred kilometers from home.

I am well aware of that I did buy one of the first Taycans in France and did expect some initial gremlins and faults. But there have been far too many! And far too many tows to the dealer dealer workshop visits. Every visit has taken at least one week up to 6 weeks, because issues in getting spare parts.

I have had:
3 LTE modules changed
2 Gateway modules changed
1 USB port changed
2 battery modules changed ( car stranded in foreign country)
1 11kW charger and cables changed
1 HV Battery Control unit changed
3 Heaters changed
Drain plugs removed
Drains cleaned
Car flooded by rainwater and issue still not solved

It certainly has qualified as the absolutely worst quality car I have ever owned. By a huge margin. Not even my Aston, that is well known for “Bespoke Feature” issues comes close.

To be fair to Porsche though, all the troubles ( rain leakage unknown) have been rectified at their costs. I have also received a good will gesture by credits plus a substantial reduction in the cost for warranty extensions.

The question is why I keep the car??? Simple really, I have not found any EV so far that drives and handles anyway near the Taycan‘s ability! And I have test driven, hired, borrowed many. Mercedes, Tesla, BMW, Jaguar, Audi plus a few Chinese. .

The day I test drive a car that is close to the my existing Taycan in handling and comfort, I will change it. But so far it looks more like going back to ICE, for a hybrid petrol car! Very eagerly looking at the release of the new BMW M5 hybrid!

 

[whitex]

I've never had a breakdown away from home, but the sum of all complaints, days at Porsche workshop, recalls, updates etc. is way too much. And it was so much worse 2-3 years ago with unstable connect services.

I tend to agree. Until I got the Taycan, Teslas (I owned 4 Model S from new) required the most dealer (or Service Center in Tesla terms) visits. HOWEVER, all my Teslas only required TLC from service in the first few months, after that they all held up pretty well, all but one issue I had were addressed by a "mobile tech" who came out to my home and fixed it in my own garage. I love my Taycan, but OMG does it require a lot of service attention (all covered under warranty, but still a hassle, and have to drive a Macan while in service, with no app access to precondition the car ahead of departure). I kind of miss my old Porsche, Lexus, even Toyota, Honda or VW days where cars went in once a year (or once every 2 years for Porsche 911) for maintenance and that was all (I swapped my cars often enough to never have one out of warranty). I don't get dealer's concerns about EV's, they are driving way more business to them than the old ICE cars did, all covered under warranty too so owners are not reluctant to come in to pay.

 

[Scandinavian]

I tend to agree. Until I got the Taycan, Teslas (I owned 4 Model S from new) required the most dealer (or Service Center in Tesla terms) visits. HOWEVER, all my Teslas only required TLC from service in the first few months, after that they all held up pretty well, all but one issue I had were addressed by a "mobile tech" who came out to my home and fixed it in my own garage. I love my Taycan, but OMG does it require a lot of service attention (all covered under warranty, but still a hassle, and have to drive a Macan while in service, with no app access to precondition the car ahead of departure). I kind of miss my old Porsche, Lexus, even Toyota, Honda or VW days where cars went in once a year (or once every 2 years for Porsche 911) for maintenance and that was all (I swapped my cars often enough to never have one out of warranty). I don't get dealer's concerns about EV's, they are driving way more business to them than the old ICE cars did, all covered under warranty too so owners are not reluctant to come in to pay.

I agree with you.
we just returned our leased Tesla model 3. We had it for 5 years. And the build quality was very good, no squeaks or rattles. Some weak paint in areas that were not visible like door shut, trunk roof etc. Overall extremely impressed by the quality and of course the constant improvements pushed bu OTA.

One recall for some bushings in the front suspension
Two visits by our initiative for changing brake fluid and “tyre rotation”

That was a surprise since that also was one of the first model 3 in France. And no issues at all. The workshop had been a 3 hour drive to the nearest service centre else.

 

[StevenB]

The heater of my Taycan was replaced before delivery so I am happy to have dodged that bullet.
I have been driving it for a little over a year now, it has been rock solid and has not needed any service yet. Projected next service date is May 2025, so hopefully two years without seeing the inside of a dealership.
This is even better than our X5 Diesel which at minimum needs yearly maintenance.
Obviously a meaningless sample of one and many things can happen as you can read above. But so far the Taycan as an EV is living up to the promise of less mechanical risk because of fewer moving components.
What is really reassuring, when things would go wrong I can rely on the relatively cheap Porsche warranty which I can extend for as long as I want to drive the car.
And looking at the other EV's on the list (it needs to be EV because of tax and yes, environment ) I'd rather make a few more trips to the Porsche shop than drive any of those...

 

[JerryLNK]

Puts my experience, and quite a few folks on this forum into perspective.

https://www.whatcar.com/news/reliability-survey-most-reliable-electric-cars/n26158

The "reliability" survey simply does not reflect my experience. I spec'd MY22, took delivery two years ago in April (22), and have driven it 29K miles. Those miles include trips from Indianapolis to Nashville, Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, Vail, and a 12K feet elevation mountain pass where I climbed a 14K feet elevation mountain top. No issues with the car. No problem with charging stations. No range anxiety. Is the PCM a bit glitchy at times? Sure, but I don't care. It works. What does work very well is the route guidance system and how it pre-conditions the car before charging on road trips. That's brilliant. I didn't buy the Taycan because of the communications management system. I bought it because it is the best car for me to drive, electric or ICE.

Moreover, I have noticed that the articles about EV's and the Taycan in the Porsche Club of America monthly magazine, Panorama, are very biased against these cars. While the authors attempt to be "factual", it is clearly slanted to point out every flaw. Meanwhile, Porsche driver is leading the Formula E, and the team is second behind Jaguar. The new GT is a track monster. And by most measures, the Taycan is one of, if not the most, sophisticated road-worthy EV today.

True that my own perspective is biased. But these type of rankings and reviews are little value to me. I look to this forum to help me understand what I am missing.

 

[DaveHockton]

The "reliability" survey simply does not reflect my experience. I spec'd MY22, took delivery two years ago in April (22), and have driven it 29K miles. Those miles include trips from Indianapolis to Nashville, Atlanta, St. Louis, Denver, Vail, and a 12K feet elevation mountain pass where I climbed a 14K feet elevation mountain top. No issues with the car. No problem with charging stations. No range anxiety. Is the PCM a bit glitchy at times? Sure, but I don't care. It works. What does work very well is the route guidance system and how it pre-conditions the car before charging on road trips. That's brilliant. I didn't buy the Taycan because of the communications management system. I bought it because it is the best car for me to drive, electric or ICE.

Moreover, I have noticed that the articles about EV's and the Taycan in the Porsche Club of America monthly magazine, Panorama, are very biased against these cars. While the authors attempt to be "factual", it is clearly slanted to point out every flaw. Meanwhile, Porsche driver is leading the Formula E, and the team is second behind Jaguar. The new GT is a track monster. And by most measures, the Taycan is one of, if not the most, sophisticated road-worthy EV today.

True that my own perspective is biased. But these type of rankings and reviews are little value to me. I look to this forum to help me understand what I am missing.

Wish I had the same experience with my 22 model. It is 17 months old and has been in the dealer nearly 6 months of those 17 months. 4.5 months for the first red ring of death then had it back 5 weeks and same failure. Been at the dealer since early April and won’t get into the workshop for another 2 weeks at least ! There are many people having these battery issues with very poor and random excuses from the dealer hence I think it being rated the most unreliable EV in my experience and opinion is well justified !!!!’

 

[JerryLNK]

Wish I had the same experience with my 22 model. It is 17 months old and has been in the dealer nearly 6 months of those 17 months. 4.5 months for the first red ring of death then had it back 5 weeks and same failure. Been at the dealer since early April and won’t get into the workshop for another 2 weeks at least ! There are many people having these battery issues with very poor and random excuses from the dealer hence I think it being rated the most unreliable EV in my experience and opinion is well justified !!!!’

Thanks for that @DaveHockton. Your experience sounds awful. What is the red ring of death, what causes it, and what is the remedy? Or is this addressed elsewhere in this forum where I can read more about this situation? Will want to put it on my radar.

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