Taking One Lap of the Country in my Taycan Turbo - 10k miles in 6 weeks Cross-Country Journal

[epirali]

Yikes that sucks hope it’s resolved quickly! Early adopter pains, not that it matters much right now.

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[louv]

So sorry to hear, I think your car wants you to watch the Super Bowl, trying to make light a bad situation. Stay warm and more beer.. anyway to reboot the sucker?

C’est la vie. Early Adoption has a price. And this is it.

Silver lining.., I made it to a dealership. Without needing a tow. They’ll be open tomorrow morning. And there’s a hotel literally next door.

“Can I have a room that looks down on the Porsche dealership?”

 

[epirali]

Quick question how did you have that car show charge rate instead of miles per minute?

 

[louv]

Quick question how did you have that car show charge rate instead of miles per minute?

Tap on the “miles per minute” and it changes to “charge rate”.

0.0 miles per minute <—> 0.8 kW

 

[Brassfactory]

For what it’s worth, you’re the Jack Kérouac of the electric Porsche. Songs will be written about your journey.

Still, I think you made the right choice not sleeping in the car.

 

[BayAreaKen]

Anyone here from Porsche of Calgary? I’ll see you in the morning.

I guess if you expected 10,000 miles without drama, Fate is reminding you she exists.

Having said that, Porsche owes you the cost of your trip for debugging their car. More than that, they owe you and all of us an honest and true reconciliation (i.e. an explanation) for what on earth is happening. Imagine the negative press Porsche will receive if the Taycan is actually malfunctioning.

You’re a trooper and your patience is evident in your posts. I wonder how long it will last if these kind of things keep happening. Especially at the Porsche showrooms!

 

[lawrence R]

I'm the GSM at Porsche Calgary and the guy posting Taycan info on our Youtube channel, so I'm very interested in your thread and your journey. Just found out about it tonight from a viewer.

Casey Connor is the Service Manager and he is in first thing (7am) and I'll be in at 9. There are two 7.2 kW chargers right at the entrance to the lot that are working - not sure if the stalls are occupied, but we can move the cars in the morning. We weren't expecting any Taycan's! The Canadian Launch is Feb 27th.

We are upgrading our charging which is why the one beside the entrance doesn't work. Sorry about that.

This reminds me of my time at Mercedes about 20 years ago when a guy named Jim Rogers took a Mercedes SLK/Gwagon hybrid (really) with trailer and drove it 300,000km around the world. He stopped by the MB dealer in Calgary when I was there. We helped him out with something and I managed to get a ride in it and listened to a few stories...

Hopefully we'll get you sorted out and on the way to Banff tomorrow.

Lawrence Romanosky

 

[feye]

Anyone here from Porsche of Calgary? I’ll see you in the morning.

Amazing winter landscape. Such a cool trip! Smart move to park the car in front of a dealership. It's getting really interesting!

 

[louv]

I guess if you expected 10,000 miles without drama, Fate is reminding you she exists.

Having said that, Porsche owes you the cost of your trip for debugging their car. More than that, they owe you and all of us an honest and true reconciliation (i.e. an explanation) for what on earth is happening. Imagine the negative press Porsche will receive if the Taycan is actually malfunctioning.

You’re a trooper and your patience is evident in your posts. I wonder how long it will last if these kind of things keep happening. Especially at the Porsche showrooms!

I fully expected some drama. It’s why I refer to this as an Adventure... because I don’t know what will happen along the way.

I am fortunate... I have some spare time built into my schedule. But I’m trying to coordinate 30 visits with friends and family... and this throws a wrench in my calendar.

 

[louv]

Of course I get frustrated when it doesn’t work correctly, but mostly because I don’t understand the failures.

When the car “fails to communicate” with a charging station, is that my car having a problem? Or the station? Usually, rebooting the station fixed it, and everything worked fine. But this time all sorts of weird generic failures to charge.

The frustration is not knowing if I just need to find a new Charging Station, or have the car towed.

And it was Sunday, so literally no one was providing Tech Support. Customer Service, yes, but no tech support.

So... should I conclude EVs should only be driven 9-5 on weekdays?

 

[DeciusCaeciliusMetellus]

This reminds me of my time at Mercedes about 20 years ago when a guy named Jim Rogers took a Mercedes SLK/Gwagon hybrid (really) with trailer and drove it 300,000km around the world. He stopped by the MB dealer in Calgary when I was there. We helped him out with something and I managed to get a ride in it and listened to a few stories...

To save you a few clicks: https://www.jimrogers.com/

 

[louv]

I'm the GSM at Porsche Calgary and the guy posting Taycan info on our Youtube channel, so I'm very interested in your thread and your journey. Just found out about it tonight from a viewer.

Casey Connor is the Service Manager and he is in first thing (7am) and I'll be in at 9. There are two 7.2 kW chargers right at the entrance to the lot that are working - not sure if the stalls are occupied, but we can move the cars in the morning. We weren't expecting any Taycan's! The Canadian Launch is Feb 27th.

We are upgrading our charging which is why the one beside the entrance doesn't work. Sorry about that.

This reminds me of my time at Mercedes about 20 years ago when a guy named Jim Rogers took a Mercedes SLK/Gwagon hybrid (really) with trailer and drove it 300,000km around the world. He stopped by the MB dealer in Calgary when I was there. We helped him out with something and I managed to get a ride in it and listened to a few stories...

Hopefully we'll get you sorted out and on the way to Banff tomorrow.

Lawrence Romanosky

Lawrence,

Thank you. Somehow I missed those two chargers at the entrance. There are loaner cars in the spots, but I parked in the hotel lot behind those cars and the cord reached easily.

My Taycan is now charging ... but only at a mere 2.7kW. Or, as the car says“0.1 miles per minute”.

I’ll come over to Service at 7:00am.

My apologies for messing up your service entrance with dripping snow, salt and 2500 miles of road grime.

 

[Ron R]

Out of curiosity Lou, did the car give you any kind of indications there was a problem other than not charging at Level 3? Given the sophistication of the car (and the manufacturer ), I would have figured it would give you some kind of indication if the problem is with the car itself. Sorry for the issue, but at least you were able to get the car to a dealership.

 

[louv]

Out of curiosity Lou, did the car give you any kind of indications there was a problem other than not charging at Level 3? Given the sophistication of the car (and the manufacturer ), I would have figured it would give you some kind of indication if the problem is with the car itself. Sorry for the issue, but at least you were able to get the car to a dealership.

Sadly, no the car isn’t alerting me to any problem (like it did a couple weeks ago). It just either fails to get through the initial DC Charger handshake, or charges at a rediculously low rate (3kW) or the (least sophisticated) Level 3 charger reports an “internal fault”. But not where the fault lies... car or charger.

Yes, I thank whatever entity is watching over me that I’m here in a big city, with multiple DC chargers (at which to test and fail!) and a large Porsche dealership that is stepping up to give me assistance.

And an available hotel room overlooking the Porsche dealership... just as a bonus... all those pretty cars.

oh, By the way... my name is actually Don. Don Louv. It’s a common thing when I use the handle ‘Louv’ that folks assume my name is Lou V(something).

 

[louv]

“The network of Petro-Canada DC Fast charging stations are so new...”

“How new ARE they?”

“...that no one has removed the protective films off the card readers.”

So I’ve been unwrapping presents across Canada. Thank you Canada!

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