atxtaycan
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Might endure flames for this, but I'll start by saying I'm not a Porsche Fan Boy. Also, not a motorhead. I don't go driving for fun - I drive to get around. I'm just a guy who wants an electric, nice car. I had a Tesla Model S for 3 years, test drove a Taycan, and while I enjoyed the drive, I wasn't sure I should buy one, because I wasn't "serious" enough for a Porsche (e.g. when I asked about self-driving capabilities, the sales woman said "people who buy a Porsche want to drive!"). I ordered one, then canceled it (after it was already en route) due to Covid (this was early 2020). Well, I finally ordered, purchased, and received one in October 2021. I don't drive a lot, especially since I mostly work from home these days (I only just passed 1000 miles). So, here, as a "layperson" are my opinions.
Quite simply, the drive is great. Everything that makes a Porsche a great car is present here. I have fun driving it.
Some other parts of the car are good, some are not as good.
The software (I'm a software engineer by education) is appallingly bad. I find myself sitting in the car and crying "how did the Porsche engineers get this so wrong??" I understand and accept this is a computer on wheels, and an early generation (keep in mind, I had a Tesla 5 years ago, so I'm familiar with early generation EVs!) but they really need to take this feedback and incorporate it OTA to current customers.
Configuration choices, and how I feel about them:
The Good:
The Bad / recommendations for improvement (almost all of these are software, so they should be easy fixes!) (stop here if you're not interested in a rant!)
Quite simply, the drive is great. Everything that makes a Porsche a great car is present here. I have fun driving it.
Some other parts of the car are good, some are not as good.
The software (I'm a software engineer by education) is appallingly bad. I find myself sitting in the car and crying "how did the Porsche engineers get this so wrong??" I understand and accept this is a computer on wheels, and an early generation (keep in mind, I had a Tesla 5 years ago, so I'm familiar with early generation EVs!) but they really need to take this feedback and incorporate it OTA to current customers.
Configuration choices, and how I feel about them:
- RaceTex (in Slate Gray) - love it. The only thing worse than fake leather in a hot car in Texas is real leather in a hot car in Texas. The RaceTex is perfect. I did get the matching steering wheel which is not so great - it's too slippery with dry hands. I'm hoping with some wear, this will improve.
- Premium Package (panoramic roof, ionizer, ambient lighting) - love it.
- Performance Battery Plus - no brainer IMO. I've been stuck on the far side of Houston (I live in Austin) waiting for my Tesla to supercharge. Get the biggest battery you can afford.
- Seat heating and ventilation - good stuff. more efficient than dealing with the whole car.
- Technology Package - pleased. Everything is good here.
- Volcano Gray Metallic - looks nice.
- Bose - perfectly fine.
- Thermal and Noise Insulated glass - it's great. nice and quiet, no issues with phone reception.
- 19" Taycan Aero Wheels - disappointed. They look a lot better on the website than in person. Wish I'd gotten prettier wheels.
- 3 seat in the back. I have three kids (1 tween and 2 teens). Only got this as insurance if we all needed to go somewhere. I think there would be a lot of complaining!
- Did not get:
- active suspension - this was a huge oversight on my part. I tried to add it to my config, but was too late. It's fine without it, but I wish I had it.
The Good:
- The Drive / Feel - look, the car is fun to drive. This was why I liked it in the first place. It's great fun to drive.
- The look - it's a very nice looking car. I find the Panamera ugly, so I was impressed with how they made a good looking, four door car.
- Quiet - Tesla, for some reason, can't get their cars to be quiet. Road noise, wind noise, whatever. I got the noise / thermally insulated windows. Very pleased.
- HUD - this is one thing on the UI that they got right. It's a touch brighter than I'd like (even at -10 brightness), but most of the time, it's good.
- The passenger screen - great! love it! let my passenger (read - daughter) can control the nav (when I tell her to) or the radio (which I tell her to leave alone). My only gripe about this is that it should not be forced off with no passenger. Let it be the secondary screen (sure, disable touch if you're concerned about safety). I'd love to glance over at it for the map while the primary is on radio (or vice versa).
- Porsche Innodrive - obviously not even close to Tesla autopilot, but about the same as my 2017 Audi Q7's TACC / lane awareness. I'd have thought 5 years of R&D would have done better than this. That said, I still consider this a must have - computers don't get tired or distracted, so on the (rare) long drives I do take, I want the computer looking ahead.
The Bad / recommendations for improvement (almost all of these are software, so they should be easy fixes!) (stop here if you're not interested in a rant!)
- The rear camera - wow. amazingly bad. Dangerously so. But it can easily be fixed with software! the overhead view proves this! just transform the image, and all is well. Also, why does it only show the lines on the really bad view (what I call the "down" view)? the "straight out" view is so much better - put the lines on that!
- PCM Bootup - this is excruciatingly slow. I can literally be a mile or two down the road, via slow residential streets, by the time everything is working. Bluetooth, XM Radio, navigation take forever. And uh, Ziel Suchen? more than half the time, this is why my nav screen shows.
- The instrument panel - to be fair, this is the best screen in the car, after the passenger screen. Its use of space is generally good. My one complaint here is that this is a screen - why am I limited to a few controls in each location? Why can I not see the "power meter" except to replace the (beautiful!) map in the middle? Let me put this around one of the other circles that I don't care about anyway!
- The console screen (in front of the cup holders) - this is a screen. Why am I forced to have the absolutely awful "handwriting" section taking up half of this screen? I'm left handed, so it's doubly useless to me. Let me put something else useful on here (an intuitive qwerty keyboard? Radio favorites?). I can't even turn it off, so if I accidentally touch it when trying to say, cool the car down, an invisible cursor zips around on my PCM doing random things!
- The Radio - yesterday, my XM radio literally disappeared. I have a subscription. How does this even happen? my favorites were still there, I just couldn't use them! Also, while on the radio screen, let me see what I'm listening to, and my favorites on the same (default) screen. There's a reason evert car from the 70s to (most) today has a string of favorite radio buttons - because people like flicking around to their favorite stations!
- The Alarm issue (well documented. not going to beat a dead horse. For me, it's a minor nuisance compared to some of the other issues)
- Voice response - the only thing worse than how slow it is, is how poorly it understands (I'm a native US English speaker). And what's worse, they dedicate a button on the steering wheel to this!
- My only real gripe about the layout of the car is that there is nowhere to put.. stuff. The box in the console is impossible to open and use with one hand. And the bit under the console is a challenge. Need somewhere convenient for a phone (not going to put it in the box and make it inaccessible, sorry), sunglasses, etc.
- Homelink - it pops up on top of everything, and works maybe half the time. So I have a clicker in my fancy new car. At least make it go away when I drive away (maybe it does eventually, but certainly not before I want to do something else on the PCM).
- PCM Data Entry - this is one of those things that is completely baffling to me. for my "safety", the (intuitive, for anyone born since 1970) QWERTY keyboard is disabled, and my only choices are the really bad voice response, or the even worse (and impossible for left handers like me!) handwriting thing. Come on! let me override this! I can literally type on a screen with my eyes closed. But when I say "Drive to Torchy's Tacos on 620" and it finds a dry cleaner in Chicago, it's really not useful!
- Android Auto - bah. MY2021 doesn't have this. my 2017 Audi does. Was it really that hard to include? There are people who drive a Porsche and prefer Android! If they had this, my phone would be my main interface, instead of the car, so I probably wouldn't even know how bad these things are!
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