dnanian

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In the spirit of listing things we've found (apart from "awesome car!"):
  1. Had the password issue, which didn't 'fix' itself until I changed the password at Connect's web site
  2. Ended up with a German welcome screen after trying to go from Guest to an owner account
  3. Believe it or not, there's no way to remove paired devices!
  4. PCM is surprisingly less functional than the one in the Panamera I had as a loaner; they clearly went to a new platform (old Android base?) and haven't implemented a lot of things; no proximity support
  5. Really rough, jerky refresh on navigation maps, huge jumps when rotating
  6. Got a weird chassis error in Range mode that locked me into NORMAL until I powered the car off and on
  7. No Wireless CarPlay (hopefully coming soon)
  8. No Android Auto (despite the PCM being Android, as far as I can tell), hopefully coming soon
  9. No way to 'show' the password when typing (and, frankly, always hiding it, in this situation, is kind of dumb)
  10. iManuals button at Connect (web site) has no Taycan content at all; car isn't even an available model
  11. Setup assistant tries to connect phone to internal WiFi direct hotspot but it was actually off, so it failed, with no obvious way for users to turn it on (it's in Device Manager's "..." menu, bleh)
  12. The "Phone Settings" in Device Setting's "..." menu just flashes a screen and fails; the same choice in the Phone "app" works
All in all this PCM really does seem like an incomplete rewrite. Here's hoping it improves a lot with OTAs.
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Sounds like a lot of PCM errors that can be fixed with OTAs. Have you reported them to Porsche so that they can test extensively and resolve the errors?
 
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dnanian

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I'm documenting each one with reproduction steps and will be doing so. Just want to avoid the million-email feedback...
 

Miwa

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For #8, don't hold your breath. Porsche doesn't have any plans to do Android Auto. The PCM is likely based on some version of QNX if I had to guess.
 
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dnanian

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I think the old version was QNX or similar, but the new one has a very distinctive Android feel to it. It's way different than the Panamera version.

We found a way to delete entries. You have to press and hold on a phone on the far left, then slide that part of the row left to expose the "trash" icon. It is, of course, not documented anywhere... but at least it's possible!
 


feye

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I think the old version was QNX or similar, but the new one has a very distinctive Android feel to it. It's way different than the Panamera version.
The I guess it is already based on the vw.os, which is based on a basic Android version without any google stuff. Anybody know more about this?
 

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For #3 I’ve deleted paired phones. I think I swiped it left and a delete button showed up. Can’t recall exactly.

Here are two I have been working on. With navigation, guidance is in metric despite everything being set to English. WiFi hotspot will not slow internet despite being configured for it.

I’m seeing some weird things in Connect but can’t recreate it. Like once today it had an option that looked like I could control windows but it didn’t and then went away. And it looks like it wants to connect to my home WiFi but I can’t find anywhere to configure it.
 
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dnanian

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The I guess it is already based on the vw.os, which is based on a basic Android version without any google stuff. Anybody know more about this?
I think it's actually not Android (which is surprising). I reviewed all of the license information in the Driver's Manual and Android isn't mentioned: only QNX is. So it's likely QNX based, but they're definitely using a different implementation of, well, everything as opposed to the loaner 2020 Panamera I had.

The Panamera's system was far more responsive, had a much more useful "Home" screen, had "proximity" elements that appeared when you approached to control and vanished to show more data when you weren't controlling, etc.

A good example of "huh?" design in the Taycan's PCM is the "home" screen to the right (swipe whole screen left) of the basic "button" screen. Not only is that operation super laggy (it's 2020, people - this screen shouldn't feel like a $150 Android tablet), but once it appears there are, by default, three large squares. The rightmost one is a small map. But the middle is just a sort of "CarPlay" indicator with no dynamic data, and the leftmost is similar, but I think it's a "call progress" square which shows the time on a phone call.

Another weird bug: I configured a bunch of news sources on the Connect web site. When I switch to the "News" app in the Taycan, it takes a long time to load, then gives me a "setup wizard" with one choice: "configure not logged in". If you select that, there's only one source - Porsche News - and none of the ones that I configured online.

If you select that choice, it retrieves a bunch of entries for Porsche News.

All of them are in German.
 


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dnanian

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I’m seeing some weird things in Connect but can’t recreate it. Like once today it had an option that looked like I could control windows but it didn’t and then went away. And it looks like it wants to connect to my home WiFi but I can’t find anywhere to configure it.
You know, I saw the same thing yesterday: I thought there were window indicators in the app. But perhaps I was confused - the web site has closed/open indicators, and I could have been remembering those.
 

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You know, I saw the same thing yesterday: I thought there were window indicators in the app. But perhaps I was confused - the web site has closed/open indicators, and I could have been remembering those.
Or they are about to implement the function but found buggs....... :cool:
 

MissionC

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I don’t have my Taycan yet, but I don‘t think the Taycan’s PCM system is based on Android, but a different Linux core OS. Not sure what the UI framework is (maybe QNX?), but I suspect they’ve loaded the new PCM with functionality and have yet to optimize it. If I had to guess, there’s some variant of an ARM processor (like in iPhones) in the new PCM as those chips have a low power draw with good performance.

If you haven’t had a change to read Porsche’s Engineering magazine, it’s a great read when it’s published (maybe 2x year at best) and the magazine linked here (PDF) has details about Porsche’s new Docker-based system used to deliver applications in PCM. While I appreciate what they’re doing to support delivering new functionality, running Docker can be a PITA if not done properly, and without a proper hardware infrastructure, could be one of the reasons for slower performance some users are seeing.

I have to believe Porsche will continue to optimize the core platform over time, but the CPU, RAM and storage are fixed in our cars (unless they come out with upgradable hardware) so I hope they left in headroom. Not sure how excited I am to potentially have a Kubernetes cluster running in my car, but it’s also 2020 and anything goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
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dnanian

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I don’t have my Taycan yet, but I don‘t think the Taycan’s PCM system is based on Android, but a different Linux core OS. Not sure what the UI framework is (maybe QNX?), but I suspect they’ve loaded the new PCM with functionality and have yet to optimize it. If I had to guess, there’s some variant of an ARM processor (like in iPhones) in the new PCM as those chips have a low power draw with good performance.
It's definitely ARM-based, no question. You'll see when you get yours what I mean about an "Android" feel, but based on the licenses it's not Android. It's surprisingly non-performant. I have no idea if it's because the customer-facing hardware has not been optimized or because the platform is inadequate to the task (but the latter can be fixed, in most cases, with the former; we've obviously had performant UIs with chips far slower than what these cars are shipping with).

If you haven’t had a change to read Porsche’s Engineering magazine, it’s a great read when it’s published (maybe 2x year at best) and the magazine linked here (PDF) has details about Porsche’s new Docker-based system used to deliver applications in PCM. While I appreciate what they’re doing to support delivering new functionality, running Docker can be a PITA if not done properly, and without a proper hardware infrastructure, could be one of the reasons for slower performance some users are seeing.
I had no idea that magazine existed—thanks! Is there a place to subscribe to it?

We can only hope the engineers architecting their Docker microservice setup know what they're doing. (The performance of the web site isn't great, though.)

I have to believe Porsche will continue to optimize the core platform over time, but the CPU, RAM and storage are fixed in our cars (unless they come out with upgradable hardware) so I hope they left in headroom. Not sure how excited I am to potentially have a Kubernetes cluster running in my car, but it’s also 2020 and anything goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I'm hopeful that they're going to take a more modern approach to the software platform, and actually evolve it and deliver new capabilities to already-built cars. Tesla's been great about that kind of thing, and it can really help with the "sustainability" angle of the Porsche brand, too, since you're not forced to buy a new car to get any new software-based capabilities.

It's clear, though, that unlike Tesla, not all updates are OTA. That more conservative approach isn't a bad thing (bricking cars is something I'm sure they want to avoid), but it is less convenient, and over the nearly 8 years I had a Model S, I only had a single software "delivery" issue (an update that wouldn't install) that was solved with a single email and one button press on their end.

Anyway, interesting to be in at the ground level for a second time. Here's hoping similar kinds of advances and progress are made.
 

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anyone figure out how to reboot the PCM? Mine locked up this morning and unless I figure it out I guess I have a visit to the dealer in my future.
 

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anyone figure out how to reboot the PCM? Mine locked up this morning and unless I figure it out I guess I have a visit to the dealer in my future.
Porsche has made us aware that the PCM keeps rebooting on a number of Porsche vehicles. There is an easy way to resolve this issue. Please see the following steps or view the video below:

1. Press and hold the PCM info button for approximately 10 seconds until the PCM reboots.

2. Immediately select the following from the PCM CAR > OPTION > Set PCM System > Reset PCM > Vehicle Handover > Yes > Yes

i hope it will help you
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