manitou202
Well-Known Member
- First Name
- David
- Joined
- Sep 11, 2019
- Threads
- 14
- Messages
- 366
- Reaction score
- 1,115
- Location
- Manitou Springs, CO
- Vehicles
- Porsche Taycan Turbo S, Audi E-tron
- Thread starter
- #1
My wife and I just drove our Taycan Turbo S and Audi E-tron from Colorado Springs to Phoenix (880 miles). We are headed back in a couple of weeks but I wanted to share some interesting observations during the trip.
I drove the Taycan the entire way and my wife drove the E-tron. My oldest son rode with me and I had the Taycan pretty loaded up with luggage and gear. The E-tron had our other two kids along with two large dogs, and a roof box. If you are unfamiliar with this drive, the starting elevation is about 6000ft and ending elevation is about 1000ft. Along the way the elevation varies quite a bit. The majority of the drive is relatively straight open highway where we had the cruise control set to 80mph. The winds were modest although they can be brutal in Northern New Mexico and Arizona. The temperature was also fairly moderate (30F - 75F). We ran the heat in the morning and A/C in the afternoon, but nothing real extreme.
We also used only Electrify America chargers along the route and stopped at 10 different charging sites. Overall I was very pleased with the EA network. We can across two individual chargers that wouldn't work (one no response, another faulted twice after 5 minutes of charging), otherwise no issues. This is similar to my experience taking our Tesla on road trips. You would occasionally come across a charger that wouldn't respond or was extremely slow.
Efficiency
Taycan average: 375 watts/mi
E-tron average: 445 watts/mi
The average efficiency was about what I expected. The Taycan dramatically outperformed the EPA rating and the E-tron was pretty close considering the speeds we were driving. The longest stretch was 153 miles. The E-tron is also very similar to the 2018 Tesla Model X 100D we used to own. On a cross-country road trip with similar speeds we averaged about 440 watts/mi in the Tesla. This is interesting because the Tesla had an EPA rating of 295 miles and the E-tron (2019) has 205 miles. But in reality they had similar efficiency and their usable battery size is close. So their range is much closer than what the EPA rating would tell you.
Charging Speed
This was the most surprising observation during the trip. Because we charged both vehicles at the same time, I was able to easily observe the difference in charging speeds and the profile. A typical charging stop would go something like this. Pull up with the Taycan at a 10-15% higher state of charge. Begin charging both vehicles. The Taycan would jump above 150kW for a brief period of time and then slowly taper to 100kW. Around 80% the taper dropped well below 100kW. The E-tron however would immediately jump to 150kW and hold 150kW until 80%. Then it would drop to about 100kW and hold that to around 90%. As a result, most of the time we would leave with both vehicles having an equal state of charge. The E-tron would make up the 10-15% deficit through faster overall charging speeds.
We were being pretty conservative with our charging and tried to fill the E-tron above 80% because of the potential high winds. Because we were filling to a high state of charge, this allowed the E-tron to catch the Taycan. If we were simply trying to see which vehicle could make the overall trip the fastest the Taycan would easily win. We could have used the bottom half of the battery more effectively and stopped charging when the rate started to taper. It's efficiency would have allowed for this. But the E-tron clearly showed that being able to maintain a high rate of charging to 80% and beyond offers a lot more usable battery capacity. My 2018 Model X for example typically peaked at 130-140kW, tapered to around 100kW at 50% and then dropped to 50-70kW from 60-80%. As a result it would take 40 minutes to charge the Model X to 80%, which is painfully slow. Our E-tron can basically use the entire battery capacity during a road trip. Our longest stop was only 29 minutes. The majority of the stops were 15-20 minutes and the E-tron would go from roughly 35% to 90% during that time. It would be a huge improvement if Porsche could match the charging profile of the E-tron from 50-100%.
Charging Apps
Any frustration I had during this trip was because of the stupid car and charging apps. We have free charging for the Taycan (3 years) and 1000kWh free for the Audi. Both require using the car's own app to activate the free charging. This is such a pain on the ass. I really wish they could create a universal standard and simply get plug and play to work like Tesla. I know it's supposedly coming to 2021 Taycan's for EA chargers, but this needs to be across all brands and charging networks.
The other app issue I ran across is trying to find the next charger on the vehicle's onboard NAV system. I only use the onboard NAV system so I can determine what is the expected state of charge at the next destination. I find this very helpful while charging to determine what state of charge I need to reach in order to make it to the next stop. 50% of the time I struggled to find the next charger using the onboard NAV system. Sometimes I was able to use another app (like Plugshare) to "send" the next charger to the onboard NAV. But this only worked sometimes. I ended up typing in the address manually multiple times which is annoying. The other problem is Porsche's onboard NAV occasionally gave me bad directions and didn't provide accurate traffic updates. In a perfect world I could use Google Maps or Apple Maps through CarPlay and have the car tell me the estimated state of charge at the destination using the third party map.
I'll add anything else that I come across on our way home.
Charing in Santa Fe
I drove the Taycan the entire way and my wife drove the E-tron. My oldest son rode with me and I had the Taycan pretty loaded up with luggage and gear. The E-tron had our other two kids along with two large dogs, and a roof box. If you are unfamiliar with this drive, the starting elevation is about 6000ft and ending elevation is about 1000ft. Along the way the elevation varies quite a bit. The majority of the drive is relatively straight open highway where we had the cruise control set to 80mph. The winds were modest although they can be brutal in Northern New Mexico and Arizona. The temperature was also fairly moderate (30F - 75F). We ran the heat in the morning and A/C in the afternoon, but nothing real extreme.
We also used only Electrify America chargers along the route and stopped at 10 different charging sites. Overall I was very pleased with the EA network. We can across two individual chargers that wouldn't work (one no response, another faulted twice after 5 minutes of charging), otherwise no issues. This is similar to my experience taking our Tesla on road trips. You would occasionally come across a charger that wouldn't respond or was extremely slow.
Efficiency
Taycan average: 375 watts/mi
E-tron average: 445 watts/mi
The average efficiency was about what I expected. The Taycan dramatically outperformed the EPA rating and the E-tron was pretty close considering the speeds we were driving. The longest stretch was 153 miles. The E-tron is also very similar to the 2018 Tesla Model X 100D we used to own. On a cross-country road trip with similar speeds we averaged about 440 watts/mi in the Tesla. This is interesting because the Tesla had an EPA rating of 295 miles and the E-tron (2019) has 205 miles. But in reality they had similar efficiency and their usable battery size is close. So their range is much closer than what the EPA rating would tell you.
Charging Speed
This was the most surprising observation during the trip. Because we charged both vehicles at the same time, I was able to easily observe the difference in charging speeds and the profile. A typical charging stop would go something like this. Pull up with the Taycan at a 10-15% higher state of charge. Begin charging both vehicles. The Taycan would jump above 150kW for a brief period of time and then slowly taper to 100kW. Around 80% the taper dropped well below 100kW. The E-tron however would immediately jump to 150kW and hold 150kW until 80%. Then it would drop to about 100kW and hold that to around 90%. As a result, most of the time we would leave with both vehicles having an equal state of charge. The E-tron would make up the 10-15% deficit through faster overall charging speeds.
We were being pretty conservative with our charging and tried to fill the E-tron above 80% because of the potential high winds. Because we were filling to a high state of charge, this allowed the E-tron to catch the Taycan. If we were simply trying to see which vehicle could make the overall trip the fastest the Taycan would easily win. We could have used the bottom half of the battery more effectively and stopped charging when the rate started to taper. It's efficiency would have allowed for this. But the E-tron clearly showed that being able to maintain a high rate of charging to 80% and beyond offers a lot more usable battery capacity. My 2018 Model X for example typically peaked at 130-140kW, tapered to around 100kW at 50% and then dropped to 50-70kW from 60-80%. As a result it would take 40 minutes to charge the Model X to 80%, which is painfully slow. Our E-tron can basically use the entire battery capacity during a road trip. Our longest stop was only 29 minutes. The majority of the stops were 15-20 minutes and the E-tron would go from roughly 35% to 90% during that time. It would be a huge improvement if Porsche could match the charging profile of the E-tron from 50-100%.
Charging Apps
Any frustration I had during this trip was because of the stupid car and charging apps. We have free charging for the Taycan (3 years) and 1000kWh free for the Audi. Both require using the car's own app to activate the free charging. This is such a pain on the ass. I really wish they could create a universal standard and simply get plug and play to work like Tesla. I know it's supposedly coming to 2021 Taycan's for EA chargers, but this needs to be across all brands and charging networks.
The other app issue I ran across is trying to find the next charger on the vehicle's onboard NAV system. I only use the onboard NAV system so I can determine what is the expected state of charge at the next destination. I find this very helpful while charging to determine what state of charge I need to reach in order to make it to the next stop. 50% of the time I struggled to find the next charger using the onboard NAV system. Sometimes I was able to use another app (like Plugshare) to "send" the next charger to the onboard NAV. But this only worked sometimes. I ended up typing in the address manually multiple times which is annoying. The other problem is Porsche's onboard NAV occasionally gave me bad directions and didn't provide accurate traffic updates. In a perfect world I could use Google Maps or Apple Maps through CarPlay and have the car tell me the estimated state of charge at the destination using the third party map.
I'll add anything else that I come across on our way home.
Charing in Santa Fe
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