Taycan 12V problem: Trickle charger vs. Booster…

[daveo4EV]

as we all have been exposed to the 12V problem legitimate questions have come up about 12V trickle chargers vs. 12V boosters. I think this deserves conversation since they both potentially solve the problem, but attack it from different angles.

A 12V trickle charger will keep the 12V battery alive and the theory is you will never encounter the problem. This is a potentially good idea and will potentially avoid the hassle of a dead 12V battery - we all like to avoid hassle but I have two issues with this approach…

1. the 12V problem does not occur on every Taycan (so far) and varies widely by usage. So your 12V trickle charger that avoids the problem may simply be a placebo because your Taycan would have never experience the problem to begin with. And since it keeps the 12V battery charged it's never given a chance to fail…so we lose valuable data about how wide spread this problem actually is.
2. By having the battery 12V kept full by the trickle charger Porsche avoids the cost of this design defect and loses data that may lead ultimately to the discovery of the root problem. Having been in the tech industry for over 25 years I know how hard non-reproducible problems like this are to diagnose and ultimately fix, and often (most, 90%) of the time the necessary insight comes from that one case you didn't expect…and boom. You have a fix.

At this point in the Taycan's life cycle for it's benefit and benefit of all future VW/Audi/Porsche EV's I don't think we should be masking this problem from Porsche - which is exactly what a trickle charger will do. It will "hide" the problem from Porsche and they will lack both the data and the incentive to resolve it. There is no excuse for this problem - none - nada - zilch - zero. Please don't cover up for Porsche in this space. If you want to take one for the team here we all have to let our Taycan's die so that Porsche understand both the magnitude, frequency , and circumstances under which this problem happens. Then they will fix it.

Therefore my recommendation for the good of the Taycan community is a 12V booster which will allow you to recover the car with some level of hassle, but still leaves the frequency and magnitude of the problem on display for Porsche to analyze and respond to.

A 12V trickle charger is simple covering up the problem which will ultimately make the problem last longer in the community…don't trickle charge your Taycan - it lets Porsche off the hook.

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[daveo4EV]

the only legtimate reason for a dead 12V battery in an eV is a faulty 12V battery (i.e. it not longer functions as a battery) - neither a trickle charter or a booster will "fix" a bad 12V battery - and that's not the problem we're all discussing here…

we are discussing a problem, where Porsche's vehicle systems fail to keep the 12V battery alive even when presented with ample sources of power - in all cases both the main 800V battery and external power have been available to provide power for the 12V system - and Porsche STILL let the 12V battery drop below it's 0% limits…

there is simply no excuse for this and we all should demand Porsche resolve this issue.

a trickle charger hides this problem from Porsche and let's them off the hook.

do not let porsche off the hook.

 

[daveo4EV]

NOTE: also if you're using the 12V trickle charger at home, but don't use it with you while your out on the road - which isn't always possible - you won't actually avoid the problem - and if you're away from home you'll need a booster to fix the problem - or you'll need to call Porsche road side…

also the problem seems to have nothing to do with how long the vehicle is left - the 12V dead battery problem occurs relatively quickly when it strikes and has nothing to do with how long the car has been idle or when it was last used

in my case my 12V battery was fine at 10:33 pm - and was dead by 11:36 pm that same night…

the more I think about it the more I don't like the trickle charger approach - and we should be lets the vehicles fail and then holding Porsche accountable for the failure. A booster is a mitigation and gives you some measure of control to get the car back to functional but still lets Porsche know when and how often this is happening and for which cars.

 

[Dlurker20]

I agree with your thinking on all of this. I’ve never had a trickle charger, booster, spare battery, etc. for any car I’ve ever owned. I get this is a new car and shit happens (and happens with established cars too), but we can’t make this invisible to Porsche. Workarounds (like trickle charging or rebooting your computer nightly) masks the underlying issue (a power drain, memory leak, etc.) and thus hide the impact of the issue. I am nervous about my car becoming an extremely heavy paperweight someday and so I am debating getting a booster just to be able to restart and pull it out of my garage to then take it to Porsche with a big WTF sign.

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