Taycan PCM is an embarrassment

[Lfcdan]

Why can't you just drop the phone in the console charger, and have it link via bluetooth? My Panamera doesn't require me to plug my phone in.

In the uk we don’t even get wireless charging!!!!!

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[Gogs]

Wireless Charging, what is this mystical voodoo you talk of!

 

[Dlurker20]

I have it in my X5 and it Works perfectly every time
but in the Taycan its hit and miss i of it works even via USB

Interesting, in my BMW 530 the WiFi CarPlay is very hit and miss. Sometimes it doesn’t connect at all. Sometimes it’s perfect. Sometimes (like this morning) It is extremely laggy, so I am clicking and scrolling and suddenly it’s the wrong thing getting clicked...Same exact thing in my Mini with wireless CarPlay. And yet in every wired CarPlay rental car I’ve used for years has been 100% solid. For the lack of lag, for the consistency of my iPhone being recognized, for the higher quality music stream, I am willing to Be a little irritated and plug it in. And for me, I almost always take it out of my pocket when I get in a car anyway because I hate feeling like I’m sitting on a rock. So one more step to plug it in...yes a bit irritating, but if the quality and consistency raises then I’m all for it.

As to the rest of the PCM...no clue, my car is making its slow way across the pond, and experiencing several test drives doesn’t get the same level of experience as owning it.

 

[tnikolov]

Interesting, in my BMW 530 the WiFi CarPlay is very hit and miss. Sometimes it doesn’t connect at all. Sometimes it’s perfect. Sometimes (like this morning) It is extremely laggy, so I am clicking and scrolling and suddenly it’s the wrong thing getting clicked...Same exact thing in my Mini with wireless CarPlay. And yet in every wired CarPlay rental car I’ve used for years has been 100% solid. For the lack of lag, for the consistency of my iPhone being recognized, for the higher quality music stream, I am willing to Be a little irritated and plug it in. And for me, I almost always take it out of my pocket when I get in a car anyway because I hate feeling like I’m sitting on a rock. So one more step to plug it in...yes a bit irritating, but if the quality and consistency raises then I’m all for it.

As to the rest of the PCM...no clue, my car is making its slow way across the pond, and experiencing several test drives doesn’t get the same level of experience as owning it.

Are you with iPhone 11 Pro? If so, this is a known bug, just Google “carplay stutter”

 

[evanevery]

You can move the icons about and customise the layout.

Its not the LOCATION of the icons that is the issue. Its the general function and (lack of) thought in organizing the functionality they invoke.

that’s really odd, I think the underlying OS of the PCM is actually android

...and it doesn't matter what the underlying O/S is! The WiFi HotSpot should work. TCP/IP Network Protocols and functionality are NOT O/S specific. I guess we are all lucky they are not using old AppleTalk network protocols... (Well, at least SOME of us are SORTA lucky...)

 

[Dlurker20]

Are you with iPhone 11 Pro? If so, this is a known bug, just Google “carplay stutter”

Good thought. I am still on iPhone X, but my wife is on 11 Pro and has had a TON of problems with the Mini and CarPlay connections. Mini didn’t have a clue as to why, we did all of the disconnect and reboot and forget and all that jazz...at least they recognize each other consistently now, be tough the lag and jitter is still there. Thanks for the pointer though, I’ll dig around to see if there are fixes specific to X or 11 Pro that are out there now but weren’t when I acquiesced to just deal with it.

 

[PanameraFrank]

Let's try a different approach here. For those that strongly dislike the Taycan PCM.. what infotainment systems have you enjoyed? There is a lot of talk about what an infotainment should be but I personally have not experienced a system that fits the criteria mentioned here.

For reference I've been in current gen: Toyota, Nissan, Subaru, Mazda, Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi, Mercedes, Tesla. I like the Taycan system better than all of them. While it's certainly far from perfect, they are all far from perfect and IMO the Taycan is the most aesthetically pleasing & well integrated.

As far as being intuitive, I've had exactly zero issues finding exactly what I need immediately. I think this portion might just be Apple vs Android.. if you handed me an iPhone 11 I wouldn't know how to get to anything and I'd be frustrated. But that doesn't mean it's a bad phone.

I guess I don't understand what (realistic) expectations people have. What system are we hoping for?

 

[Mwa3aan]

I guess I don't understand what (realistic) expectations people have. What system are we hoping for?

Very valid question. I just want it to work and not but a clunky mess. Here are some examples that hasn’t been listed before (or not all of them):

• My Icon based Home Screen cuts off and scroll but has a big black empty box next to it. Thats a weird and inefficient UI design. I can understand some people wont mind it, I dont like it.
• The scrolling is bad. When you scroll through a row or icon based list the item you had your finger on highlights and makes a sound as if it was selected, but it wasn’t. Thats not a great UI design.
• My Homelink crashes or hangs every 4th time I use it. I have one gate with no rolling code and one garage with a rolling code. Sometimes the garage will go into a loop and wont recover until the car fully powers down for a while. I have had to get out of the car, walk inside the house and open the garage door with the button in the garage 3 times now. Not the end of the world but sure irritating.
• Apple Music has only worked a handful of times. I am not talking about CarPlay, but rather the integrated Apple Music. The rest of the time it doesnt show up in the list of audio options, times out when it tries to load or return arbitrary errors or needs re-authentication.
• Twice now I could not switch from Satalite radio to any other audio source such as Bluetooth or normal radio. I get an error that switching audio sources is not allowed while driving. I took a photo of this to give to the dealership. Surely this is a bug?
• The user interface stutters and at times will take 2 to 3 seconds to change a screen. With today’s processors this should not be an issue. That combined with the clunky scrolling makes for a bad experience.
• Some screens cannot go back to the previous screen once you are on them except for going back to home and restarting the navigation process. One example is the system update screen.
• I asked the Porsche Voice assistant what I can ask it to do. It returned a list of things of which the 2nd option is a “List of Actions”. If you select that option it opens a second screen with 3 entries. The top one says “Previous page”, The middle one says “List Item 3” (nothing else, just that), and the bottom one says “Next page”. This simply doesnt work. I tried it a few times and cannot see a list of things I can ask the voice assistant. I would have thought someone would test a basic question and response like that.
• The maps screen stutters and jerks when you navigate. It’s not smooth and scrolling. Sure, you can see where you are going but it animates like my son’s Minecraft game. (Actually I think Minecraft is a lot smoother).

I will stop there for now. Other people have listed other things that I wont repeat.

Look, I love how the car drives. I wont swop it for anything else and like I said before, I will buy it again.

I am also not trying to convince other people that they should not like the PCM or the car. In other words I am not trying to tell them what to think.

I am simply disappointed in the quality of the software and sharing what I think and what my experience has been. I fully appreciate that others might have different taste or simply dont care about the details I care about.

I also want to make it clear that I didn’t mean to upset other people and apologize if the content of my original post or the subject line of the post offended anyone or upset them (some pointed this out).

If Porsche fix the issues over time with OTA then great. That would be amazing.

But, where I sit, when people drive with me and they experience what I listed above its embarrassing. It’s the equivalent of misaligned body panels and rattles. Some people dont mind rattles as an example. My wife is one of them and bless her soul, but I cannot stand rattles in my cars. In fairness my Taycan doesnt have rattles after they replaced a cracked front speaker, loose rear door speaker and the front passenger safety belt.

What does “a better PCM system” look like? Thats a tough one. I am not a user experience designer. I think when we were used to Blackberry nobody could describe the iPhone until someone came up with it. I think there is an opportunity to improve and for now I just want what is there to work and not for it to feel like Windows Phone 6 UI

So in short, it’s clunky and messy and there is an opportunity to significantly improve. I believe over time Porsche will.

I just hope when they make these improvements, the early adopters will share in and benefit from these updates and that we wont be left behind because we bought too early. There is already a fairly big jump in MY21 features MY20 owners cannot get. (Again, in fairness, we don’t know yet since there has been no communication from Porsche)

I hope this helps to put my OP and disappointment into context.

 

[PanameraFrank]

@Mwa3aan I can't speak to Homelink or Carplay but your other issues don't exist in my car. I think you may have a defective unit.

 

[Mwa3aan]

@Mwa3aan I can't speak to Homelink or Carplay but your other issues don't exist in my car. I think you may have a defective unit.

I did ask the dealer to follow up on this and let me know what is going on. It’s sure has been frustrating. But the software user experience issues isnt defective hardware.

 

[Passornot]

Taycan PCM is new developed, PCM in other Porsche is a mature version. The Taycan PCM is proposed to allow you install other Apps, like Android car system. However, the difficulty exceed Porsche's exception, the result is poor performance.

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

You can move the icons about and customise the layout.

Yes, I checked that out and it looks ok. Just ridiculous that a car this advanced doesn't have the same wi-fi connection to CarPlay that the lower models do...

 

[porsche_coyote]

• My Icon based Home Screen cuts off and scroll but has a big black empty box next to it. Thats a weird and inefficient UI design. I can understand some people wont mind it, I dont like it.

I've seen lots of people comment on this as a bug or a flaw. I feel strange defending PCM on this point, especially as I generally agree that it needs work. But this is a deliberate design feature. The idea is that you can see that there are more icons/features available if you scroll. If they 'fit perfectly' then there would be less of a clear visual indication of the availability of additional content or features.

 

[Mwa3aan]

I've seen lots of people comment on this as a bug or a flaw. I feel strange defending PCM on this point, especially as I generally agree that it needs work. But this is a deliberate design feature. The idea is that you can see that there are more icons/features available if you scroll. If they 'fit perfectly' then there would be less of a clear visual indication of the availability of additional content or features.

That makes sense

 

[evanevery]

That makes sense

OK, here's a NOOB question... Is there some PgUp/PgDn function one can press somewhere to move between screens? I haven't checked the owner's manual yet but all this swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe, swipe to browse my music is getting REALLY tedious. ...and like @Mwa3aan said, sometimes you get a "hit" when all you want to do is scroll... Not to mention (oops) that when you hit the "back button" it selects the top most item in the previous screen (it doesn't go back to where you left off)!

Since it was asked, I like the interface in my BMW's and my GMC truck better. They are both more intuitive, easy to operate, and all the functions actually work.

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