I was thinking that Porsche may use the second connection in the car for their data purposes. Even with a failed LTE module and no data I still had the SOS system working!
AFAIK SOS runs over cellular voice. I'm actually surprised that it still works without Porsche Connect. Not as expensive as a data connection, but it's not free (plus someone has to pay the SOS operators), Here in the US many cars require subscription for OnStar, which is a version of SOS used on American (and Japanese IIRC) cars - usually first 1-3 year subscription is included in the price of a new car. Unless of course Porsche went the cheap route, and is routing SOS directly to the emergency 911 (US) or 999 (UK). Not sure about the UK, but in the US, by law, cellular devices can still call 911 even without any active subscription (possibly even without a SIM present) - no data connection though.
So the vehicle could be completely offline, with no Connect Services active the app doesn't have any info about the vehicle but the fact that it doesn't have Connect. service. What does your car show on PCM? Does it have the LTE icon? If you go to settings, under cellular connectivity, what does it say under eSIM status?My subscription has lapsed. This is what I get now:
Interesting. What I was more surprised by though is that Charging Profiles & Timer contact is invalid. So no charging profiles and/or timers work on your car?
It's a Porsche tax.
I fully support paid subscription services, but the Porsche offering is really poor for 1£ a day. Their competition does it for free, or much much cheaper - for half the price provide high speed connectivity for in car devices and real time connection to the car (vs. for example my Taycan, which coincidentally today when I tried to turn on pre-heating while away from home, my app kept telling me my Taycan is at home safe and sound. Refreshing car status kept dutifully reporting "Vehicle data has been updated" and "Just updated" for the status. Perhaps designed to lie to customers to pacify them - "oh no, we lost track of the car, let's just tell the customer the car is home, statistically speaking we will be correct more times than not, so we can hide our incompetence from most customers who trust us". Before you discount it as a sarcastic comment, I have actually seen connected software specifically designed to do that - feature pushed for by marketing, who claimed this increases customer satisfaction (in my mind it just says "our customers are brainless cows with money"). This was not the first time I caught MyPorsche lying about my car.
I don't want it to be free forever, primarily because that would mean the costs are covered by selling or otherwise monetizing my data. Without recurring revenue, the provider has zero interest in upkeeping of the service (at least if it's a subscription and they drop the ball, they lose subscribers, so it motivates them to keep it working well). I do however want a product which works and provides functionality which justifies the premium price. Porsche logo does not hold much value in itself to me really if it doesn't come with superior product quality and functionality. I hope Porsche is not just counting on brand loyalists who will buy a Ford Pinto for $200K as long as Porsche sticks their logo on it.
