DragonRR

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Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3940

Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3935


Just before I got it:

Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3986



I decided to get a Taycan last year because it pressed a lot more buttons for me than a Tesla and aside from the fact that this is probably the future, I fancied a significant change.

Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3987


Over the last month I have driven a Taycan Turbo demonstrator on 2 occasions for a total of about 250 miles. I took delivery of my Turbo S a few days ago and have done another 250 miles in that. I still haven’t read the manual so I have some learning to do about the tech in the car. This short review is mainly about my general experience with some pros and cons.



Starting with the cons (both cars)…


I have two rattles – both front doors rattle on rough surfaces near the top of the door trim. Possible additional rattle on the same surfaces from the around the seat belt adjustment thing. Hopefully the dealer will resolve these.

The demo also had rattles from similar locations. The second time I took it out the dealer had fixed them.

The demo had a bad stitch right in the middle of the dash. Thankfully mine hasn’t!

The plastic (or whatever it is) joint piece in the middle of the dash above the centre air vents looks like an afterthought. It doesn’t quite fit properly. It is a very minor problem though. You can just about see it in the pic.

Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3950


The demo car had normal glass and there was a lot of wind noise at higher speeds. Could have been a problem of course but I don’t hear any significant wind in mine which has the thermal and acoustic glass. I very nearly didn’t bother with this but figured it is an electric car and silence is a good thing!

I sometimes feel the gear meander a bit.. very minor negative and it is infrequent. I barely noticed the gear change in the Turbo but it was probably identical.

The tech is a bit fiddly. It looks great but scrolling is a bit annoying and you have to take your eyes off the road, you can’t learn switch placement. There may be a quick way to do it somewhere but turning on, for example, seat massage seems to involve several screen presses which is fairly impractical when driving. Overall there should be more buttons for common use controls. (IMO)

I don’t quite know what to make of the recommended 85% battery charge. At 100% charge my car suggests I’m only going to get a whopping 210 miles or so which is bad enough. What are the long term affects of charging to 100% every day?

The displays don’t really report enough information about the battery level situation. More advanced information and reporting would be nice. If the car did 500 miles it wouldn’t be a problem.

I am struggling to understand the connect app and timers. I set one up two days ago to cool the car to 19.5 degrees C at 7:45 am with 85% charge (as instructed by the high command). Got up yesterday morning. App had gone back to 22 degrees. Car was at 98% charge!? This morning.. still 22 degrees but 86% charge. In addition I had to tell the Andersen charger to only supply juice from 0:00 as the car decided it want to eat some electricity as soon as I plugged it in.

Normal Porsche voice control, for making calls at least, seems a very sluggish. Takes almost twice as long as my truck to intiate the same call.

No soft close doors. A feature I quite like.

No HUD.. Although the cockpit display is very nice. And almost removes the need. (But not quite). The 2021 implementation looks fugly.

I can’t see all if the cockpit display functions. The steering wheel grip covers up some displays and makes it harder to see the outer touch buttons – like the suspension toggle. No real solution to this of course.

Some of the external plastics are a little bit err .. function over form. I can see why some owners have had areas painted. Minor niggle.

Apple carplay does not work wirelessly. My 2018 M5 comp pack had flawless wireless carplay. What is the problem? I thought the car had it but it doesn’t and I have all the latest updates.



Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3978



Pros..

Quite honestly the pros massively outweigh the cons.

I ordered the Turbo S a bit blind and assumed that it would simply be quicker than the non “S”. I was a bit disappointed that the Turbo S could apparently only use the extra power over the non “S” when launched. I later noticed that Porsche’s brochure figures appear to show overtaking is a bit quicker. Maybe this is actually true but I can’t say that I noticed any difference from the Turbo except during a launch. I hope that Porsche will “unlock” the extra power potential the S presumably has but I’m not holding my breath. Launch control is a cool feature but is something I have rarely done in my previous cars with too much faffing setting up and component stress and sounding like a loon at traffic lights. Anyway, overall (and I know this sounds like a con so far) I figured that using launch control would be a nice party trick when I had time to find somewhere to use it with a passenger in. But then there is the Taycan Come to a stop… anywhere... Left foot on brake, floor the accelerator wait a few seconds.. Take foot of brake. Head slams into seat, passengers start laughing, g meter shows 1.2gs.. We are doing 60 before I can think. I can do this without anyone even knowing I’m going to do it. I can do it anywhere! No high revving engine noise.. I’m just gone. Wow.

Overtaking.. My R8 V10+ was probably just as quick and getting it in the zone was fun and the sound is awesome.. but the Taycan overtakes at any speed and at any point and with instant torque. You cannot achieve this feat with a combustion engine unless you are in the correct gear with the correct settings. Phenomenal.

General feel. The car is so smooth to drive. It glides along in normal mode like a Bentley and even in Sport plus it feels great. How it achieves this and handles the way it does is beyond me.

Which brings me to handling. Many motoring journalists have commented on how Porsche like the Taycan is. How it hides its weight, how well it corners. They are 100% correct. The handling is literally unbelievable for a car of this weight. It feels lighter than my M5 and more planted. Quite honestly it feels more stable than my R8 did especially on bumpy roads. On UK B roads which are generally uneven at best I cannot think of a car that could keep up with a Taycan with an average person driving it really is that good in my opinion.

Wired apple car play is a good implementation, the best I’ve seen actually… Shame it is just wired! (Hopefully this will be fixed!)

Overall the internal tech is slick, just a bit form over function.

Ambient lighting is nice. More colours would be plus but there is good control over brightness by zone.

Seats are comfortable. Seat massage is powerful. A shame the seat base doesn’t do massage but not a big deal.

Air con in ECO seems fine for the UK at least. No problem the day before yesterday in 38 degree outside temps.

The passenger display is a pretty good idea, I thought it would be just a gimmick and perhaps look nice but actually my passengers have found it useful to pick songs, looks at the nav, watch what speed I’m doing and all without distracting me from driving.

Love the way the car looks especially from the side.

All panel gaps are spot on, I have cleaned it twice and haven’t found gap problems.

Paint finish is good. It could do with some correction like almost every new car.

Switch gear is all solid, plastics and leather all feel premium

Aside from the rough surface rattles form the door trims.. the car is very solid when going over bumps and on undulating roads. Very quiet with almost no creaks or noises.

I love the carbon steering wheel in mine, looks great, feels great.

Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-3997


I expected a problem with the front door entry but haven’t noticed any problem at all.

Night vision is better than I thought it would be

Carbon mirror caps are very nice.

Porsche Taycan My Turbo S Taycan Owner Review After A Few Days IMG-4001



My 6ft 6 son can fit in the back with at least some level of comfort. His head does touch the roof though and he wasn’t too happy when I launched when he was in the back. :)

Overall this is a truly great car, Porsche have really nailed it. It is a bit expensive but it is 100% Porsche.
 
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DMTaycan

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Pre delivery work in progress!
IMG-3940.jpg

IMG-3935.jpg


Just before I got it:

IMG-3986.jpg



I decided to get a Taycan last year because it pressed a lot more buttons for me than a Tesla and aside from the fact that this is probably the future, I fancied a significant change.



Over the last month I have driven a Taycan Turbo demonstrator on 2 occasions for a total of about 250 miles. I took delivery of my Turbo S a few days ago and have done another 250 miles in that. I still haven’t read the manual so I have some learning to do about the tech in the car. This short review is mainly about my general experience with some pros and cons.



Starting with the cons (both cars)…


I have two rattles – both front doors rattle on rough surfaces near the top of the door trim. Possible additional rattle on the same surfaces from the around the seat belt adjustment thing. Hopefully the dealer will resolve these.

The demo also had rattles from similar locations. The second time I took it out the dealer had fixed them.

The demo had a bad stitch right in the middle of the dash. Thankfully mine hasn’t!

The plastic (or whatever it is) joint piece in the middle of the dash above the centre air vents looks like an afterthought. It doesn’t quite fit properly. It is a very minor problem though. You can just about see it in the pic.

View attachment 6987

The demo car had normal glass and there was a lot of wind noise at higher speeds. Could have been a problem of course but I don’t hear any significant wind in mine which has the thermal and acoustic glass. I very nearly didn’t bother with this but figured it is an electric car and silence is a good thing!

I sometimes feel the gear meander a bit.. very minor negative and it is infrequent. I barely noticed the gear change in the Turbo but it was probably identical.

The tech is a bit fiddly. It looks great but scrolling is a bit annoying and you have to take your eyes off the road, you can’t learn switch placement. As an example there may be a quick way to do it somewhere but turning on, for example, seat massage seems to involve several screen presses fairly impractical when driving. Overall there should be more buttons for common use controls. (IMO)

I don’t quite know what to make of the recommended 85% battery charge. At 100% charge my car suggests I’m only going to get a whopping 210 miles or so which is bad enough. What are the long term affects of charging to 100% every day?

The displays don’t really report enough information about the battery level situation. More advanced information and reporting would be nice. If the car did 500 miles it wouldn’t be a problem.

I am struggling to understand the connect app and timers. I set one up two days ago to cool the car to 19.5 degrees C at 7:45 am with 85% charge (as instructed by the high command). Got up yesterday morning. App had gone back to 22 degrees. Car was at 98% charge!? This morning.. still 22 degrees but 86% charge. In addition I had to tell the Andersen charger to only supply juice from 0:00 as the car decided it want to eat some electricity as soon as I plugged it in.

Normal Porsche voice control, for making calls at least, seems a very sluggish. Takes almost twice as long as my truck to intiate the same call.

No soft close doors. A feature I quite like.

No HUD.. Although the cockpit display is very nice. And almost removes the need. (But not quite). The 2021 implementation looks fugly.

I can’t see all if the cockpit display functions. The steering wheel grip covers up some displays and makes it harder to see the outer touch buttons – like the suspension toggle. No real solution to this of course.

Some of the external plastics are a little bit err .. function over form. I can see why some owners have had areas painted. Minor niggle.

Apple carplay does not work wirelessly. My 2018 M5 comp pack had flawless wireless carplay. What is the problem? I thought the car had it but it doesn’t and I have all the latest updates.



IMG-3978.jpg



Pros..

Quite honestly the pros massively outweigh the cons.

I ordered the Turbo S a bit blind and assumed that it would simply be quicker than the non “S”. I was a bit disappointed that the Turbo S could apparently only use the extra power over the non “S” when launched. I later noticed that Porsche’s brochure figures appear to show overtaking is a bit quicker. Maybe this is actually true but I can’t say that I noticed any difference from the Turbo except during a launch. I hope that Porsche will “unlock” the extra power potential the S presumably has but I’m not holding my breath. Launch control is a cool feature but is something I have rarely done in my previous cars with too much faffing setting up and component stress and sounding like a loon at traffic lights. Anyway, overall (and I know this sounds like a con so far) I figured that using launch control would be a nice party trick when I had time to find somewhere to use it with a passenger in. But then there is the Taycan Come to a stop… anywhere... Left foot on brake, floor the accelerator wait a few seconds.. Take foot of brake. Head slams into seat, passengers start laughing, g meter shows 1.2gs.. We are doing 60 before I can think. I can do this without anyone even knowing I’m going to do it. I can do it anywhere! No high revving engine noise.. I’m just gone. Wow.

Overtaking.. My R8 V10+ was probably just as quick and getting it in the zone was fun and the sound is awesome.. but the Taycan overtakes at any speed and at any point and with instant torque. You cannot achieve this feat with a combustion engine unless you are in the correct gear with the correct settings. Phenomenal.

General feel. The car is so smooth to drive. It glides along in normal mode like a Bentley and even in Sport plus it feels great. How it achieves this and handles the way it does is beyond me.

Which brings me to handling. Many motoring journalists have commented on how Porsche like the Taycan is. How it hides its weight, how well it corners. They are 100% correct. The handling is literally unbelievable for a car of this weight. It feels lighter than my M5 and more planted. Quite honestly it feels more stable than my R8 did especially on bumpy roads. On UK B roads which are generally uneven at best I cannot think of a car that could keep up with a Taycan with an average person driving it really is that good in my opinion.

Wired apple car play is a good implementation, the best I’ve seen actually… Shame it is just wired! (Hopefully this will be fixed!)

Overall the internal tech is slick, just a bit form over function.

Ambient lighting is nice. More colours would be plus but there is good control over brightness by zone.

Seats are comfortable. Seat massage is powerful. A shame the seat base doesn’t do massage but not a big deal.

Air con in ECO seems fine for the UK at least. No problem the day before yesterday in 38 degree outside temps.

The passenger display is a pretty good idea, I thought it would be just a gimmick and perhaps look nice but actually my passengers have found it useful to pick songs, looks at the nav, watch what speed I’m doing and all without distracting me from driving.

Love the way the car looks especially from the side.

All panel gaps are spot on, I have cleaned it twice and haven’t found gap problems.

Paint finish is good. It could do with some correction like almost every new car.

Switch gear is all solid, plastics and leather all feel premium

Aside from the rough surface rattles form the door trims.. the car is very solid when going over bumps and on undulating roads. Very quiet with almost no creaks or noises.

I love the carbon steering wheel in mine, looks great, feels great. (piccie doesn't show it very well, wrong light)
View attachment 6990

I expected a problem with the front door entry but haven’t noticed any problem at all.

Night vision is better than I thought it would be

Carbon mirror caps are very nice.

My 6ft 6 son can fit in the back with at least some level of comfort. His head does touch the roof though and he wasn’t too happy when I launched when he was in the back.

Overall this is a truly great car, Porsche have really nailed it. It is a bit expensive but it is 100% Porsche.
Excellent summary. I appreciated the comment on the insulated glass. Thanks
 

Vim Schrotnock

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What did you like about the night vision? I've never had this feature, but liked the 'yellow outline' feature, and ordered it.
 
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DragonRR

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Blades or Owls.. Sheffield is my nearest dealer but I don't live there.. neither for me bangersandmash!

Night vision.. Well when I ticked the box the dealer looked at me like I had lost the plot. But I like the feature, it seems to work well and .. I like gadgets! :)
 


BayAreaKen

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Night vision.. Well when I ticked the box the dealer looked at me like I had lost the plot. But I like the feature, it seems to work well and .. I like gadgets! :)
I’ve had night vision in my 650 since 2012. Wouldn’t buy another car without it. It truly sees things you simply can’t. Including that one time it spotted a person hiding in my bushes (couldn’t hide his body heat). I flashed my high beams and told him I’m about to call the police and he ran away. Thank you night vision!
 
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DragonRR

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I’ve had night vision in my 650 since 2012. Wouldn’t buy another car without it. It truly sees things you simply can’t. Including that one time it spotted a person hiding in my bushes (couldn’t hide his body heat). I flashed my high beams and told him I’m about to call the police and he ran away. Thank you night vision!
Wow.. that must have been quite a disturbing experience!
 

ron_b

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So I really enjoyed your write-up. I wanted to comment on two of your cons.

Re: seat massage seems to involve several screen presses which is fairly impractical when driving.

Massage which I almost got can be easily controlled to my knowledge using the Porsche voice control.

Re: I don’t quite know what to make of the recommended 85% battery charge.

See video from @Gogs https://www.taycanforum.com/forum/threads/setting-up-for-charging-in-garage.826/post-26112
And this thread has other tidbits but 17 pages long :rolleyes:
 


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DragonRR

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Thanks ron, I didn't think about using voice control. That's good to know.

Since writing the post I watched the video gogs did and followed it but my car seems to have a mind of it's own (or I screwed up). I've also read more about the 85% charge. It is just one of those things I didn't know about and therefore a bit irritating finding it out after the fact. But realistically it isn't a problem for me.
 

Gogs

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Thanks ron, I didn't think about using voice control. That's good to know.

Since writing the post I watched the video gogs did and followed it but my car seems to have a mind of it's own (or I screwed up). I've also read more about the 85% charge. It is just one of those things I didn't know about and therefore a bit irritating finding it out after the fact. But realistically it isn't a problem for me.
Is your car charging to 100% you can delete timer and profile setting by swiping left. Try deleting timer and profile and setting the general profile only to 85%
 

Vim Schrotnock

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Blades or Owls.. Sheffield is my nearest dealer but I don't live there.. neither for me bangersandmash!

Night vision.. Well when I ticked the box the dealer looked at me like I had lost the plot. But I like the feature, it seems to work well and .. I like gadgets! :)
Can you expand more on the night vision? I ordered it because I too like gadgets, and I initially vetoed it because I didn't want to be focusing my eyeliner on the dashboard when driving at night. However this system seems to have some pretty good alerts.
 
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evanevery

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What did you like about the night vision? I've never had this feature, but liked the 'yellow outline' feature, and ordered it.
NIGHT VISION: Yes, yes, yes! I have this on my TurboS (arriving in about a week) and also had it on my M6.

The VERY BEST thing about night vision is not seeing outlines of people in the city. Its being able to see the body heat of animals off the side of the road in the dark of night. I used to do a lot of early morning departures in the mountains of VA and upstate NY, and I always had the Night Vision up and running to look for deer at the sides of the roads. You can really see them glowing white hot from very far away. If you do any night driving in rural areas, the ability to watch for deer etc is awesome!

(Its also cool, but relatively useless, to see all the "hot" electrical transformers at the top of telephone poles... ;-)
 

Dave T

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Don’t you need to be constantly diverting your eyes from the road to look at the night vision display?
 

evanevery

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Don’t you need to be constantly diverting your eyes from the road to look at the night vision display?
No more than the rest of the instrument panel.

You will pick up animals on the side of the road MUCH further away with night vision so you don't need to be fixated on the very dark road or countryside as much. You can actually "trade" your scan of the countryside for a glance at the much more reliable night vision. It actually makes night driving much easier and less taxing. You can also use it to double-check what you "might be seeing in the bushes up ahead"...

Plus, I'm also a pilot so a routine "instrument scan" is pretty much second nature. If I can do it at night, in the clouds, on a bumpy instrument approach, its not much of a "diversion" to occasionally check the display while driving.
 
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Vim Schrotnock

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This is a great point. I've driven the Penn Turnpike a number of times and seen hundreds of deer by the side of the road. If you've never had a deer jump in front of you at highway speeds, it is not a fun experience. Having a system that actively alerts you (yellow outline appears on the screen) before they come into headlight view and is scanning the roadside is terrific.
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