Day after purchasing Taycan 4S Electrical system error and bricked car in the middle of the highway.

[Day1taycan]

Bought my Taycan 4s on Friday and took it on a drive on Saturday. After driving about 80 miles the car started showing "Electrical system error", we were on the highway and had nowhere to pull over. While trying to figure out where to pull over the car suddenly just went dead on the middle of the highway. Super dangerous situation with cars multiple times having to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting us. Porsche road side assistance was not helpful and had us get towed via the police before they could get involved. Overall horrible situation which basically could have lost me my life. When the car shut off the battery still had 113 miles left.

Any advice on what to do here? My family is insistent the car gets returned as I can't think of how the car dying on the middle of the highway on day 2 can possibly be excusable.

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[chrisk]

You are new to the forum and you have not seen the numerous posts about the sudden power loss when driving. Some people are even canceling their orders.
There is an NHTSA investigation in progress. If you are in the US then file an NHTSA complaint online.

There are possibly several root causes for the loss of power. Based on your description yours is probably a bad main battery. Others experience a similar issue but with different error message due to a software bug.

In my opinion if you have an option to return the car then you should do it.
Good luck!

 

[MBChicago]

Sorry to hear about this scary experience. Glad you and anyone else in the vehicle are ok! What was the time between the error notification and complete power loss.

 

[epirali]

Wait there is a drive train fault with the comms to rear motor, but has anyone actually seen an “electrical system” error? Am I misreading?

 

[chrisk]

Wait there is a drive train fault with the comms to rear motor, but has anyone actually seen an “electrical system” error? Am I misreading?

The electrical error has been reported multiple times and it is usually linked to bad main battery in particular in new cars. Usually this error is not fixed with restarting the car like the motor error which is due to the software bug.

 

[manitou202]

Bought my Taycan 4s on Friday and took it on a drive on Saturday. After driving about 80 miles the car started showing "Electrical system error", we were on the highway and had nowhere to pull over. While trying to figure out where to pull over the car suddenly just went dead on the middle of the highway. Super dangerous situation with cars multiple times having to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting us. Porsche road side assistance was not helpful and had us get towed via the police before they could get involved. Overall horrible situation which basically could have lost me my life. When the car shut off the battery still had 113 miles left.

Any advice on what to do here? My family is insistent the car gets returned as I can't think of how the car dying on the middle of the highway on day 2 can possibly be excusable.

Where did you purchase the Taycan? Most dealerships should be taking this very seriously.

Also, do you know which version firmware is on your vehicle?

Do you mind sharing more details of your build?

 

[chrisk]

Despite so many cases of Taycans stalling, Porsche's response is that the car remains safe to drive... So good luck to all of us.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/insideevs.com/news/508890/nhtsa-investigation-taycan-power-loss/amp/

 

[Kingske]

Bought my Taycan 4s on Friday and took it on a drive on Saturday. After driving about 80 miles the car started showing "Electrical system error", we were on the highway and had nowhere to pull over. While trying to figure out where to pull over the car suddenly just went dead on the middle of the highway. Super dangerous situation with cars multiple times having to swerve out of the way to avoid hitting us. Porsche road side assistance was not helpful and had us get towed via the police before they could get involved. Overall horrible situation which basically could have lost me my life. When the car shut off the battery still had 113 miles left.

Any advice on what to do here? My family is insistent the car gets returned as I can't think of how the car dying on the middle of the highway on day 2 can possibly be excusable.

Double-wow. There are now two types of sudden power loss apparently: the reversible ones which seem to be fixable by shutting off, waiting, and switching on again, and the sudden-death ones which terminally brick the car at speed. Do we know whether the NHTSA is looking into both or only into the most serious second type of power loss?

 

[manitou202]

Despite so many cases of Taycans stalling, Porsche's response is that the car remains safe to drive... So good luck to all of us.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/insideevs.com/news/508890/nhtsa-investigation-taycan-power-loss/amp/

I want this issue to be taken seriously, but are you guys sensationalizing this a bit?

ICE vehicles can have complete powerless on the highway if the engine dies. Other EVs have had reports of sudden power loss.

I don't think it calls for Porsche to recommend all Taycan's to stop driving until the issue is resolved, unless hundreds of cases start to appear. At this point with the data we have it's still a very unlikely failure.

 

[chrisk]

I want this issue to be taken seriously, but are you guys sensationalizing this a bit?

ICE vehicles can have complete powerless on the highway if the engine dies. Other EVs have had reports of sudden power loss.

I don't think it calls for Porsche to recommend all Taycan's to stop driving until the issue is resolved, unless hundreds of cases start to appear. At this point with the data we have it's still a very unlikely failure.

10 NHTSA reports is a high number for for a population of 6k Taycans in the US. If you look at other brands and other issues many safety recalls are issued for smaller number of cases.
If there was an accident due to issue investigation could have started sooner.

 

[manitou202]

10 NHTSA reports is a high number for for a population of 6k Taycans in the US. If you look at other brands and other issues many safety recalls are issued for smaller number of cases.

I'm not saying this won't result in a recall, but based on the data we have I don't think a complete grounding of Taycan's should be recommended either.

 

[chrisk]

I'm not saying this won't result in a recall, but based on the data we have I don't think a complete grounding of Taycan's should be recommended either.

Bmw issued a stop sale for all hybrid 2021 models and cars are sitting at dealer lots for months because of a tiny chance the battery had a manufacturing issue that can lead to fire. All existing owners were notified and they were given instructions how to minimize the chance of a fire (basically do not charge).
In my opinion this is how a responsible brand responds to safety issues. Safety is more important than profit and marketing.

 

[manitou202]

Bmw issued a stop sale for all hybrid 2021 models and cars are sitting at dealer lots for months because of a tiny chance the battery had a manufacturing issue that can lead to fire. All existing owners were notified and they were given instructions how to minimize the chance of a fire (basically do not charge).
In my opinion this is how a responsible brand responds to safety issues. Safety is more important than profit and marketing.

A fire is a much different situation than losing power. Look at how Porsche responded when they had GT3's catching fire a few years ago.

 

[benver]

For what it's worth, I called my PC representative and asked him about the sudden death issue. He said over six hundred Taycans sold in Holland, not a single sudden death reported.

I wish we could get more hardware and software details about our car by simply pushing a few buttons...

My previous car was an Opel Ampera(=Chevrolet Volt). I used an OBDII dongle and accompanying software and could inquire every single module in the car to get a status report, including software version.

 

[Day1taycan]

Sorry to hear about this scary experience. Glad you and anyone else in the vehicle are ok! What was the time between the error notification and complete power loss.

Under 7 minutes as we werent able to get to a place to pull over.

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