Taycan Crap Nav

Talisker

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Great car to drive but an absolute nightmare on a long journey, it’s like stepping back 15 years to those early sat navs. I’ve even had to resort to pen and paper and make a note of which service stations have which chargers for long journeys. I have now travelled well over 2000 miles and these are what I hate (strong word but appropriate) about the Taycan sat nav and why it makes the Porsche Taycan EV unfit for purpose. Is this global or just the UK?

I sincerely hope that I have not configured something incorrectly, or they have installed the wrong (beta) software, hence my post. A fix will stop me saying to everyone who asks, great car for a short journey, but unsuited to long journeys. My wife has already stated that we have to use the Audi petrol car for any further long journeys as she would rather stay at home than suffer the Porsche!

Executive Summary

For a long journey, use the ZapMap App to identify the rapid chargers and write them down on a piece of paper (with postcodes), unfortunately I can’t get ZapMap to work on CarPlay, so I’m trying TomTom and Google Maps. The irony is I had to pay for the Porsche data package to download TomTom as their own system is not fit for purpose.

My Gripes

Lack of Detail on the map

Most sat navs have the map and to the left an overview of the journey with the next 3 (or so) journey route changes, or on a motorway (freeway/autobahn) it will also include the next service stations, really good ones (Tesla) will also indicate if the chargers are free. But even my Gen 1 Leaf had some information about chargers, the Porsche Crap Nav has nothing, aside roadworks (but no indication as to where) charges required (and for how long) but no indication as to where and how much charge you will have left at the destination

Porsche Taycan Taycan Crap Nav IMG_7351


When you are travelling on a long journey, you may want to use the restroom or eat, ideally with an EV, you’ll stop somewhere where you can charge your EV at the same time, it makes sense to stop at one with a higher KW charger or where they aren’t in use. Several times I have called into a service station only to find a queue of EVs waiting to charge, if I have sufficient range, I’ll chance it with the next one. Or I have stopped at the charge only to discover it is only 11KW and I don’t have 12 hours to spare to charge.

Lack of charger database

Imagine my frustration of charging from one of the few 175KW chargers in England (M6 Preston) and tapping in for nearest charger and Porsche doesn’t know about it, (there were lots of Jaguar I-Paces there). You have to use the ZapMap App and then put the postcodes into the Porsche. The Porsche wanted me to charge at a nearby charger for over an hour instead I took it from 30% to 90% in under 30 minutes.

The Artificial Intelligence of a Slug

When I set a route I want to be offered alternative routes, and be given enough time to select the most appropriate, yes, you can click on alternative routes, but the arrogance of the crap nav is such that it quite often can’t be bothered to find one. On Saturday I left a charger to reach my destination and I ended up on single track farm roads with grass growing on the road, when I took the same route in reverse, it gave my a sensible route on main roads. It chooses which chargers you will use on a long journey, even if that means travelling 10 miles off route on a different motorway, seriously!

Ability to set destination charge

When I travel somewhere, I want to set the charge I want to have remaining at the destination, for instance if I’m reversing the route and travelling back, I may wish to have 70% remaining, or if it’s my final journey before reaching home I might only need 10% charge. Last weekend I had 31 miles left to travel but only 26 miles range, it chose a charging station and wanted me to charge there for over an hour so that I would have 69% charge when I reached my destination, I left the chargepoint early but it still moaned all the way to the destination.

Ability to cancel a charger

When you are low on charge the Porsche Sat Nav selects the charger for you whether you want to charge there or not, on one journey it wanted me to deviate miles off route into a city centre to charge at a leisure centre. Frustratingly, I knew that there was a charger at a service station on my route but it was a slow charger. I went with the Porsche option, when I got there it had been vandalised and it didn’t work. However, there was nowhere to cancel this charger and as I had so little range it insisted I return to this charger. Even if I put the postcode to the other charger in, it wouldn’t accept it as I was low on charge, in the end I had to navigate using my mobile phone.

Another interesting point is that when you are low on charge and it is insisting on you charging, it obviously includes the deviation from route, I had 50 miles range and the destination was 30 miles away, however, once the route added in it’s choice of charger, the range was 40 miles. In order to find out the actual distance to the destination, my only option was to keep re-entering the destination and I would have a few seconds of actual distance before it added the deviation to charge.

Deviation From Route

If I’m on a journey I don’t want to deviate miles off route to charge, especially as the Porsche charger database is so poor, making it’s algorithm and AI worthless. I would like to be able to dictate how far off route I’m willing to go, eg 10 miles, 1 mile or not at all.

Summary

I hate the crap nav but love the car, I would love to meet the designer and counsel them at length. Hopefully it will be updated, even if it is only as good as a Gen 1 Nissan Leaf it would be better. Is this just UK where it is this bad, as Porsche’s revenge for Brexit?

Has anyone tried Google Maps or TomTom through CarPlay or have they found another work around?
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Neptune

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I think the UK just doesn't have as robust of the charging network as Europe or the US.

When I was checking the ionity charging locations in London, I don't even think there was one super charger.

Even in all of North London there is only one "super charger" at 50KW at a shell station in NW6.
 

manitou202

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Unfortunately all EV's need some major work in road trip planning tools. Sat NAV being the most important.

My Audi E-tron sounds similar to what you described. The Tesla Model X I used to have was better, but still not great for charge planning. No way to map it out ahead of time, and it usually assumed you could make it much farther on a charge than was possible. I took a 2600 mile road trip in the Model X this summer and when I got in and put our first destination, it said I only needed to charge 3 times. In reality I need to stop 6 times to charge.

Third party apps seem to be the best option for the moment. But even those have quite a few limitations. A Better Route Planner comes highly rated.

In a few weeks I'll be taking my Taycan on it's first road trip. A 5 day car rally with 10-15 Ferraris through the mountains in Colorado. I've had a do a lot of manual planning for this because no app will allow for lots of variables and charging types. I'll be doing a mix of level 2 and level 3 charging, sometimes charging to 100% others just charging enough to get to the next destination etc. Like I said all of my planning has been manual using Plug Share to find chargers, google maps to calculate accurate distances, a spread sheet to track all of the details.
 

jetbox

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agree On the nav, it’s just not cutting it for charging but then I don’t think I have ever had an in car nav which is better than an app or tomtom/ Harmon.

IOS14. Suppose to be ev friendly and allow more ev apps in CarPlay. I am hoping Zap-Map or ABRP will work. Due release very soon....
 

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@Talisker, I completely agree with you! That navigation system is so bad, it is not usable. I have complained to my dealer and with Porsche, here in France as well as Porsche Germany. I have had some phone calls back from them but absolutely no resolutions in sight. The system is not useable for any long trips and the only way I have found is to use ABRP. Unfortunately that can not be used with CarPlay but at least you can find routes and chargers.

My experience has been that the cars nav does not know of an Ionity station even when you are parked beside it! And that station has been in operation for more than 8 months and works fine. Instead the car takes you to some 50 kW station that has known problems and has been taken out for the last 8 months. There seems to have been some issues with the charger and 50 stations or so have been closed since beginning of the year.

The database in the car is completely out of date. Even the Porsche Connect app with chargers has a completely wrong set of information about number of chargers as well as power of chargers. The following thread shows my positive experience with Ionity, https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/ionity-charging-experience-in-south-of-france.2383/

I knew where the charger was and in this case even the car database had the coordinates.

I have used both Waze and Google Maps with great success. The traffic situation is shown clearly and any information is very up to date. Hopefully IOS14 will bring a lot more about EV Charging.

The navigator has really no place in such an expensive car. It is an embarrassment when trying to demonstrate the navigator to other potential owners.
 


Gogs

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That’s a great report and basically sums up the features that EV owners need. Can you call Porsche and log a ticket about this.
 

BayAreaKen

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Unfortunately all EV's need some major work in road trip planning tools. Sat NAV being the most important.

My Audi E-tron sounds similar to what you described. The Tesla Model X I used to have was better, but still not great for charge planning. No way to map it out ahead of time, and it usually assumed you could make it much farther on a charge than was possible. I took a 2600 mile road trip in the Model X this summer and when I got in and put our first destination, it said I only needed to charge 3 times. In reality I need to stop 6 times to charge.

Third party apps seem to be the best option for the moment. But even those have quite a few limitations. A Better Route Planner comes highly rated.

In a few weeks I'll be taking my Taycan on it's first road trip. A 5 day car rally with 10-15 Ferraris through the mountains in Colorado. I've had a do a lot of manual planning for this because no app will allow for lots of variables and charging types. I'll be doing a mix of level 2 and level 3 charging, sometimes charging to 100% others just charging enough to get to the next destination etc. Like I said all of my planning has been manual using Plug Share to find chargers, google maps to calculate accurate distances, a spread sheet to track all of the details.

I think this summarizes precisely the "range anxiety" that cause newbie's (to EVs) to stress about. We buy EVs for all kinds of reasons, but none of them include the ease of use. ICE vehicles have had well over a century of infrastructure build out. Pumping electrons into a battery at a decent speed is complicated and the industry is just now getting organized so it can (hopefully) all work together.

Personally, I'm willing to do the work that @manitou202 describes because I want an EV and an EV that is a Porsche. That's the sacrifice right now. The problem, from my perspective (an EV newbie) is that it's a whole new language and set of expectations that I haven't yet (forgive the pun) hardwired into my brain.
 
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SteveMc

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Generally agree the satnav is pretty poor, although I'd stop short of saying it makes the whole car unfit for purpose. As per the OP, I research I route before I leave, plan where I am going to stop and charge and navigate to there. It's fairly minor inconvenience in the scheme of things, and hopefully something Porsche fix over time.

When I was checking the ionity charging locations in London, I don't even think there was one super charger.

Even in all of North London there is only one "super charger" at 50KW at a shell station in NW6.
North London has plenty of 50kW+ chargers (mostly 50kW it has to be said):

Porsche Taycan Taycan Crap Nav Screenshot 2020-09-14 at 19.41.31
 


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Talisker

Talisker

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I think the UK just doesn't have as robust of the charging network as Europe or the US.

When I was checking the ionity charging locations in London, I don't even think there was one super charger.

Even in all of North London there is only one "super charger" at 50KW at a shell station in NW6.
If the charging network in the UK isn't particularly robust, it is all the more reason for what few chargers we do have to be reflected in the database and for the satnav to be functional if not capable
 

PanameraFrank

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Is there any car that has a decent navigation system? I'm serious. Use a 3rd party EV app. Use Google maps or Waze. Problem solved in 30 seconds.

It's not like you should suddenly be going "oh no, I need to charge!" and then try to get the Nav to help you while driving. You should always be planning your stop before leaving, which, again, takes less than a minute even for longer road trips.

The reality is car manufacturers don't put resources into stuff like Nav because most people use Waze or Google anyway. You're expecting Porsche to invest in something that few people will use and will STILL be outclassed by two free apps. It would be nice but it's not actually logical from a business point of view.

Anyone on here that works on software can give you an idea of how much work & money it would cost to make an in car nav that was competitive with Waze & Google. It probably isn't even possible if they tried.
 

awharton

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Is there any car that has a decent navigation system? I'm serious. Use a 3rd party EV app. Use Google maps or Waze. Problem solved in 30 seconds.

It's not like you should suddenly be going "oh no, I need to charge!" and then try to get the Nav to help you while driving. You should always be planning your stop before leaving, which, again, takes less than a minute even for longer road trips.

The reality is car manufacturers don't put resources into stuff like Nav because most people use Waze or Google anyway. You're expecting Porsche to invest in something that few people will use and will STILL be outclassed by two free apps. It would be nice but it's not actually logical from a business point of view.

Anyone on here that works on software can give you an idea of how much work & money it would cost to make an in car nav that was competitive with Waze & Google. It probably isn't even possible if they tried.
Agree - but then they would be better off just doing something like Polestar has done and used Android Automotive.
 

louv

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I agree with all of that. Eventually you get used to it, and plan your routes using other software. It’s not ideal but it is possible. I managed to drive 11,000 miles with it. It’s gotten just slightly better in the 2 software updates (hey at least it doesn’t forget that it is an EV anymore), but there are fundamental flaws that need to be addressed.

Call Porsche Customer service.

Submit your complaints, suggestions, and enhancement requests through your service advisor.

Call once a week with your next suggestion. Or the next failure you find.

Squeaky wheels, etc. You know the drill.
 

Scandinavian

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Is there any car that has a decent navigation system? I'm serious. Use a 3rd party EV app. Use Google maps or Waze. Problem solved in 30 seconds.

It's not like you should suddenly be going "oh no, I need to charge!" and then try to get the Nav to help you while driving. You should always be planning your stop before leaving, which, again, takes less than a minute even for longer road trips.

The reality is car manufacturers don't put resources into stuff like Nav because most people use Waze or Google anyway. You're expecting Porsche to invest in something that few people will use and will STILL be outclassed by two free apps. It would be nice but it's not actually logical from a business point of view.

Anyone on here that works on software can give you an idea of how much work & money it would cost to make an in car nav that was competitive with Waze & Google. It probably isn't even possible if they tried.
There is some navigation systems that are built in that are quite good, but not as good as Google Maps or Waze. I agree with that.

Porsche are not developing the nav system on its own since they are using HERE material. If you look at HERE website they are in the market for this type of things. Connected vehicles, speed database, connected bicycle rent etc etc.
https://www.here.com/platform/automotive-services.

They are also included in some car radio navigation system and they are quite decent as well.

Why Porsche needs to reinvent the wheel is beyond me. They have taken something that is working and useful and made it so that nobody wants to use it and use Waze! Sounds a bit peculiar to me.
 

TAYC4N

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I heard that WAZE will soon be updated to include charging stations within Fuel choices within the settings. Would be awesome.
 

BlueShoes

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Man, I wonder how much is geographically based from a difference perspective. I've road tripped in my Turbo and it was great. Functionally really no different than road tripping in our Tesla but much more comfortable and faster (hate driving the tesla). My only gripe was the real time updates on routes and chargers. Maybe not much of an answer for it but I wanted to have more charge when I landed at the final stop so I stayed plugged in on a stop and it refactored the balance of the trip completely eliminating the charging stops b/c of the range i added. I get why it did it but it reverted to the previous route plan by memory as a result.
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