"Lag" on acceleration

[Discohead]

Having driven an ipace for 3 years prior to Taycan I have to say the transmission does blunt the performance slightly. I do miss the absolutely instant take off the ipace had.

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[fullmetalbaal]

Sorry, but if you do that and go to half throttle i.e., 5-6, it does not downshift. Rather it takes off smoothly and rapidly in second gear. Of course, if you slam the loud pedal or put it to the floor, you're going to get a downshift and tiny delay. Even then it ain't janky, and if you're just smooth with the pedal you can get this car to fly off without downshifting to first. I just did it multiple times on way back from the practice range.

I drive like a nutter in my 4S and find the car to be remarkably quick and smooth, as do all the people that ride with me. They constantly comment on how smooth the car is when accelerating hard. And I drive in normal mode about 80 percent of the time.

Also, you do know there is an Individual mode where you can customize things and always start in first gear, right?

Maybe it's more than half throttle, I can play around with it next time I drive the car. But it's definitely substantially less than flooring it (i.e., not a full kick-down).

That "tiny delay" is either a tiny delay, or janky, depending on what you are used and/or expect from a sports car. It is similar with turbo lag. Some people swear there's none on the new Porsche 911s with turbo engines. Go back and forth between that and a 911 GT3, and the difference in immediacy is IMHO very clear.

My curiosity is piqued, I think I'm going to measure the impact the shift has on acceleration and see if the "power interruption" is equivalent to what a 911 with PDK does (and it's just feeling worse subjectively because of stronger acceleration involved) or if it is indeed worse.

I think the individual mode is only for cars equipped with Sport Chrono, right? One of my regrets is not speccing that...

 

[gnop1950]

Maybe it's more than half throttle, I can play around with it next time I drive the car. But it's definitely substantially less than flooring it (i.e., not a full kick-down).

That "tiny delay" is either a tiny delay, or janky, depending on what you are used and/or expect from a sports car. It is similar with turbo lag. Some people swear there's none on the new Porsche 911s with turbo engines. Go back and forth between that and a 911 GT3, and the difference in immediacy is IMHO very clear.

My curiosity is piqued, I think I'm going to measure the impact the shift has on acceleration and see if the "power interruption" is equivalent to what a 911 with PDK does (and it's just feeling worse subjectively because of stronger acceleration involved) or if it is indeed worse.

I think the individual mode is only for cars equipped with Sport Chrono, right? One of my regrets is not speccing that...

I believe you are correct about Sport Chrono and individual mode and I was also under the impression that the Sport Plus mode only comes with the Sport Chrono option. I spend about half my time in normal mode and then the rest in Sport/Sport Plus and find it very smooth. I love being able to switch between modes at will using the steering wheel Sport Chrono knob without even having to look.

 

[Jhenson29]

Yes, you are correct, the Taycan uses a dog clutch to change gears.

For clarification, what I meant to impart is that you do not want to have a friction based clutch which is in 99% of consumer manual cars.

First gear is a dog clutch. Second gear is a friction clutch. Multi plate, but still friction.

 

[McgR]

I also have a CT4. I felt the shifting around 120 km with launch control. It really gives a extra punch in the back. A red light at the beginning of the highway. Greg place to test this.

today I did a fast accelerations from 30 km/h to 130 km/h at French toll boot (telepeage is great). I was in normal mode and it was smooth from start to end. Didn’t feel any shifting. My family was in the car so I didn’t do a kick down but it was fast.

 

[Archimedes]

This. The only way you get a kick down is if you absolutely hammer the gas pedal. I just got back from a local highway drive and did all sorts of hard accelerations from lower speeds and got nothing but quick smooth acceleration. Zero downshifts, unless I put it hard to the floor.

 

[Mike in CA]

It’s one of the reasons I want a manual 992 instead of a PDK. I really can’t stand that reactive nature of the transmission. Bleh.

Agree. It's one of the reasons I always drove my PDK equipped GT3 in manual mode; much more likely to either be in the right gear in the first place or just be a flick of the paddle and an almost instantaneous downshift away from the right gear. Either way it was faster than anyone could downshift a manual (although maybe not quite as much fun ).

 

[Jhenson29]

Agree. It's one of the reasons I always drove my PDK equipped GT3 in manual mode;

I hear you, and it’s why I was careful to qualify my “lag” comment with “in automatic”:

every automatic I’ve ever driven had a lag and then jerk to some degree when stomping on the accelerator (assuming it’s in automatic).

But I’ve never been able to adapt to paddles. I tried. But…it’s just not for me.

No big deal. I’m just glad manuals are still around (for now).

Either way it was faster than anyone could downshift a manual

For sure. I don’t think anyone getting a manual is under any delusion that they’re faster at this point.

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