Initial RS E-Tron GT impressions

[Mr.Smith]

Here are my initial impressions of the RS E-tron GT. Before getting my car I had a lot more time with the Taycan Turbo & 4S

The car is low, wide and gorgeous in person. Pictures don't do it justice

- Nogaro Blue exceeded my expectations

- Paint quality and painting process are superb. The metallic flake is laid out evenly

- All wheel steering is magical

- Interior is Beautiful. The leather quality, deviated stitching, alcantara steering wheel, fit and finish (minus the door rattle) are excellent

- Synthetic sound gives it a visceral felling. The exterior sound is menacing, it sounds better than the hum of an electric motor

- MMI is good, not laggy, Layout and UI are fine. It keeps the focus on the rest of the car, not screen interaction.

- Its a quick car, but the Taycan Turbo felt quicker on the roll. I believe the throttle response is more immediate with the Taycan. Maybe @epirali can confirm this?
The RS/Taycan Turbo/TS are essentially the same speed when not in overboost

- Steering is sharp, but very numb. I wish it has more feedback

- Its a heavy car. At high speeds and braking hard, you really feel the weight. On sharp turns, it handles really well, but at a certain point it hits you that you're in a 5000lbs car. Battling a Nogargo RS5 doing around 125mph, than having to brake hard, the car felt like a speeding tank.

- Driving aggressive I cant imagine not having the carbon ceramic brakes.

- The suspension has some body roll that can be felt at high speeds on curvy roads. I had some fun with a C7 Z06 with a plate that mentioned 10sec (I assume it was modded). Driving around 50mph we gunned it. We were close but at 115mph the road started getting bumpy and getting curvy. That's when I felt uneasy with the bouncing and backed off while the Vette took it like a champ, he eventually getting to 140mph it seemed.


Some other observations:

• ingress and egress difficult
• viability not the greatest
• storage in cabin lacking. Nowhere to put a cell phone
• not family friendly
• low front overhang, bottoms out easy
• wide which makes it hard to park everywhere
• not the most efficient of EVs
• overpriced. My RS is about $40k overpriced

Final verdict: There is no car I would rather have. If you're on thinking about getting one, do it. IMO the Taycan & Etron GT are the best Evs on the market by far.

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[X88]

Here are my initial impressions of the RS E-tron GT. Before getting my car I had a lot more time with the Taycan Turbo & 4S

The car is low, wide and gorgeous in person. Pictures don't do it justice

- Nogaro Blue exceeded my expectations

- Paint quality and painting process are superb. The metallic flake is laid out evenly

- All wheel steering is magical

- Interior is Beautiful. The leather quality, deviated stitching, alcantara steering wheel, fit and finish (minus the door rattle) are excellent

- Synthetic sound gives it a visceral felling. The exterior sound is menacing, it sounds better than the hum of an electric motor

- MMI is good, not laggy, Layout and UI are fine. It keeps the focus on the rest of the car, not screen interaction.

- Its a quick car, but the Taycan Turbo felt quicker on the roll. I believe the throttle response is more immediate with the Taycan. Maybe @epirali can confirm this?
The RS/Taycan Turbo/TS are essentially the same speed when not in overboost

- Steering is sharp, but very numb. I wish it has more feedback

- Its a heavy car. At high speeds and braking hard, you really feel the weight. On sharp turns, it handles really well, but at a certain point it hits you that you're in a 5000lbs car. Battling a Nogargo RS5 doing around 125mph, than having to brake hard, the car felt like a speeding tank.

- Driving aggressive I cant imagine not having the carbon ceramic brakes.

- The suspension has some body roll that can be felt at high speeds on curvy roads. I had some fun with a C7 Z06 with a plate that mentioned 10sec (I assume it was modded). Driving around 50mph we gunned it. We were close but at 115mph the road started getting bumpy and getting curvy. That's when I felt uneasy with the bouncing and backed off while the Vette took it like a champ, he eventually getting to 140mph it seemed.


Some other observations:

• ingress and egress difficult
• viability not the greatest
• storage in cabin lacking. Nowhere to put a cell phone
• not family friendly
• low front overhang, bottoms out easy
• wide which makes it hard to park everywhere
• not the most efficient of EVs
• overpriced. My RS is about $40k overpriced

Final verdict: There is no car I would rather have. If you're on thinking about getting one, do it. IMO the Taycan & Etron GT are the best Evs on the market by far.

Thanks for the report!

 

[Luminated67]

Before the brother ordered the Taycan 4S he was also considering the Audi too though just the regular model, I preferred the interior of the Audi way more than the Porsche but as a long time Audi owner over the years that was to be expected. Whilst I felt the interior quality of the two were on par with each other the brother thought the Porsche edged it.

Oddly every review I read suggested the Etron GT ride better than the Taycan but we actually didn’t notice any difference though it was the Grand Turismo so it’s probably more forgiving than the regular Taycan.

Genuinely don’t think you could be disappointed owning either, equally good just in a different flavour.

 

[daveo4EV]

Driving aggressive I cant imagine not having the carbon ceramic brakes.

unless you can get the cast iron brake into brake-fade conditions what you are experiencing is the tire-grip - until the brakes are over heated there is no difference between cast-iron and ceramic brakes…

but yeah they are great.

 

[Mr.Smith]

unless you can get the cast iron brake into brake-fade conditions what you are experiencing is the tire-grip - until the brakes are over heated there is no difference between cast-iron and ceramic brakes…

but yeah they are great.

Any braking benefits to 10 piston vs 6 piston calipers for non track use?

 

[daveo4EV]

Any braking benefits to 10 piston vs 6 piston calipers for non track use?

tires and their grip level stop the car - more pistons is about spreading the pressure distribution across the surface area of the pad…pad wear and longevity under high-stress conditions (conditions that are hard to replicate in street driving)…but fundamentally tires and their grip level are the weak link in stopping a vehicle - not any modern brake system…unless they really really suck ({cough} Tesla plaid {cough})

the basic facts/physics are as follows:

• _IF_ your brakes can generate more friction than the tires - they can "lock" the tires up - maximum tire grip for summer-super-grippy street tires is about 1.6g's forward straight line braking
• _IF_ your brakes can lock the tires (which _ALL_ Porsche brakes can) then you will be invoking ABS which is design to let the tires rotate (releasing their grip) when they are locked up or about to lock up…
  • if you are invoking ABS you have by definition reached maximum g's and decelerator - and ABS will release the tires to rotate…ABS normalized maximum grip in panic/high-stress decelerations…
• the brakes on most any modern car are more powerful than the tires - ergo the limiting factor in braking is _NOT_ how much force/grip your brakes can generate - rather how much force and grip your tires can generate to slow the car…
• it's simply really "brake-grip/friction > tire-grip/friction" - tire grip/friction is the limiting factor
• all Porsche brakes pass the _SAME_ torture test - which is full panic stops from 80% of top speed 25 times in a row with _NO_ "rest" for the brakes - Porsche measures this stopping and does not allow any variance in deceleration g forces (brake fade) - which Porsche brakes pass this test?
  • basic Porsche steel brakes
  • PSCB brakes
  • PCCB's
  • Audi passes similar tests

your brakes are way way way more powerful than your tires - tires limit/control/dominate your stopping behavior…

therefore what is "better" about Ceramic brakes - what are their superpowers?

• greater profit margin
• normally associated with better appearance - but I'm not sure if that is not phycological conditioning rather than objective beauty (we are taught that they look better)
• less rotational weight/mass
• dramatically lower brake dust (cleaner wheels)
• no rusting in cold climates with adverse road treatments
• superior unreal dramatically better thermal endurance - no brake fade even under extreme thermal stress - the sort of thermal stress that can only be achieved in heavy heavy endurance racing…i.e. a few panic stops from 70 mph on the highway is not what we are talking about…

Ceramic brakes are the best brakes money can buy no question what so ever that is the 100% truth of the matter

the more subtle questions is: "in what way are they better?" - and the answer is: "not in any way you can encounter in legal or extra-legal street driving scenarios"

NOTE: Porsche and others make _NO_ claims in writing as to _HOW_ ceramic brakes are better - they leave that to the reader/victim - they are better but not in ways people expect - most people associate better brakes must mean better stopping distance - not true - tire grip and road conditions dominate stopping distance factors - since the brakes are more powerful than the tires the tires are the limiting factor - therefore changing to "better" brakes does not improve the tire's level of grip and therefore has no effect on stopping distance…

PCCB's are better in the ways enumerated above - and If you're going to be endurance racing your AudiGT or Taycan there is no better choice for brakes - as with a big 5,000 lbs vehicle it's a lot of thermal energy to stop that car repeatably from a high speed…

but wait how much endurance does the Taycan/AudiGT have? Well based on my experience and data from various Porsche sponsored track events I've been to and a Porsche mechanical engineer I met in Germany at the Nurburgring - most production EV's don't have enough battery endurance to "outlast" the brakes…

You can not run a Taycan/AudiGT hard enough or long enough to over stress the excellent cast-iron brakes - you will run out of the following capabilities _BEFORE_ you're going to induce thermal fade into the excellent base cast-iron brakes…you will run out of these items _BEFORE_ you stress the brakes:

• battery thermals - if you're driving hard enough to need heavy braking you're also heating up the battery - it _WILL_ overheat after about 15 minutes of track driving
  • NOTE: once you hit battery thermal limits your max throttle is now limited - so you can no longer accelerate or decelerate hard enough to stress the brakes
• actual battery power - less than 15 minutes of track driving uses 50% or more available battery capacity
• street tires on a 5,000 lbs car are only good for about 3-5 laps before they become greasy and will no longer offer optimal stopping grip (again less grip than your brakes - this lessens the thermal load on the brakes)

the Taycan/AudiGT do not have enough endurance to overwhelm the thermal capacity of any decent modern cast-iron brakes - no one needs high-endurance braking system (PCCB's) for a vehicle that can not even run long enough for a typical sprint race…if your Taycan/AudiGT is running "hard" and it's lasting longer than 15 min - then you're not driving that hard now are you? So again you're no longer stressing the brakes…

Ceramic brakes true superpower (indisputable really) is their massive thermal endurance - you virtually can not overheat them and cause brake fade - but to tap in to that super power you need a vehicle that can run long enough and hard enough to exceed the thermal capabilities of the more traditional cast-iron brakes…if you're looking for that vehicle it is neither a Taycan or AudiGT RS - both cars are only good for about 15 minutes of full pace full capability driving - not long enough to overwhelm cast-iron brake thermals.

Ceramic brakes have always been. vanity purchase and totally unnecessary for non-track use - but at least most gas cars that have ceramic brakes as an option can run long enough to potentially need them on track - but on an EV with 90% regen braking in normal street scenarios and not enough battery capacity (power and/or thermal) to actually run for a long time - it's pure vanity…and pure profit - but the car stops in the same distance.

if this were not true we would all be hearing about AudiGT and base Taycan having "brake fade" problems with the base cast-iron brakes - this is simply not an issue with the AudiGT/Taycan - because while PCCB's do have superior thermal endurance, the excellent cast-iron systems on most cars today are no slouch…and require quite a bit of hard driving to exceed their thermal/cooling endurance - the sort of driving you can only do with more than 30 or 40 minutes of continuous high-performance track driving…

if you like the brakes - thank the tires…if you want to improve stopping distance upgrade your tires

you do not need "better" brakes unless you are getting "brake fade" - I welcome evidence of anyone getting brake fade in any non-track circumstance…

@f1eng is a former f1 race engineer and he's learned and forgotten more about brakes than I will ever know - he is familiar with this rant of mine, and he is welcome to refute it - but to date his race experience backs up my assertions - if not I'm sure he will call me the sh*t-head I am and tell everyone publicly that I'm a loon…

tires stop your car - unless your brakes have thermal faded/failed - your brakes are more powerful than your tires - so your tires (road conditions) are _THE_ limiting factor on brake performance…if you're getting brake fade in normal street driving circumstances PCCB's are not the answer - you have a something else dramatically wrong with your vehicle - you should get that fixed first.

 

[Mr.Smith]

tires and their grip level stop the car - more pistons is about spreading the pressure distribution across the surface area of the pad…pad wear and longevity under high-stress conditions (conditions that are hard to replicate in street driving)…but fundamentally tires and their grip level are the weak link in stopping a vehicle - not any modern brake system…unless they really really suck ({cough} Tesla plaid {cough})

the basic facts/physics are as follows:

• _IF_ your brakes can generate more friction than the tires - they can "lock" the tires up - maximum tire grip for summer-super-grippy street tires is about 1.6g's forward straight line braking
• _IF_ your brakes can lock the tires (which _ALL_ Porsche brakes can) then you will be invoking ABS which is design to let the tires rotate (releasing their grip) when they are locked up or about to lock up…
  • if you are invoking ABS you have by definition reached maximum g's and decelerator - and ABS will release the tires to rotate…ABS normalized maximum grip in panic/high-stress decelerations…
• the brakes on most any modern car are more powerful than the tires - ergo the limiting factor in braking is _NOT_ how much force/grip your brakes can generate - rather how much force and grip your tires can generate to slow the car…
• it's simply really "brake-grip/friction > tire-grip/friction" - tire grip/friction is the limiting factor
• all Porsche brakes pass the _SAME_ torture test - which is full panic stops from 80% of top speed 25 times in a row with _NO_ "rest" for the brakes - Porsche measures this stopping and does not allow any variance in deceleration g forces (brake fade) - which Porsche brakes pass this test?
  • basic Porsche steel brakes
  • PSCB brakes
  • PCCB's
  • Audi passes similar tests

your brakes are way way way more powerful than your tires - tires limit/control/dominate your stopping behavior…

therefore what is "better" about Ceramic brakes - what are their superpowers?

• greater profit margin
• normally associated with better appearance - but I'm not sure if that is not phycological conditioning rather than objective beauty (we are taught that they look better)
• less rotational weight/mass
• dramatically lower brake dust (cleaner wheels)
• no rusting in cold climates with adverse road treatments
• superior unreal dramatically better thermal endurance - no brake fade even under extreme thermal stress - the sort of thermal stress that can only be achieved in heavy heavy endurance racing…i.e. a few panic stops from 70 mph on the highway is not what we are talking about…

Ceramic brakes are the best brakes money can buy no question what so ever that is the 100% truth of the matter

the more subtle questions is: "in what way are they better?" - and the answer is: "not in any way you can encounter in legal or extra-legal street driving scenarios"

NOTE: Porsche and others make _NO_ claims in writing as to _HOW_ ceramic brakes are better - they leave that to the reader/victim - they are better but not in ways people expect - most people associate better brakes must mean better stopping distance - not true - tire grip and road conditions dominate stopping distance factors - since the brakes are more powerful than the tires the tires are the limiting factor - therefore changing to "better" brakes does not improve the tire's level of grip and therefore has no effect on stopping distance…

PCCB's are better in the ways enumerated above - and If you're going to be endurance racing your AudiGT or Taycan there is no better choice for brakes - as with a big 5,000 lbs vehicle it's a lot of thermal energy to stop that car repeatably from a high speed…

but wait how much endurance does the Taycan/AudiGT have? Well based on my experience and data from various Porsche sponsored track events I've been to and a Porsche mechanical engineer I met in Germany at the Nurburgring - most production EV's don't have enough battery endurance to "outlast" the brakes…

You can not run a Taycan/AudiGT hard enough or long enough to over stress the excellent cast-iron brakes - you will run out of the following capabilities _BEFORE_ you're going to induce thermal fade into the excellent base cast-iron brakes…you will run out of these items _BEFORE_ you stress the brakes:

• battery thermals - if you're driving hard enough to need heavy braking you're also heating up the battery - it _WILL_ overheat after about 15 minutes of track driving
  • NOTE: once you hit battery thermal limits your max throttle is now limited - so you can no longer accelerate or decelerate hard enough to stress the brakes
• actual battery power - less than 15 minutes of track driving uses 50% or more available battery capacity
• street tires on a 5,000 lbs car are only good for about 3-5 laps before they become greasy and will no longer offer optimal stopping grip (again less grip than your brakes - this lessens the thermal load on the brakes)

the Taycan/AudiGT do not have enough endurance to overwhelm the thermal capacity of any decent modern cast-iron brakes - no one needs high-endurance braking system (PCCB's) for a vehicle that can not even run long enough for a typical sprint race…if your Taycan/AudiGT is running "hard" and it's lasting longer than 15 min - then you're not driving that hard now are you? So again you're no longer stressing the brakes…

Ceramic brakes true superpower (indisputable really) is their massive thermal endurance - you virtually can not overheat them and cause brake fade - but to tap in to that super power you need a vehicle that can run long enough and hard enough to exceed the thermal capabilities of the more traditional cast-iron brakes…if you're looking for that vehicle it is neither a Taycan or AudiGT RS - both cars are only good for about 15 minutes of full pace full capability driving - not long enough to overwhelm cast-iron brake thermals.

Ceramic brakes have always been. vanity purchase and totally unnecessary for non-track use - but at least most gas cars that have ceramic brakes as an option can run long enough to potentially need them on track - but on an EV with 90% regen braking in normal street scenarios and not enough battery capacity (power and/or thermal) to actually run for a long time - it's pure vanity…and pure profit - but the car stops in the same distance.

if this were not true we would all be hearing about AudiGT and base Taycan having "brake fade" problems with the base cast-iron brakes - this is simply not an issue with the AudiGT/Taycan - because while PCCB's do have superior thermal endurance, the excellent cast-iron systems on most cars today are no slouch…and require quite a bit of hard driving to exceed their thermal/cooling endurance - the sort of driving you can only do with more than 30 or 40 minutes of continuous high-performance track driving…

if you like the brakes - thank the tires…if you want to improve stopping distance upgrade your tires

you do not need "better" brakes unless you are getting "brake fade" - I welcome evidence of anyone getting brake fade in any non-track circumstance…

@f1eng is a former f1 race engineer and he's learned and forgotten more about brakes than I will ever know - he is familiar with this rant of mine, and he is welcome to refute it - but to date his race experience backs up my assertions - if not I'm sure he will call me the sh*t-head I am and tell everyone publicly that I'm a loon…

tires stop your car - unless your brakes have thermal faded/failed - your brakes are more powerful than your tires - so your tires (road conditions) are _THE_ limiting factor on brake performance…if you're getting brake fade in normal street driving circumstances PCCB's are not the answer - you have a something else dramatically wrong with your vehicle - you should get that fixed first.

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Yes, I love reading anything @f1eng posts

So on the Plaid, I assume the brakes will function properly, but just one time. More than that is when the problems start to occur

 

[daveo4EV]

Thank you for the detailed explanation. Yes, I love reading anything @f1eng posts

So on the Plaid, I assume the brakes will function properly, but just one time. More than that is when the problems start to occur

I have no personal experience - from internet postings they seem to lack any real endurance - even for short sprints - as to if they work even one time - well that plaid is simply so quick and has a reasonably high top speed I've heard that they are pretty iffy even once - but given that Tesla understand regen and on a regen car brakes really aren't used for street driving - Tesla tends to design their brakes not to be used - why throw money into a component that 99.9% if the time sits idle in normal use cases…

there are cars with crappy brakes being sold today - but they are not VW/Audi's/Porsche's or any vehicle that has a decent reputation - my overall point is PCCB's are better brakes, but not in the way most people would associate with "improved" brakes - and the vendors make no written claims as to how/why PCCB's are better - becuase they know what we know - its very very very hard to get modern brakes to the level that you actually need PCCB's…

all brakes will 'function' properly if given time to cool between uses - it's the high demand high endurance use cases that separate the bad, mediocre, good, great, best brakes from one another - really really good brakes can be used often and at great load with i=minimal time between applications…bad brakes can be use only a few times and then need a long time to rest and recover before they are back to full capability.

Porsche's brakes (even the base brakes) are simply excellent and far exceed virtually anything you can throw at them until you're pushing fast laps time on challenging circuits for more than 30 min of continuous use…and only then will you get Porsche's base cast iron brakes to begin to fade…it boggles my mind as to how/when you could get to that point in any street driving scenario.

 

[batteredhaddock]

I’ve got the PSCB’s but only as standard on the Turbo. Definitely the benefit is cosmetic, not seeing the rust build up in the winter. Downside is that it always seemed an excuse in the ipace to charge to 100% , blat up the A1 to some roundabouts and give them a nice clean .

I do like the way Porsche doesn’t use regen at the beginning of each journey though till a certain amount of use, so it may be that even a short, slow trip a couple of times a week will keep the rust off. Assume same on the Audi sister car.

 

[Mr.Smith]

I’ve got the PSCB’s but only as standard on the Turbo. Definitely the benefit is cosmetic, not seeing the rust build up in the winter. Downside is that it always seemed an excuse in the ipace to charge to 100% , blat up the A1 to some roundabouts and give them a nice clean .

I do like the way Porsche doesn’t use regen at the beginning of each journey though till a certain amount of use, so it may be that even a short, slow trip a couple of times a week will keep the rust off. Assume same on the Audi sister car.

I spoke to a shop that works on Audis and Porches. He said the E-Tron GT is a Taycan more than an Audi. The modules are Porsche so programming the Matrix led headlights can't be done with the Audi software

 

[or1]

I have owned an RS e-tron GT for almost a year now, but will switch to a Taycan GTS Sport Turismo in December (November production). The extra practicality is part of the reason. But I also find the Taycan steering to be considerably better (more feedback), and the interior to be better designed and of higher quality. To my taste, I also find the exterior more beautiful. The Audi has not quite grown on me the way I hoped. It's a bit more of a show car.

it als matters that this is the last chance to buy an expensive electric car in Norway without value-added tax.

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