Ask a Porsche Dealer Anything

[kort]

We were told that servers for Porsche Connect would be going live in the US in 2021, just not exactly sure when (or where those servers might be located).

locating servers in the US could alleviate some of the issues

Sponsored

 

[Oink]

Chuck,

Porsche is working very hard at trying to improve app functionality with the Porsche Connect application.

I think the largest problem with the Porsche Connect application, at least here in the US, is that all the Servers for Porsche Connect are in Germany so every time you try to access your car the application has to ping a server in Germany.

We were told that servers for Porsche Connect would be going live in the US in 2021, just not exactly sure when (or where those servers might be located).

The app would still be extremely slow to connect. By design. They need to revise the backend. Probably the car software as well. Connecting to Porsches servers can take minutes (how many light seconds away are the servers? On mars?), then the Porsche servers to the car. It's as if the whole handshake is run every time, and very slowly. Sometimes rejecting your actions.

 

[Piper]

My October ordered Turbo S has finally arrived at the dealership. How many days should it take for the dealership to get it ready for me to take possession? Thanks.

 

[GaryT]

MY20 & Function on Demand & Plug & Charge? -

Hi Luke - Several months ago, I posed some questions to you in this forum regarding two new features in the MY21 Taycan. I wanted to know whether those features would become available to MY20 owners, as well.

You wrote that you believed that both the MY21 features "Function on Demand" and "Plug & Charge" would be included in software patches for the MY20 cars. Do you still believe that those features will become available for MY20, and if so, when?

I've read on some threads elsewhere on this forum that Porsche is not going to make these features available. Several MY20 forum member/owners are disappointed and angry that Porsche would allow a car, only several months old (in some cases), to become obsolete so quickly.

It is understandable for Porsche not to retrofit hardware upgrades to prior model year cars, but software features are a different story. When Tesla uploads a feature upgrade, they send it to the whole fleet, not just cars in the current model year. Apple doesn't only upgrade software on the latest iPhone, nor does Google on the latest Android; both companies agree to upgrade for at least three years.

If both FOD and Plug & Charge are both technically feasible in MY20 cars and Porsche has made a marketing decision not to make them available to early adopters who spent $150 - $200,000 for the privilege of owning an early MY20 Taycan, they are making a bad marketing decision. If MY20 owners wanted to write to Porsche management to urge a change in the policy, who should we write to?

I look forward to your response. Thank you.

 

[PanameraFrank]

My October ordered Turbo S has finally arrived at the dealership. How many days should it take for the dealership to get it ready for me to take possession? Thanks.

How long does it actually take? Less than 24 hours.

How long will it take your dealership? /shrug

Anything longer than 3 days is unacceptable, IMHO. It's a custom ordered car, you've been waiting for it, demand they get it ready.

 

[ejcintr]

The app would still be extremely slow to connect. By design. They need to revise the backend. Probably the car software as well. Connecting to Porsches servers can take minutes (how many light seconds away are the servers? On mars?), then the Porsche servers to the car. It's as if the whole handshake is run every time, and very slowly. Sometimes rejecting your actions.

I agree with Oink... if the issue was server location- then we would not be seeing porsche connect issues from users based in Europe... its poor software design both on backend and on the cars... and btw - probably help a bit if they enabled the cars to utilize wifi as well as LTE for updates and communication.....

 

[W1NGE]

The app would still be extremely slow to connect. By design. They need to revise the backend. Probably the car software as well. Connecting to Porsches servers can take minutes (how many light seconds away are the servers? On mars?), then the Porsche servers to the car. It's as if the whole handshake is run every time, and very slowly. Sometimes rejecting your actions.

Basically, you can't change the laws of physics and you can't travel faster than the speed of light (no matter how long we might all want to live long and prosper!).

If, as we believe, the Connect servers are centralised in Germany then we aren't really talking about a "cloud based" service in the true sense. Any company worth its salt would know to build a resilient cloud based solution by deploying (and mirroring / replicating) for example on Azure (Microsoft Cloud Services) or AWS (Amazon Web Services) and yes there are other choices out there. Truth is we don't have that insight to know exactly what architecture Porsche are currently using or plan to use in the future.

Hopefully, the architecture is such that it will be mirrored / replicated / follows the sun across the globe so that we might all benefit from a more resilient, stable and reliable core service. This will help to reduce our perception of latency in the end to end service.

Of course, this in itself won't cure all of our moans and groans as the "last mile" connection here is dependent on the OTA (via LTE) service on the vehicle itself. So depending on cell / mobile reception and wake up time of the vehicle (I assume there is one otherwise the 12v battery could die for all of us) I don't think we are ever going to see spectacular end to end connectivity.

The current architecture is arguably weak / best it can be just now and we just have to live with it until something better comes along.

 

[LukeManning]

My October ordered Turbo S has finally arrived at the dealership. How many days should it take for the dealership to get it ready for me to take possession? Thanks.

I'd allot at least 2 days. Usually we can complete a Pre-Drive Inspection, Detail, and any We-Owes within that timeframe. Sometimes it may take 3 days depending on the current inbound new car load in Service.

 

[LukeManning]

How long does it actually take? Less than 24 hours.

How long will it take your dealership? /shrug

Anything longer than 3 days is unacceptable, IMHO. It's a custom ordered car, you've been waiting for it, demand they get it ready.

There are many factors that could influence a new car taking a few more days to complete its process at the dealership. Stop Sales, Recalls, Updates, etc. are all things a Dealership has no control over.

Totally agree as a consumer you've been waiting and client order vehicles should be the priority, but I never rush my service team to get a car through its arrival process at the dealership as it is the last checkpoint before the client receives their custom vehicle and we need to make sure everything is 100%.

 

[LukeManning]

MY20 & Function on Demand & Plug & Charge? -

Hi Luke - Several months ago, I posed some questions to you in this forum regarding two new features in the MY21 Taycan. I wanted to know whether those features would become available to MY20 owners, as well.

You wrote that you believed that both the MY21 features "Function on Demand" and "Plug & Charge" would be included in software patches for the MY20 cars. Do you still believe that those features will become available for MY20, and if so, when?

I've read on some threads elsewhere on this forum that Porsche is not going to make these features available. Several MY20 forum member/owners are disappointed and angry that Porsche would allow a car, only several months old (in some cases), to become obsolete so quickly.

It is understandable for Porsche not to retrofit hardware upgrades to prior model year cars, but software features are a different story. When Tesla uploads a feature upgrade, they send it to the whole fleet, not just cars in the current model year. Apple doesn't only upgrade software on the latest iPhone, nor does Google on the latest Android; both companies agree to upgrade for at least three years.

If both FOD and Plug & Charge are both technically feasible in MY20 cars and Porsche has made a marketing decision not to make them available to early adopters who spent $150 - $200,000 for the privilege of owning an early MY20 Taycan, they are making a bad marketing decision. If MY20 owners wanted to write to Porsche management to urge a change in the policy, who should we write to?

I look forward to your response. Thank you.

GaryT,

In response to your questions:


Hi Luke - Several months ago, I posed some questions to you in this forum regarding two new features in the MY21 Taycan. I wanted to know whether those features would become available to MY20 owners, as well.

You wrote that you believed that both the MY21 features "Function on Demand" and "Plug & Charge" would be included in software patches for the MY20 cars. Do you still believe that those features will become available for MY20, and if so, when?

Porsche has not updated their sales staff directly on what MY20 software patches would be coming. As of my last Taycan training on Feb 10th the trainers told us that they were compiling a list of features that would be getting upgraded on the MY20 Taycan to match the features available on MY21 Taycan. I am hopeful that a majority of the software features such as FOD and Plug and Charge will become available for MY20 Taycan in the coming months. As soon as I have more concrete information I will share it here as soon as possible for everyone.

I've read on some threads elsewhere on this forum that Porsche is not going to make these features available. Several MY20 forum member/owners are disappointed and angry that Porsche would allow a car, only several months old (in some cases), to become obsolete so quickly.

I wouldn't necessarily consider the cars to be obsolete just because they lack a few software features... but I do understand everyone's frustrations. I don't work directly for Porsche, so I can't comment directly on what their strategy is for software rollouts and updates but I would assume they're very aware of the fact that clients want these functions available to them.

It is understandable for Porsche not to retrofit hardware upgrades to prior model year cars, but software features are a different story. When Tesla uploads a feature upgrade, they send it to the whole fleet, not just cars in the current model year. Apple doesn't only upgrade software on the latest iPhone, nor does Google on the latest Android; both companies agree to upgrade for at least three years.

This isn't necessarily true... When I worked for Tesla there were several times when updates were issued to newer cars that weren't issued to older models of vehicles. For example when the Model S went from AutoPilot 1.0 to 2.0 (and even 2.5 when that randomly came out) they eventually couldn't add features available to AutoPilot 2.0 cars to 1.0 cars, or when they updated the MCU some owners were unable to upgrade their systems to have access to things like Easter Eggs, Netflix, Games, etc. Some early Model 3 cars were not able to receive the same updates as later Model 3s, without any supposed hardware changes... Understand some of these are specifically hardware related changes and your speaking specifically about software but not every feature that comes out in a new Tesla update goes to the whole fleet anymore. These hardware changes were also one of the reasons I became uncomfortable working at Tesla - I can promise you consumers were way more pissed when Tesla would decide to upgrade things at random during the middle of a production cycle for instance going from MCU 1 to MCU 2 or 2.5 after you just spent $115k+ on a Model S 100D or when they changed MSRP of the cars by tens of thousands of dollars overnight which would essentially depreciate your car artificially by the company lowering their MSRP at random (think P100D prior to 2018 versus now - that used to be a $185k car). Not saying that Tesla doesn't do an absolutely incredible job of updating their cars - but they are a different breed of car company that does things very different from much larger legacy car brands. Whenever they *cough Elon Musk cough* wants to make a change they just do it. There isn't a huge board meeting with 30 German executives debating on the issues for days - they just do it. Porsche has dedicated to software updating all models of the Taycan, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are required to update certain features available a newer year model of car to older year models. Not saying that's their plan or that that's necessarily what's best for Porsche or the consumer, because I don't think it is, but again I don't work directly for Porsche and can't comment on what they plan to roll out versus what they don't I'm very hopeful everything that is only software related will be rolled out to all model years of Taycan.

If both FOD and Plug & Charge are both technically feasible in MY20 cars and Porsche has made a marketing decision not to make them available to early adopters who spent $150 - $200,000 for the privilege of owning an early MY20 Taycan, they are making a bad marketing decision. If MY20 owners wanted to write to Porsche management to urge a change in the policy, who should we write to?

Here is Porsche's Contact Website: https://www.porsche.com/usa/dialogue/contactandinformation/locations/

Here is the contact information for all Porsche facilities:

Contact Information
Customer Service
1-800-PORSCHE
Send us an email

Porsche Cars North America
One Porsche Drive
Atlanta, GA 30354
Phone: (770) 290-3500
Fax: (770) 290-3700

Porsche Financial Services
One Porsche Drive
Atlanta, GA 30354
Toll Free: (800) 505-1041
Fax Toll Free: (800) 505-1043

Porsche Latin America, Inc.
200 S. Biscayne Blvd.
Suite 4620
Miami, Florida 33131
Phone: (786) 206-7244
Fax: (786) 425-2212

Porsche AG
Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG
Porscheplatz 1
D - 70435 Stuttgart
Phone: +49 (0) 711 911 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 711 911 - 25777

Zuffenhausen: Production
Porscheplatz 1
D - 70435 Stuttgart Zuffenhausen
Telefon +49 (0) 711 911 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 711 911 - 25777

Weissach: Research and development
Porschestraße 911
D - 71287 Weissach
Telefon +49 (0) 711 911 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 711 911 - 82555

Leipzig: Production
Porschestraße 1
D - 04158 Leipzig
Telefon +49 (0) 341 999 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 341 9 99 - 13912



Hope this helps some! As always here to help however I can.

 

[cometguy]

Luke, it’s wonderful that you’re doing this thread. I’ve read a lot of it but not all 34 pages (yet)… lol.. A comment about something you wrote early on in this thread about Porsche and their dealerships supporting their technicians/mechanics: It’s one of the biggest topics on many Porsche forums that Porsche dealership service centers charge much, much more for the same service that independent car service centers do (with the same quality service much/most of the time). Thus, many Porsche owners who own their vehicles outside of warranty scoff at the idea of taking their Porsches to dealerships for servicing, and — if they don’t work on their cars themselves — they take them to indy service shops, thereby taking a lot of money away from Porsche dealerships. So the logical question is: Don’t Porsche dealerships care about this? Because it seems that if they were to cut their charges for servicing to come more in line with indy shops, they could bring in a lot more service — and keep a lot more of their customers long-term. I don’t understand this at all.

My next question for you is whether you know for sure that Porsche is not going to come out with a Macan e-hybrid (PHEV). We know that Porsche’s next BEV to be introduced after the Taycan is the new all-electric Macan, and I don’t know if it will get a new name at that point (?). I did read one online reporter’s article saying that "Porsche" stated (no Porsche person was cited) there’d be no Macan PHEV because the battery pack is too large to fit in, but this doesn’t really make sense, as the Macan is not that much smaller than the Cayenne (or the RAV4 Prime, which has an 18-kWh battery pack). I, for one, would be happy to give up a little interior rear cargo space in a Macan to have an 18-kWh battery pack. If a Macan e-hybrid were to be released, I would think that it would be done in a couple years when the Macan BEV is released.

My final question is regarding the Taycan version that interests me the most: the Cross Turismo. I understand that there will be a formal Porsche announcement of it in the next couple of months. Have you heard anything about a CT 4? There’s a Taycan 2 and a Taycan 4S, but no Taycan 4 (at least not yet). I’m wondering if there’ll be some Taycan (CT or not) in between a 2 and a 4S…. I’m not even sure that there will be a CT 2, because there is no 2WD Sport Turismo in the Panamera line-up. And do you know if there will really be any increased ground clearance in the CT vs. the Taycan sedan (as was suggested with the concept cars a couple of years ago), because the "spy photos" of CTs in the last half year or so seem to indicate a ground clearance not much different from the Taycan sedan.

Thank you in advance for any response or answers that you can give me. And thank you for so patiently answering so many forum members' questions on this thread; your responses are invaluable to us all. Your time spent helping us here is very much appreciated.

 

[W1NGE]

Luke, it’s wonderful that you’re doing this thread. I’ve read a lot of it but not all 34 pages (yet)… lol.. A comment about something you wrote early on in this thread about Porsche and their dealerships supporting their technicians/mechanics: It’s one of the biggest topics on many Porsche forums that Porsche dealership service centers charge much, much more for the same service that independent car service centers do (with the same quality service much/most of the time). Thus, many Porsche owners who own their vehicles outside of warranty scoff at the idea of taking their Porsches to dealerships for servicing, and — if they don’t work on their cars themselves — they take them to indy service shops, thereby taking a lot of money away from Porsche dealerships. So the logical question is: Don’t Porsche dealerships care about this? Because it seems that if they were to cut their charges for servicing to come more in line with indy shops, they could bring in a lot more service — and keep a lot more of their customers long-term. I don’t understand this at all.

My next question for you is whether you know for sure that Porsche is not going to come out with a Macan e-hybrid (PHEV). We know that Porsche’s next BEV to be introduced after the Taycan is the new all-electric Macan, and I don’t know if it will get a new name at that point (?). I did read one online reporter’s article saying that "Porsche" stated (no Porsche person was cited) there’d be no Macan PHEV because the battery pack is too large to fit in, but this doesn’t really make sense, as the Macan is not that much smaller than the Cayenne (or the RAV4 Prime, which has an 18-kWh battery pack). I, for one, would be happy to give up a little interior rear cargo space in a Macan to have an 18-kWh battery pack. If a Macan e-hybrid were to be released, I would think that it would be done in a couple years when the Macan BEV is released.

My final question is regarding the Taycan version that interests me the most: the Cross Turismo. I understand that there will be a formal Porsche announcement of it in the next couple of months. Have you heard anything about a CT 4? There’s a Taycan 2 and a Taycan 4S, but no Taycan 4 (at least not yet). I’m wondering if there’ll be some Taycan (CT or not) in between a 2 and a 4S…. I’m not even sure that there will be a CT 2, because there is no 2WD Sport Turismo in the Panamera line-up. And do you know if there will really be any increased ground clearance in the CT vs. the Taycan sedan (as was suggested with the concept cars a couple of years ago), because the "spy photos" of CTs in the last half year or so seem to indicate a ground clearance not much different from the Taycan sedan.

Thank you in advance for any response or answers that you can give me. And thank you for so patiently answering so many forum members' questions on this thread; your responses are invaluable to us all. Your time spent helping us here is very much appreciated.

Re Macan query - I read elsewhere that there won't be a hybrid but instead a full electric which we be sold along side the ICE version. In time, depending sales, the ICE version will be phased out (all in aid of the wider VW group ambition of zero emissions).

 

[GaryT]

GaryT,

In response to your questions:


Hi Luke - Several months ago, I posed some questions to you in this forum regarding two new features in the MY21 Taycan. I wanted to know whether those features would become available to MY20 owners, as well.

You wrote that you believed that both the MY21 features "Function on Demand" and "Plug & Charge" would be included in software patches for the MY20 cars. Do you still believe that those features will become available for MY20, and if so, when?

Porsche has not updated their sales staff directly on what MY20 software patches would be coming. As of my last Taycan training on Feb 10th the trainers told us that they were compiling a list of features that would be getting upgraded on the MY20 Taycan to match the features available on MY21 Taycan. I am hopeful that a majority of the software features such as FOD and Plug and Charge will become available for MY20 Taycan in the coming months. As soon as I have more concrete information I will share it here as soon as possible for everyone.

I've read on some threads elsewhere on this forum that Porsche is not going to make these features available. Several MY20 forum member/owners are disappointed and angry that Porsche would allow a car, only several months old (in some cases), to become obsolete so quickly.

I wouldn't necessarily consider the cars to be obsolete just because they lack a few software features... but I do understand everyone's frustrations. I don't work directly for Porsche, so I can't comment directly on what their strategy is for software rollouts and updates but I would assume they're very aware of the fact that clients want these functions available to them.

It is understandable for Porsche not to retrofit hardware upgrades to prior model year cars, but software features are a different story. When Tesla uploads a feature upgrade, they send it to the whole fleet, not just cars in the current model year. Apple doesn't only upgrade software on the latest iPhone, nor does Google on the latest Android; both companies agree to upgrade for at least three years.

This isn't necessarily true... When I worked for Tesla there were several times when updates were issued to newer cars that weren't issued to older models of vehicles. For example when the Model S went from AutoPilot 1.0 to 2.0 (and even 2.5 when that randomly came out) they eventually couldn't add features available to AutoPilot 2.0 cars to 1.0 cars, or when they updated the MCU some owners were unable to upgrade their systems to have access to things like Easter Eggs, Netflix, Games, etc. Some early Model 3 cars were not able to receive the same updates as later Model 3s, without any supposed hardware changes... Understand some of these are specifically hardware related changes and your speaking specifically about software but not every feature that comes out in a new Tesla update goes to the whole fleet anymore. These hardware changes were also one of the reasons I became uncomfortable working at Tesla - I can promise you consumers were way more pissed when Tesla would decide to upgrade things at random during the middle of a production cycle for instance going from MCU 1 to MCU 2 or 2.5 after you just spent $115k+ on a Model S 100D or when they changed MSRP of the cars by tens of thousands of dollars overnight which would essentially depreciate your car artificially by the company lowering their MSRP at random (think P100D prior to 2018 versus now - that used to be a $185k car). Not saying that Tesla doesn't do an absolutely incredible job of updating their cars - but they are a different breed of car company that does things very different from much larger legacy car brands. Whenever they *cough Elon Musk cough* wants to make a change they just do it. There isn't a huge board meeting with 30 German executives debating on the issues for days - they just do it. Porsche has dedicated to software updating all models of the Taycan, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are required to update certain features available a newer year model of car to older year models. Not saying that's their plan or that that's necessarily what's best for Porsche or the consumer, because I don't think it is, but again I don't work directly for Porsche and can't comment on what they plan to roll out versus what they don't I'm very hopeful everything that is only software related will be rolled out to all model years of Taycan.

If both FOD and Plug & Charge are both technically feasible in MY20 cars and Porsche has made a marketing decision not to make them available to early adopters who spent $150 - $200,000 for the privilege of owning an early MY20 Taycan, they are making a bad marketing decision. If MY20 owners wanted to write to Porsche management to urge a change in the policy, who should we write to?

Here is Porsche's Contact Website: https://www.porsche.com/usa/dialogue/contactandinformation/locations/

Here is the contact information for all Porsche facilities:

Contact Information
Customer Service
1-800-PORSCHE
Send us an email

Porsche Cars North America
One Porsche Drive
Atlanta, GA 30354
Phone: (770) 290-3500
Fax: (770) 290-3700

Porsche Financial Services
One Porsche Drive
Atlanta, GA 30354
Toll Free: (800) 505-1041
Fax Toll Free: (800) 505-1043

Porsche Latin America, Inc.
200 S. Biscayne Blvd.
Suite 4620
Miami, Florida 33131
Phone: (786) 206-7244
Fax: (786) 425-2212

Porsche AG
Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG
Porscheplatz 1
D - 70435 Stuttgart
Phone: +49 (0) 711 911 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 711 911 - 25777

Zuffenhausen: Production
Porscheplatz 1
D - 70435 Stuttgart Zuffenhausen
Telefon +49 (0) 711 911 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 711 911 - 25777

Weissach: Research and development
Porschestraße 911
D - 71287 Weissach
Telefon +49 (0) 711 911 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 711 911 - 82555

Leipzig: Production
Porschestraße 1
D - 04158 Leipzig
Telefon +49 (0) 341 999 - 0
Fax +49 (0) 341 9 99 - 13912



Hope this helps some! As always here to help however I can.

Luke - Thank you for your response; as always, I truly appreciate your candor and information. As a bonus, I also learned things about Tesla that I did not know (I'm clearly not a Tesla "fan-boy").

Please let keep us advised as soon as you learn the official Porsche position regarding the MY21 features will be made available to MY20 Taycans. Also, when the opportunity arises, please let Porsche management know that many MY20 Taycan owners are hoping for good news.

GaryT

 

[PanameraFrank]

@cometguy As for ground clearance, there was an official Porsche Instagram post (@porsche_newsroom) a few days ago that specifically mentioned the upcoming announcement for the Cross Turismo and that it had increased ground clearance. I doubt Luke is allowed to say anything before the announcement, even if he knows, but that was either confirmation or a massive mistake. It would also be silly to call it a cross turismo if they were just throwing a hatch on it.

I am also surprised as it sure doesn't look like it has additional ground clearance in photos. It makes me wonder if it's really an additional or expanded "lift" selection from the air suspension.. ie, it can be as low as the normal Taycan but can also raise higher, or just the "lift" functioning at all speeds rather than only below 15 mph.

 

[cometguy]

Re Macan query - I read elsewhere that there won't be a hybrid but instead a full electric which we be sold along side the ICE version. In time, depending sales, the ICE version will be phased out (all in aid of the wider VW group ambition of zero emissions).

Yes, those remarks have been officially made by Porsche numerous times -- that the Macan ICEV will be sold along side the Macan BEV for some years. But Porsche has not made any official remarks about a possible Macan e-hybrid, as far as I can see, despite making lots of comments in recent months officially about expanding their electrified line-up in the coming years as both BEVs *and* PHEVs. So I am asking Luke if he has any information along these lines of a possible Macan e-hybrid. As I said, the logical time for Porsche to reveal such a PHEV would be around they time of unveiling the Macan BEV.

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