Porsche Cars North America Requests Your Feedback

[trycan]

Anyone else get a link to complete a survey today?
I don't know if it was a new owner survey or went to everyone.

The questions asked about general satisfaction with charging experience, and then some specific ones about whether you want a NACS adapter and/or OTA updates.
I was like hard "YES" on both of those.

If you get a similar email, please click the link and give Porsche feedback about wanting NACS and OTA to be rolled out!

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[Hirschaj]

Anyone else get a link to complete a survey today?
I don't know if it was a new owner survey or went to everyone.

The questions asked about general satisfaction with charging experience, and then some specific ones about whether you want a NACS adapter and/or OTA updates.
I was like hard "YES" on both of those.

If you get a similar email, please click the link and give Porsche feedback about wanting NACS and OTA to be rolled out!

Yes, I got the same email.

 

[chun]

How are they even asking IF we want OTA? It should be standard. They advertised their cars as having it. Why bother asking? Just do what you already promised.

The lack of direction and how oblivious Porsche is to the reality of modern cars and EVs is astounding. The fact that they need a survey on the most obvious thing is baffling

 

[trycan]

How are they even asking IF we want OTA? It should be standard. They advertised their cars as having it. Why bother asking? Just do what you already promised.

The OTA questions ask if you are interested in paying for either updates to existing features, or paying for new features. The next question is how *much* are you willing to pay?

In my opinion, updates to existing software like bug fixes or stability/performance improvements, those should be free and OTA (of course).

If something significant is added to the functionality, then it's not crazy to expect to have to pay for those.

 

[chun]

If something significant is added to the functionality, then it's not crazy to expect to have to pay for those.

Why? Tesla does it for free. BYD does it for free. Rivian does it for free. Lucid does it for free. Xpeng does it for free. NIO does it for free. BMW does it for free also as far as I know. Hyundai also does it for free as far as I know.

So why would it be expected to have to pay for it? Especially when porsche advertised the car as already having it? It was actually one of the BIG main points of advertisement of the Taycan.

And unlike other EV makers, porsche already asks for a not quite so cheap subscription for their online services. So OTA can't be included in that? We got to pay extra again?

Porsche is racing towards: "how can we reduce our number of customers more and more and more". Great business sense

The question should be: "Are you interested in us delivering on our promises, or can we continue to f*ck you in the ass and charge you for it?" Some of the Porsche drivers seem to be intrested in the 2nd option.

 

[julianm]

Why? Tesla does it for free. BYD does it for free. Rivian does it for free. Lucid does it for free. Xpeng does it for free. NIO does it for free. BMW does it for free also as far as I know. Hyundai also does it for free as far as I know.

I certainly think it should be free, but I just want to explore this a little bit:

• Tesla might be a bit of a special case for a number of reasons but they’ve historically struggled with finances, being saved regularly by personal, government, and stock market bail outs. (The latter of which I’m defining as “results go down, stock price goes up, somehow it works out ok”)
• BYD receives significant state funding/incentives.
• Rivian isn’t really on the other side of financially stable yet.
• Lucid isn’t really in the other side of financially stable yet. It just needed another infusion of Saudi money last I heard.
• Xpeng receives significant state funding/incentives.
• NIO receives significant state funding/incentives.
• BMW famously has tried repeatedly to charge subscription fees for software features, though they may have finally backed off.
• Hyundai I don’t know about.

I’m not sure that the industry has necessarily landed on the ideal model for software development for vehicles yet, is all. I get why they’d ask.

 

[chun]

I certainly think it should be free, but I just want to explore this a little bit:

• Tesla might be a bit of a special case for a number of reasons but they’ve always struggled with finances, being saved regularly by personal, government, and stock market bail outs.
• BYD receives significant state funding/incentives.
• Rivian isn’t really on the other side of financially stable yet.
• Lucid isn’t really in the other side of financially stable yet. It just needed another infusion of Saudi money last I heard.
• Xpeng receives significant state funding/incentives.
• NIO receives significant state funding/incentives.
• BMW famously has tried repeatedly to charge subscription fees for software features, though they may have finally backed off.
• Hyundai I don’t know about.

Porsche receives significant state funding/incentives. You missed this one. Both from Germany and from EU. Overall, I think it was a few billions for Porsche alone.

Overall, for the German car manufacturers, as of 2021, Germany "invested" 10 bil and EU "invested" another 20 bil, for a total of 30bil. In 2025, the number is likely close to double.

So again, the Porsche customer should be absolutely the biggest idiot on earth, to accept to be charged for something that was advertised as part of the package, that is Taycan, when announced and released. Especially so, when almost all other EV manufacturers, in unanimity, do it for free.

EDIT: And will add that the only reason Porsche's EV is "profitable" is because they overcharge for a product that the market, and Porsche themselves, value at below 100k once driven out of the dealership. Comparable products from china are well below 100k, and offer better technology.

 

[julianm]

Porsche receives significant state funding/incentives. You missed this one. Both from Germany and from EU. Overall, I think it was a few billions for Porsche alone.

I’d love to learn more about this. I know it historically was, but wasn’t aware of ongoing funding at the scale China did for Made in China 2025.

Edit: To be clear, I’d obviously prefer free. But I think it’s valid for them to explore the question. If charging existing customers for new features means they can financially justify developing new features for old vehicles, then I’m kind of ok with it?

And of course fixes to existing features should be free OTA.

 

[chun]

I’d love to learn more about this, new to me, obviously.

Germany apparently stopped all subsidies for manufacturer's since January 2024. Never the less, that's 10bil for the german automakers from germany alone.
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20231218VL208/germany-ev-subsidies-termination.html

EU subsidies still continues though, including German car makers; with an allocated budget of 130bil by 2030, starting since 2016.
Italy has also started investing into research for electrification of their car manufacturers. And France has been doing it since years also.

 

[julianm]

Germany apparently stopped all subsidies for manufacturer's since January 2024. Never the less, that's 10bil for the german automakers from germany alone.
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20231218VL208/germany-ev-subsidies-termination.html

Ha ha ha this puts more color on the news that they’re exploring ICE options for future EVs. Got it. thanks

 

[whitex]

Why? Tesla does it for free.

Free FSD functionality add-on via OTA? How to you get it? Oh wait, you mean you're ok with some new functionality/features to cost thousands, but not other?

 

[whitex]

So why would it be expected to have to pay for it? Especially when porsche advertised the car as already having it? It was actually one of the BIG main points of advertisement of the Taycan.

Any functionality already sold to you (i.e. as you say, Porsche said it's already there) would not be new functionality, so no, you would not have to pay for it. Fixes to existing functionality should always be free, even if that fix is from "not working at all" to "now working". Again, as long as you paid for said functionality (was in the spec of the car you bought), it should be free for you.

 

[anonymouse]

I certainly think it should be free, but I just want to explore this a little bit:

I think Porsche might be surprised to learn that costs go *down* when software is properly maintained at fleet level. The issue perhaps is that it is the OPCs rather than Porsche who carry the cost of owners reporting bugs, OPC booking a service visit, checking for symptoms, finding none, etc.

Porsche‘s failure to address a range of regularly recurring software failure points., through OTA updates, is embarrassing.
As is their unwillingness to pull simple features from the latest model back into the rest of the fleet. The prime example is the very simple “please charge to x%” control that the new model has. Surely this could be rolled out to everyone. It would save countless confused users asking how to do such a simple function.

 

[chun]

Free FSD functionality add-on via OTA? How to you get it? Oh wait, you mean you're ok with some new functionality/features to cost thousands, but not other?

Is the new interface new functionality? Is it worth thousands? When the new taycans get it for free, and it's only software?

But yes, I am against heating seats subscription. I am against Innodrive subscription. If the hardware for it is in the car, I already paid for it, likely overpaid, since it is Porsche. Why would I pay monthly for it? Are there servers in the background doing cloud computing for what exit I take at a roundabout? No... if all hardware is in the car, I already paid for it.

I fundamentally, to my core, disagree with this stupidity. And I am glad that BMW stopped doing it. And probably Porsche wants to repeat the same mistakes before learning.

 

[whitex]

I'd like to offer an argument against free new features. I specifically said I'd pay for new features, because I honestly don't always like new features, and if they are free, the manufacturer will force you to take them in order to stay supported. If they are paid, they will continue to support the old feature. Having been a Tesla customer, I can attest there have been plenty of free features I disliked, for example:

• New UI scheme, moved all the buttons from top to the bottom, makes them 1/8th the size and monochrome - have to now look away from the road to find the buttons
• Fancy new display scheme, removes the ability to split screen between two apps, which used to allow me to keep backup camera on the top part of the screen as a virtual rear-view mirror - one update and it was gone.
• Sleek tablet app redesign including rendering the GPS map in the slivers around the app window, which make my infotainment run 4 times slower, buttons taking way longer to do anything (performance not a problem on latest gen hardware, but those free features on old hardware just made it slow down a lot)
• Latest UI framework taking so much memory that the browser app which I used to use for Waze no longer works (takes 1-2 hrs to load simple google.com on a good day)
• "new and improved" air-suspension update which disabled lowering the car on highways, then 9 months later a "newer and better" one which brought it back but raised all levels, including low, which in turn caused the front half-shafts to be at incorrect angles (not originally designed for) and trying to rip the front motor off whenever I push the accelerator down
• New and improved UI which accidentally dropped support for older seats, making seat heating only heating the backrest, not the bottom cushion (old seats had separate levels of heat for back and bottom, new UI only had one level, and apparently that only controlled the back on old seats, and by old I mean 2 years back)
• New, redesigned HVAC controls which turned my "front windshield defrost" button into a "front windshield frost" button - almost caused me an accident due to this. Tesla did fix it days later with another update.
• New feature to auto-unfold mirror whenever the car starts moving >0.0mph. My wife didn't read the release notes (because they were only shown on the browser which no longer worked with latest SW on the old hardware - all release notes showed a blank browser window) so when she did what she did for a year before, parked in the same spot as always, folded mirrors before backing out, didn't realize the car automatically unfolded them while backing up and ripped the mirror off. Tesla did not cover the damage by the way.

So if you are the kind who usually signs up for beta features, always want the bleeding edge software, free features are great. For those who treat cars like tools, you just want them to work, getting all new UI so you have to look through new levels of menus to find out how to turn on a seat heater, or finding out a virtual mirror feature you always used has been dropped in lieu of slicker look, not great.

As for the price of new features, that depends on what the feature is. Enabling LC power without LC could probably be priced higher than custom skin for the UI. Something like full self driving (real Level 4 or 5 autonomy) would be worth 4 digit prices in my mind.

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