Rainforest

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Thanks for the write-up. I share a few similarities to you... coming out of a Tesla, one consideration in deciding to sell mine was their current and future ubiquity. They're everywhere, and that's increasing exponentially around me. I don't need to have an expensive car per se, but I like to drive a (relatively) unique car and pretty much always have in the past. A Model 3 Performance was relatively unique in 2019, but its basically a Camry now.

I also went with standard interior + Paldao wood, despite being a relatively uncommon combo. My thinking is that with my 3 little kids the standard interior may hold up a bit better to their abuse, while the Paldao adds back a bit of the luxury and color. We'll see.
Can someone show me what this wood looks like?
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whitex

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Porsche will succeed regardless such is the desirability of their products but they'll never be a competent provider of software for some time to come.
I don't think this is true. There is a reason why Porsche is building EV's and connected cars - the market demands it. Porsche is a company like any other. If they could be just as successful selling old tech, carburetor based ICE cars with no computers, they would be - no engineering to pay for, no chip shortages, no advanced training for service needed, etc. Lots of costs they could have cut, and would have, if they were going to be successful with it. Hopefully they won't take the Blackberry smartphone approach, assume they are the most desirable (which Blackberry phones were was at one point, the name essentially it was the synonym for smartphone). Apple came for Blackberry and they didn't even know they hit them. As an "only half kidding" note, Apple cars are coming too.

Pretty sure also that OTA for 'everything' is not coming to the brand any time soon given the lack of standards and myriad of vendors in the Porsche / VAG supply chain. Personally, cometh that day I would disable OTA and rely on dealer campaigns to update.
OTA is a very complex topic so my reply will be a bit long. Let me share my now 9 year journey with Tesla OTA and how I've hated it, tried the "no OTA for me" strategy, but also realized that it has a great potential if used properly.

Over the years I've grown to loathe the way Tesla uses it, for one to sell hype and vaporware, and then never deliver or deliver a very underwhelming (as compared to the hype) feature instead. They do this with large features like autonomous driving, as well as smaller features like ability to turn on heated seats, or interior noise cancellation, etc. They also keep on changing the UI to make it look trendy with little regard to driver experience - especially driver's outside of where Elon drives (e.g. recently Tesla got rid of defroster buttons from their main UI, Elon never uses them, so they have no reason to be quickly accessible). Over the years they've migrated from larger, color buttons on top of the screen close to the driver's line of sight, to tiny monochrome buttons on the bottom of the screen (near the floor for portrait screens), though recently circled back to color (but still on the bottom, though with newer cars the bottom is not as low as they rotated the screen to landscape orientation). Tesla also limited different cars' ranges, performance, even features, over the years via OTA (and sometimes hidden/forced, not through the regular process where the user must agree to install).

I tried the "don't install OTAs" after Tesla disabled my air suspension for months after some media hype about a car hitting a trailer hitch on the road which destroyed the battery. However, even if you forget the fact that Tesla will sneak some updates in without your permission anyways, the biggest issue with refusing OTA is the fact that it's a 24/7 connected device, i.e. it's always connected to the internet. This means it needs patches to stay secured. Would you connect a 4 year old unpatched computer or a phone to the internet? Those can be hacked by script kiddies downloading the right exploits. There are other issues with refusing OTA, for example if you want a fix for any issue in the your car, or even just to perform service on your car, you must update to the latest software since the shop techs are no longer trained on older software and even the diagnostic equipment doesn't work on the older software - it just says "update software/firmware to latest version before proceeding".

So all bad stuff so far. However it does have positive uses. You can get fixes quickly without waiting for an appointment with the dealer. You can get new features. And, here is a big one, you can get safety and security fixes quickly. While I hated Tesla OTA for a long time, I couldn't help but notice it gave them the edge of quick iterations on designs, applying a continuous integration/deployment strategy borrowed from online software development. At first I thought the advantage is for Tesla, and customers are just guinea pigs duped by Elon to pay to test his software. However, then the Bolts burning down fiasco happened, and I remembered Tesla has a similar issue a few years back - some Teslas caught on fire while parked. Tesla quickly deployed an update which limited max charge on some cars (they were able to determine from their telemetrics which cars have batteries which might become dangerous) and the story blew over. Bolts have not been sold in over half a year now, and owners have been told "don't park your Bolt anywhere near a residence". Some apartments, condos, businesses have banned Bolts from parking in their lots. It will probably take a year or more to mostly resolve this issue, and once resolved, how do you prove to all those places which banned you that your Bolt is safe now? They are working on stickers and online lookup tool, let's see how it goes. But, that made me think, what is better, a complex software which is minimally tested but can be updated every day with fixes if needed, or software which goes through 12 months of validation before every release, which means it is way better tested but any bugs which are missed will take at least 12 months to fix as the next release will have to go through the same validation process? Would you rather drive a car which has a higher chance of major failure for any single car, but a much lower chance of a large group of cars to be affected (since fix will come as soon as first cars experience the failure), or would you prefer the all-or-nothing approach - lower chance for a major failure, but if it hits, your car is out of service for a year?

Now, imagine the Bolt thing happened to your Taycan, and you cannot park your car at home or work for a year. Then it's finally fixed, but the VIN lookup tool Porsche creates for people to validate which cars are safe is not showing your car (just like people unable to login to their accounts with PCM today). Would you still find Porsche so desirable?

PS> As a side note, the governments around the world are looking to mandate OTA updates for all cars. I saw a draft for the US NHTSA a while back. These things take time, but will eventually be mandated for safety and security reasons.
 
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Bajas21

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My experience matches yours for my 20204S. I also purchased my car in the silver. Agree the connect application worthless and has a number of software issues. How did you wire the Nexar Pro camera for power.? I ask because my dealer warned me if I installed a after market dashcam wired to the fuse box it could void my warranty if I have electrical issues with car. I previously posted detailed info re how Porche installed then removed the Porsche dashcam from my car because it never worked correctly. As far as range I think it is very good. In range mode I have achieved over 300 miles. Agree wish we had feature if you walk away from car it turns off.
I didn‘t wire to the fuse box, rather the 12v connection. Seems to be working well and initially goes into parking mode and then sleep As not to drain the 12v battery. Thanks for the feedback on range too. Oddly enough, the 85% charge rate seems to be slowly climbing.
 
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Bajas21

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Hello. I live in Charlotte as well. I’ve had a similar experience with my 2022 4S, received Christmas Eve. I admit and posted about my pre-delivery concerns based on the forum posts. BUT, the car has been fantastic! No issues with connectivity or software glitches (knock on wood :). I understand the comments regarding the backup camera which is “funky”. My only changes are PPF on front, ceramic, and ordered 21in wheels and tires. The all-season 20in Continentals are not to my liking and styling. Did I mention the car is fantastic!
That‘s so great...as I said in my post, mine is a 21, but happy that I got it at this point. Hendricks told me that there’s now more than a year wait for allocations. Not sure if that’s true, or they were just trying to make me feel better about receiving a 2021 in January of 2022. Would love to see pictures of the wheels. If you see me driving around, definitely flash your lights. I’ve only seen a handful of Taycans here in town and love that they stand out.
 


Brazz

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That‘s so great...as I said in my post, mine is a 21, but happy that I got it at this point. Hendricks told me that there’s now more than a year wait for allocations. Not sure if that’s true, or they were just trying to make me feel better about receiving a 2021 in January of 2022. Would love to see pictures of the wheels. If you see me driving around, definitely flash your lights. I’ve only seen a handful of Taycans here in town and love that they stand out.
Initially, I placed an order at Hendrick in November with an expected December allocation. I was able to find a 2022 4S similar to my build in transit for a Dec delivery at another dealership out of state and canceled my order to get one sooner. The car is definitely a looker. I will post pics once I get the new wheels in a few weeks.
 

nvp19

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Hello everyone. I wanted to share some first impressions after one week of ownership. First, a little background. Eight years ago I bought an early generation (15,365th)Tesla Model S and have driven it for 165,000 miles with much success. Very little maintenance except the tires that seem to need replaced every 12,000 miles. As Tesla’s grew in popularity, they seemed to be everywhere here in Charlotte. I’d pulled up to an intersection and there would be one on every corner, especially as the Model 3’s grew in popularity. I was ready for something new, especially as Tesla didn’t update the Model S body style and although, it still looks good, I was tired of how it looked.

After doing a ton of research and watching every YouTube video ever made on the Taycan, in May of last year, I decided to purchase. I contacted Hendrick Porsche here in Charlotte and was able to secure a July allocation for an August delivery. Then came agonizing over all the options and colors. I finally decided on a dolomite silver 4S. I selected some options, that I’d come to second guess while waiting for the car, but once receiving I’m ecstatic how the car looks. My car finally went into production in July, but then sat, for some explained reason, and never completed production until December.

Every night before I went to bed, I read this forum and the people who also had lost July cars commiserated with me, but here’s the punchline...it also majorly freaked me seeing all the issues that my fellow forum members where having. I doubted the decision and half expected my car to arrive with no heat, alarm issues, PCM glitches and throwing other alarms every few miles. I know that I’m only a week in, but I wanted to share my experience after 350 miles and in the event anyone else was worried as they await delivery. This has been my experience...

Pros:
  1. The car‘s software has been bulletproof since I’ve taken delivery. I received the ‘activate’ email one day prior to when I was to take delivery and activated my MyPorsche account. When I got to the dealership, the set up was effortless and took less than five minutes.
  2. The PCM software is definitely a work in progress and the UI is no where close to the Tesla one, however, I used the PCM simulator a few month before I got the car and felt amazingly comfortable from day one. If you’re waiting, I’d highly recommend using the simulator a bit before taking delivery as it will help a great deal when you get in the car. Here is the link... https://your-digital-co-pilot.com/en
  3. As many have said, sitting in the car the first time, was truly remarkable. The cockpit design is amazing and the build quality of the interior far exceeded my expectations. I’ve had a Cayenne eHybrid in the past and Porsche has definitely upped its game.
  4. I did not upgrade from the standard leather and was worried about that, but the standard black seats are really nice and I’m incredibly happy with them. I have the premium package that came with the 14 way seats and they are very comfortable and adjust every way that I could imagine. Not sure what additional the 18 way gets you, but the standard 14 way are amazing.
  5. I ordered the Paldao wood trim and again, was second guessing the decision, but I love it. I think it makes the cabin more rich looking and the wood against the black interior makes a striking combination. The configurator pictures don’t do it justice and are much lighter than reality.
  6. First drive was shear bliss. The 4S is wicked fast without being nausea inducing. A friend of my has a Plaid and it takes about an hour to recover after launching. I didn’t upgrade to rear wheel steering or any of the suspension additions, but the I’m really impressed with the the steering and suspension especially in Sportplus mode.
  7. One addition I would highly recommend is the sports crono package. I could live with or without the clock, but having the drive mode selector on the steering wheel is amazingly handy and I actually have been driving in sports plus most of the time. Can’t imagine going into the menus to change drive mode.
  8. I know I might get panned for this one, but I love the sport sound too. Coming from the Tesla after eight years, it is so nice to have some engine noise and I think it sounds fantastic. It’s really unique in the market and driving trough a parking lot with it on definitely gets a lot of looks.
  9. The car itself is just beautiful as you all know. I got the front PPF wrapped and full ceramic and want to try and protect it as long as possible. It gets a ton of thumbs ups, and smiles. It’s just a beautiful car all around.
  10. I ordered the Mission E wheels and think the wheels make the car. I didn’t paint match them and the silver looks good with the dolomite. The tires are massive and I dread thinking about what replacements will cost. The dealer tried to sell me a $3,800 wheel insurance package, I opted against it. On a negative note, the car came with Goodyear Eagles. I was hoping for Michelin Pilot Sports and when I change them, will definitely switch to Michelin’s as I’ve had good success with those on the Model S.
  11. One splurge that I probably didn’t need, but happy that I got is the PCCB’s in yellow. It was an expensive option, but I love the look of those massive calipers behind the Mission E wheels.
  12. Plug and charge seems to work well so far...no issues at all.
  13. I’ve done 12 OTA software updates and they all worked smoothly with no issues.
  14. I love these all too and they work really well: Apple CarPlay, smart lift, the interior LED lights, homelink, Bose stereo...
Cons:
  1. The Porsche Connect / My Porsche app is complete garbage. I’ve tried them both and I’d say conservatively, it is able to connect to the car about 10% of the time. Forgot the really limited functionality, if you can’t connect to the car, it does no good. I’m really hoping this improves over time as it’s not good right now. It think for an EV where it’s a necessity to monitor charge level, this is a requirement and I hope they get it sorted quickly.
  2. I’m not sure about range yet. I upgraded to the 93 kilowatt battery and when I charge to 85%, it says I have 176 miles of range. My Model S that’s 8 years old changes to 202 at 85% and it’s only an 85 kilowatt battery. Now maybe the Taycan‘s 176 is really 176 and Tesla’s 202 is 150, but with the bigger battery, I was expecting to see more range out of the gate. Again, too early to tell. Having had a BEV for a long time, I don’t really worry about range as I plug in at night and she’s topped off in the morning, but it is curious.
  3. I hate the fact that the Taycan doesn’t lock and shut down automatically if you walk away with the key. After having the Tesla so long I got used to just putting the car in park and walking away. It powered down and locked automatically as it should. I’m constantly doing that with the Taycan and the car power stays on and it doesn’t lock. Yesterday I took my son to Panaera for lunch. Came out car was unlocked and fully powered. Now, I don’t think you can drive without the key present, but having to remember to power down the car and then actually use the key to lock it is a drag and is definitely going to require some reprogramming on my part.
  4. Need the forum help here. How in the world do you clean the inside of the rear window? Mine is dirty and the slope of the window and high shelf make it impossible to clean. Any suggestions would be helpful...
  5. This isn’t a Porsche thing, but I installed a Nexar Pro camera which uses WiFi to connect to my phone so the only way that I can use CarPlay is a wired connection. Incidentally, I purchased the ProClip Taycan phone holder for the rail and it works incredible well. I paired it with a magnet that I got on amazon and the phone is right at my finger tips.
  6. Because of the chip shortage, only receive one key and inductive phone charger doesn’t work, but again, don’t really need it.
I hope, for those of you waiting, these comments were helpful and happy to answer any question. I had a ton, but I’m so unbelievably happy with the purchase and you will be too. For me the waiting was so difficult, but happy to finally be behind the wheel!!!


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Thanks for the write up! Like you I have been super stressed out and watched all of the YouTube videos and came here for more in-depth knowledge. After reading comments I’ve been so scared.
However I still placed an order at Hendrick in Charlotte in November. My SA said Track my Dream was no longer available but that it was supposed to go into production on 1/14 to be delivered in mid-March! Let’s hope that’s a good timeline and I have the same positive experience you did!
 

makados

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To add to the positive experiences, my car doesn’t seem to have any major issues. I have a 22’ 4S that I received a month ago, and everything works. No alarm issue, Porsche connect worked without a hitch, AM login works, plug’n’charge with Electrify America worked every time, My Porsche app works (I use it to lock the car and send destinations to the nav system from the phone).

There were a couple of minor software glitches, that were fixed with the car restart, so it’s not perfect. Mostly related to playing music. But, in my case, nothing major that would make me afraid of the car. Or Porsche Beverly Hills did a thorough pre-delivery inspection, that all known issues were already fixed.

The bugs and issues we see on this forum I believe are very much real, but it also may be the case of people with issues looking for solutions, and people without issues not posting, or not even reading the forum. I do think a 100-200k car should not have any issues at all, so Porsche definitely needs to step up their game, but it may not be as bad as it seems.
 


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Should get my car in a week or so...this post should help. Thanks. :)
 

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Agreed but much of what we've seen to this point (apps etc) have been 3rd partied. I see they now have a group (VW) agreement with Microsoft for cloud services but not clear how that relates to the current software / app offerings.
https://www.vwcloud.io

Porsche Taycan For those awaiting delivery, my experience after my first week... Screenshot 2022-01-18 at 07.36.56


VW and Audi in 2023 – other brands I've heard in 2025.
 

W1NGE

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I don't think this is true. There is a reason why Porsche is building EV's and connected cars - the market demands it. Porsche is a company like any other. If they could be just as successful selling old tech, carburetor based ICE cars with no computers, they would be - no engineering to pay for, no chip shortages, no advanced training for service needed, etc. Lots of costs they could have cut, and would have, if they were going to be successful with it. Hopefully they won't take the Blackberry smartphone approach, assume they are the most desirable (which Blackberry phones were was at one point, the name essentially it was the synonym for smartphone). Apple came for Blackberry and they didn't even know they hit them. As an "only half kidding" note, Apple cars are coming too.


OTA is a very complex topic so my reply will be a bit long. Let me share my now 9 year journey with Tesla OTA and how I've hated it, tried the "no OTA for me" strategy, but also realized that it has a great potential if used properly.

Over the years I've grown to loathe the way Tesla uses it, for one to sell hype and vaporware, and then never deliver or deliver a very underwhelming (as compared to the hype) feature instead. They do this with large features like autonomous driving, as well as smaller features like ability to turn on heated seats, or interior noise cancellation, etc. They also keep on changing the UI to make it look trendy with little regard to driver experience - especially driver's outside of where Elon drives (e.g. recently Tesla got rid of defroster buttons from their main UI, Elon never uses them, so they have no reason to be quickly accessible). Over the years they've migrated from larger, color buttons on top of the screen close to the driver's line of sight, to tiny monochrome buttons on the bottom of the screen (near the floor for portrait screens), though recently circled back to color (but still on the bottom, though with newer cars the bottom is not as low as they rotated the screen to landscape orientation). Tesla also limited different cars' ranges, performance, even features, over the years via OTA (and sometimes hidden/forced, not through the regular process where the user must agree to install).

I tried the "don't install OTAs" after Tesla disabled my air suspension for months after some media hype about a car hitting a trailer hitch on the road which destroyed the battery. However, even if you forget the fact that Tesla will sneak some updates in without your permission anyways, the biggest issue with refusing OTA is the fact that it's a 24/7 connected device, i.e. it's always connected to the internet. This means it needs patches to stay secured. Would you connect a 4 year old unpatched computer or a phone to the internet? Those can be hacked by script kiddies downloading the right exploits. There are other issues with refusing OTA, for example if you want a fix for any issue in the your car, or even just to perform service on your car, you must update to the latest software since the shop techs are no longer trained on older software and even the diagnostic equipment doesn't work on the older software - it just says "update software/firmware to latest version before proceeding".

So all bad stuff so far. However it does have positive uses. You can get fixes quickly without waiting for an appointment with the dealer. You can get new features. And, here is a big one, you can get safety and security fixes quickly. While I hated Tesla OTA for a long time, I couldn't help but notice it gave them the edge of quick iterations on designs, applying a continuous integration/deployment strategy borrowed from online software development. At first I thought the advantage is for Tesla, and customers are just guinea pigs duped by Elon to pay to test his software. However, then the Bolts burning down fiasco happened, and I remembered Tesla has a similar issue a few years back - some Teslas caught on fire while parked. Tesla quickly deployed an update which limited max charge on some cars (they were able to determine from their telemetrics which cars have batteries which might become dangerous) and the story blew over. Bolts have not been sold in over half a year now, and owners have been told "don't park your Bolt anywhere near a residence". Some apartments, condos, businesses have banned Bolts from parking in their lots. It will probably take a year or more to mostly resolve this issue, and once resolved, how do you prove to all those places which banned you that your Bolt is safe now? They are working on stickers and online lookup tool, let's see how it goes. But, that made me think, what is better, a complex software which is minimally tested but can be updated every day with fixes if needed, or software which goes through 12 months of validation before every release, which means it is way better tested but any bugs which are missed will take at least 12 months to fix as the next release will have to go through the same validation process? Would you rather drive a car which has a higher chance of major failure for any single car, but a much lower chance of a large group of cars to be affected (since fix will come as soon as first cars experience the failure), or would you prefer the all-or-nothing approach - lower chance for a major failure, but if it hits, your car is out of service for a year?

Now, imagine the Bolt thing happened to your Taycan, and you cannot park your car at home or work for a year. Then it's finally fixed, but the VIN lookup tool Porsche creates for people to validate which cars are safe is not showing your car (just like people unable to login to their accounts with PCM today). Would you still find Porsche so desirable?

PS> As a side note, the governments around the world are looking to mandate OTA updates for all cars. I saw a draft for the US NHTSA a while back. These things take time, but will eventually be mandated for safety and security reasons.
The irony for me however is that the Taycan (to keep context) is most definitely currently not a 24x7 connected device / car given the well publicised issues with connectivity which Porsche seem happy to leave unaddressed and I could argue no manufacturer's car will ever be 24x7 until a 100% failsafe and guaranteed connectivity technology is implemented. Underground parking (no signal for most), offgrid (poor / patchy cellular connectivity), ability for customers to invoke privacy mode (we assume it means what it says and blocks remote connectivity), and so on.

For me it's the safety (and cybersecurity) aspects of this and the last thing I (we) want are major safety related updates being pushed to vehicles once online predicated on the assumption that it will 'just work' and was intended. Experience to this point indicates that it would be chaotic with the Taycan given all the random (sometimes not) software glitches we've experienced (most unexplained) implying that consistency in operation of the vehicle is simply not there - no two cars are the same and so it would take a huge leap of faith to deploy safety updates without being 100% confident that the testing prior to deployment has considered all permutations in the field.

One day (perhaps not soon) there will be a level of maturity that guarantees flawless OTA deployment and execution on a variety of carriers - LTE, satellite, wifi, others - to a known software build within the Taycan.

Let's not forget the chaos caused by last year's WMA5 / 6 which had dire consequences for many people and huge inconvenience to the majority - had this been attempted OTA there would have been carnage.

The supply chain / OEMs for the current Taycan product line makes it complicated to design and build in standardisation of components which have a software related element to them. Porsche (VW / VAG in general) are not a Tesla shop and don't have their collective arms around this and do less in-house.

Not sure if you saw the post from @cd77 last year - https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/dealer-software-update.4100/post-58106 - but for me this says it all.

For now, Porsche will continue to sell more cars than they can produce and we will continue to line up and consume (as we'd rather have a Porsche than not and will put up with shoddy apps and software glitches). In 10 years time the world (and Porsche) will be in a different place and maturity will hopefully bring standardisation thereby paving the way for less complicated vehicles and / or an OTA solution that has appropriate safeguards to make it a seamless and secure means of software maintaining your vehicle.
 

W1NGE

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Here you go. Still picture since it is pitch dark outside. Could try a video tomorrow. My tool has lasted at least 4 years and get to the lowest point of the rear screen. Used on Porsche, M5 and Tesla with success. The blue pad is detachable and can be washed. Great to use dry, but even better with a good Glass cleaner. The pad is on a one axis swivel
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Awesome and many thanks for humouring me!

I must get me one of these - perfect!
 

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Thx - don't they also need to be cloud agnostic and not rely solely on Microsoft in case of major outages (has happened)?
They are currently all in on AWS and pretty vocally so. I'm not 100% convinced that Porsche is fully committed to the new VW Cloud initiative – though they have traditionally been a very Microsoft friendly shop. Will be interesting.

What we seem to be seeing is multiple re-inventing of the "automotive cloud" wheel. Eventually it will have to settle down.

What we can also determine from all of these initiatives – and seemingly conflicting duplicate approaches – is that they are not blind to the Tesla software services advantage and are trying to bridge that gap quickly. The risk is that in doing so they make a mess of it. Microsoft might help them catch up here or they might lose (commercial) interest and become aimless.

One thing is for certain – its always hard to build your own business on someone else's platform (agenda).
 

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2023 Taycan TCT, 2024 Q8 eTron P+
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The irony for me however is that the Taycan (to keep context) is most definitely currently not a 24x7 connected device / car given the well publicised issues with connectivity which Porsche seem happy to leave unaddressed and I could argue no manufacturer's car will ever be 24x7 until a 100% failsafe and guaranteed connectivity technology is implemented. Underground parking (no signal for most), offgrid (poor / patchy cellular connectivity), ability for customers to invoke privacy mode (we assume it means what it says and blocks remote connectivity), and so on.
First, the device doesn't have to be actually connected 24/7 in order to be vulnerable. As long as it's connected, it can be attacked from the internet. New vulnerabilities are found every single day in various software packages (one source https://www.cve.org/ ), and fast patching is key to proper cybersecurity maintenance.

Side note, even though I don't have a Taycan, I would not assume "privacy mode" blocks all connectivity. For example, does your car get real time traffic information or is able to do music streaming while in privacy mode? Just because your app cannot connect or you cannot retrieve your own location via the internet, does not mean your car is not connected. Now, I don't have a Taycan yet to verify, I am slowly assembling some Taycan guts on my bench while I'm bored waiting for Porsche to build mine, but I haven't scored a component Porsche calls a "conBox-High" yet from some poor crashed Taycan. I'll update if I confirm myself or find some reliable source, but my money is it's always connected. Devices nowadays are always connected, even in "airplane mode" phones do occasionally turn on some of their radios.

Privacy mode doesn't even have to mean you don't get updates either. I know with Tesla, your car is still connected and gets updates, you just get an error message if you try to connect to the car with the app. I also happen to have designed an OTA system which works on devices in privacy mode (passes GDPR) - the device connects to an ephemeral server which helps determine the appropriate update, then complete wipes all knowledge of the device's connection, the device then goes and anonymously downloads the update and applies it. There is no personally identifiable information stored anywhere outside of the device, the manufacturer's cloud has no idea your device updated, but you have the latest software.

For me it's the safety (and cybersecurity) aspects of this and the last thing I (we) want are major safety related updates being pushed to vehicles once online predicated on the assumption that it will 'just work' and was intended. Experience to this point indicates that it would be chaotic with the Taycan given all the random (sometimes not) software glitches we've experienced (most unexplained) implying that consistency in operation of the vehicle is simply not there - no two cars are the same and so it would take a huge leap of faith to deploy safety updates without being 100% confident that the testing prior to deployment has considered all permutations in the field.
Ah, but there is the gotcha. Imagine a large cyber security hole is discovered in a Taycan, where a malicious actor can connect to your car when it's parked (whenever it is actually online, perhaps not 24/7, maybe 10/6), and initial remote parking with sensors disabled. Imagine someone is doing it to the cars and Porsche saying "please wait while we qualify a fix, then get in line for an appointment, until then park your car deep underground to prevent connectivity, nothing we can do for you".

Consider the false alarm issue Taycan's have been experiencing for last few months. While it does not have as dire consequences, if Porsche had fast OTA's, they could have deployed a new option to permanently disable the internal sensor. They could deploy it to a few cars, see if users report any issues, and if not, do the next wave, then the the next. Worst case scenario, you deploy a revert back to the previous version.

One day (perhaps not soon) there will be a level of maturity that guarantees flawless OTA deployment and execution on a variety of carriers - LTE, satellite, wifi, others - to a known software build within the Taycan.
Delivery method for OTA is very insignificant. An update is an update, whether it's delivered via WiFi, LTE, satellite, or a USB stick.

Let's not forget the chaos caused by last year's WMA5 / 6 which had dire consequences for many people and huge inconvenience to the majority - had this been attempted OTA there would have been carnage.
Porsche needs to learn how to deploy OTA's to avoid carnage. You never deploy to everyone. You deploy to test cars first, then a random sample of customers, then more customers, etc. If at any point you run into issues, you stop the deployment of that update, assess the situation, and mitigate (which may include issuing a revert OTA). Now, if Porsche OTA is not yet mature and got itself into a situation where an over the air update broke the car and broke the OTA capability with it, well, that is the one scenario you always have to test - after update the car has to boot up and be able to accept another update, everything else (even ability to drive) is secondary.
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