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

[louv]

So... while I wait for my “slow electron fix”, I’ll discuss what keeps me sane on my crazy cross country road trips.

Audible Books. And lots of them.

On this trip (and at least three previous cross-continent jaunts) I’ve been listening to “The Alistair Stone Chronicles” series of books by author R.L. King. I’m currently on book number 16: “The Seventh Stone”.

The Stone series revolves around the main character, Alastair Stone of course, who lives in the SF Bay Area. He is a professor of Occult Studies at Stanford. Highly entertaining, and fun to hear occasional mentions of local places.

When I’m driving 8 or 10 hours a day, music gets boring. I’ll listen to music for an hour, but not much more. Local radio is terrible (I’m spoiled and can’t stand commercials). Podcasts might work for me, but I haven’t run out of books yet.

Sponsored

 

[Reg]

So... while I wait for my “slow electron fix”, I’ll discuss what keeps me sane on my crazy cross country road trips.

Audible Books. And lots of them.

On this trip (and at least three previous cross-continent jaunts) I’ve been listening to “The Alistair Stone Chronicles” series of books by author R.L. King. I’m currently on book number 16: “The Seventh Stone”.

The Stone series revolves around the main character, Alastair Stone of course, who lives in the SF Bay Area. He is a professor of Occult Studies at Stanford. Highly entertaining, and fun to hear occasional mentions of local places.

When I’m driving 8 or 10 hours a day, music gets boring. I’ll listen to music for an hour, but not much more. Local radio is terrible (I’m spoiled and can’t stand commercials). Podcasts might work for me, but I haven’t run out of books yet.

how is the driving experience itself for the long drives?

comfort?

ability To control yourself not go too fast?

driving it like a Porsche or like a touring car?

noise?

effectiveness of heater/defrostergiven the cold?

 

[SFEVER]

The Nav system went bonkers again this morning. It probably didn’t like the -10°F weather.

After an hour of driving, it finally recovered, but for that hour, it forgot it was an EV, it lost my history of searches, lost the destination towards which we were going, and it couldn’t search for EV charging stations.

Fortunately I knew where I was going. I also had Apple CarPlay and Maps.

An hour into my drive, it recovered. And then it started actually adding my needed charging stops to my route, as well.

I’m glad I have backup systems. And paper maps.

Oh, when it gets really confused, it defaults back to its mother tongue: German.

This is a known issue on the eTron MMI which I believe is the same system being used on the taycan. Upon turning on the car, it will not load or list any presets "Home" or "History"

 

[louv]

This is a known issue on the eTron MMI which I believe is the same system being used on the taycan. Upon turning on the car, it will not load or list any presets "Home" or "History"

I can believe that. It’s Sad. And kinda makes me Angry that it’s been a known issue and hasn’t been addressed. It a major problem on a trip like this. Oh well.

 

[SFEVER]

I can believe that. It’s Sad. And kinda makes me Angry that it’s been a known issue and hasn’t been addressed. It a major problem on a trip like this. Oh well.

It is sad, one of the reasons I ordered the Taycan was the belief that of ALL the VWGroup brands they would be the ones to do the right thing and spend the money to deliver the total package including a great user interface and OS. As anyone with an EV will tell you Navigation built from a EV charging perspective is requirement #1 It is very annoying when manufacturers tell us they are developing a EV platform from the ground up to be a true EV only to pack it with OS from the ICE range, and not deliver. Yes 99% of the car is great but its beginning to look like they missed 100% of the last 1%

 

[louv]

how is the driving experience itself for the long drives?

comfort?

Quite comfortable. Seats are good. Driving position is good. Plenty of adjustments (14-way seats, the standard equip of the Turbo)

I don’t foresee any issues with driving this all day long.

ability To control yourself not go too fast?

I somehow manage to keep it near the limit. Somehow. Fast is so very easy in this car. Passing a truck is stupidly quick. It’s nearly as quick as being on a sport bike; a quick twitch and you can be doing triple digits.

driving it like a Porsche or like a touring car?

This is my first Porsche, so I don’t feel qualified to answer that.

noise?

Amazingly quiet. Very little wind or road noise.

effectiveness of heater/defrostergiven the cold?

No complaints. In “Range” mode, with outside temps below Zero this morning, I needed to bump the seat heater up from 1 to 2. Otherwise it’s been perfectly comfy... until I open the door and let nature in.

 

[louv]

It is sad, one of the reasons I ordered the Taycan was the belief that of ALL the VWGroup brands they would be the ones to do the right thing and spend the money to deliver the total package including a great user interface and OS. As anyone with an EV will tell you Navigation built from a EV charging perspective is requirement #1 It is very annoying when manufacturers tell us they are developing a EV platform from the ground up to be a true EV only to pack it with OS from the ICE range, and not deliver. Yes 99% of the car is great but its beginning to look like they missed 100% of the last 1%

My sincere hope is that this thread will raise awareness and pressure on their teams, and therefore have a positive effect on the Nav system. But I’m intimately familiar with software and hardware development schedules... so while I have hope, I don’t have expectations.

 

[SFEVER]

My sincere hope is that this thread will raise awareness and pressure on their teams, and therefore have a positive effect on the Nav system. But I’m intimately familiar with software and hardware development schedules... so while I have hope, I don’t have expectations.

I agree I too am very familiar with software development. Given the Auid system was launched on the public in April 2019 one would have hoped the Navigation update at lease would have been implemented on the Taycan especially as it was a known issue that it was not showing charging stations locations

 

[JacobDK]

Quite comfortable. Seats are good. Driving position is good. Plenty of adjustments (14-way seats, the standard equip of the Turbo)

I don’t foresee any issues with driving this all day long.

I somehow manage to keep it near the limit. Somehow. Fast is so very easy in this car. Passing a truck is stupidly quick. It’s nearly as quick as being on a sport bike; a quick twitch and you can be doing triple digits.

This is my first Porsche, so I don’t feel qualified to answer that.

Amazingly quiet. Very little wind or road noise.

No complaints. In “Range” mode, with outside temps below Zero this morning, I needed to bump the seat heater up from 1 to 2. Otherwise it’s been perfectly comfy... until I open the door and let nature in.

hi louv

just wondering - do you have thermal glazing (double glass) on your spec?

 

[HK111]

My sincere hope is that this thread will raise awareness and pressure on their teams

Today, some of your information on charging already did reach the target. Don't ask me how .

Cheers,
Henrik

 

[daveo4EV]

I for one think Porsche should embrace OTA updates and aggressively pursue constant improvement for their navigation system w/EV integration issues - I'd love to see regular updates like quarterly - and have an internal road map for the next 6 releases (18 months total) and just keep chipping away - there is no way they are going to close the gap with any competitors waiting for entire vehicle production cycles before rolling out improvements…this would show that they are serious and benefit the entire product line.

I shouldn't have to purchase an entirely new vehicle to get better navigation software.

As far as "cost" it could be "included" during warranty and part of an online package after warranty expires.

 

[Cpoarchy]

Dammit. The charging station I was counting on (and my car insists I should go to) is not working. And the only thing nearby is a slow Level 2 charger. One App says there’s ’s a Level 3 here... but there isn’t. It is: “Level 3 Coming Soon”.

I need 90 miles of range to get to the next nearest charger. I have 40 miles of range now. It will take three hours (or more) to get those additional miles of range at this slow (but free!) charger.

I’m also equipped to plug in at RV parks. But the only two nearby are closed for the winter.

Oh well. At least it has warmed up to 11°F outside.

Like a nail bitting novel, get me some juice, I call it. An adventire for sure!

 

[EnjoyTheDrive]

that's quite an amazing sentence, whatever you're trying to say....

you made my day with this post. I cannot stop laughing! Thanks.

 

[louv]

Whew. I made it to the next DC Fast charge station.

The car became quite adamant that I should make a u-turn and go back to the (broken) charging station. It didn’t think I would make it to my destination. Then it said I’d arrive with 2% range. After Hypermiling for an hour and a half, I arrived with 4% range.

The rest of Canada should be all brand new Petro-Canada stations, 100kW and 200kW.

Charging at *only* 88kW now, because my battery isn’t warm enough for very high power (>100kW).

I did have to call the charging station’s customer service because after four tries, the station wouldn’t talk to my car. They remotely rebooted the station. Then it worked.

Challenging day.

 

[ron_b]

Hi @louv Can you take a photo of the label on the side of those stations? I was wondering 2 things:
1) Are they 800/1000VDC capable like the EA (and very few EVgo stations) or are they 400/500VDC max?
2) Did you get the 150kW DC-DC converter on your car so you can take above 50kW on 400VDC stations?

Thanks for all your updates, I totally love that Journey. (Though I know my spouse would not )

Sponsored