Questions from Potential New Owner

[EE101]

I'm a long term Porsche owner thinking of going electric with a Taycan. I live in a Chicago suburb.

Have a few questions related to cold climate operation and would appreciate input from owners.

1) I know that pre-heating the cabin is possible, but how is the performance of the heating system from a cold (<10F) soak start up?

2) Do the seat heaters and heated steering wheel perform well?

3) Any real world data on range reduction (or miles/kwh) in very cold (<10F) operation? In snow?

Thanks in advance for your valuable observations.

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[W1NGE]

I'm a long term Porsche owner thinking of going electric with a Taycan. I live in a Chicago suburb.

Have a few questions related to cold climate operation and would appreciate input from owners.

1) I know that pre-heating the cabin is possible, but how is the performance of the heating system from a cold (<10F) soak start up?

2) Do the seat heaters and heated steering wheel perform well?

3) Any real world data on range reduction (or miles/kwh) in very cold (<10F) operation? In snow?

Thanks in advance for your valuable observations.

Pre=heat / Pre-Cool works really well as long as you have remote connectivity to your car for ad hoc use. For programmatic use you can set a timer to do this daily (or whatever).

Heat pump is very effective and doesn't require an ICE equivalent warm-up.

The seat and wheel heating is also good (in my experience) and can be set automatically as above or pre-heat set for each time you unlock and open the driver's door.

Issue to consider is the impact on range - cold and EV batteries don't go well. Maximum charge is alway less during colder months - 15% - 20% would not be out of the ordinary. The trick here is to not use the AC (it has ECO and ECO Plus modes) and use the seat and wheel heaters to keep warm (within reason) as these use significantly less energy.

When pre-heating - best to do this when connected to your wall point (EVSE) as the energy used will come from the mains rather than the car's main battery.

Take a look at the Taycan Range Calculator on the Taycan website - choose your model, temp, battery size, wheel and style of driving. This tool is really useful and pretty accurate for setting expectations. Bear in mind also that there are many variables at play which can reduce / increase your range. On long journey's best to use RANGE mode as this optimises everything in the car to preserve as much energy as it can (switches off one of the motors, sets AC to ECO / ECO Plus, lowers the car, closes the external vents, raises the rear spoiler (sedan only), will dim the headlights if things get critical and so on.

Takes a bit of getting used to if this is your first foray but I don't think you'll regret it once you take the plunge.

 

[dflohr]

I'm a long term Porsche owner thinking of going electric with a Taycan. I live in a Chicago suburb.


2) Do the seat heaters and heated steering wheel perform well?

It has not gotten very cold (relatively) here in Atlanta yet, however indicated range has definitely dropped about 15% so far. Below freezing expected in the next few days so we'll see.

Seat heaters work well. Heated steering wheel is just OK. Really could be warmer. (2021 RWD)

 

[andix]

Pre heating works very well, better than in any petrol car with parking-heater.
Taycan also automatically pre-heats seats & steering wheel.

Here in German mountains, with extreme cold conditions range goes by down up to -20% (temperatures below zero °C).
But I have to stress that EPA is, as widely known now, totally wrong for the Taycans, i.e., real range's much higher than expected.

 

[WalterG]

I live in Boston and have a MY20 4S that I've had since Sept 2020 - so one full winter.

1. Pre-heating works very well. The cabin gets nice and toasty and if you leave your seat heaters on, the seats will also get pre-heated.

2. The seat heaters work great. The steering wheel heat is good but not as hot as my Audi was - still good though. The only thing I'd criticize is that the timer for how long it is on seems kind of short. Not a big deal since you can just turn it back on easily. Kind of related, the rear window defrost timer is also kind of short duration and I find that i have to keep turning that back on. Again, not a huge deal but a little inconvenient.

3. Range reduction is at least 20% in the cold. I have snow tires for the winter and on very cold / windy days (<10F) with snow I'd say it is closer to 30-35% reduction in range.

 

[EE101]

Thanks to everyone for the valuable insights!

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