Taycan to Switzerland & Austria

[SwissTaycan]

Always fun and enjoyable to read these trips @tigerbalm !!! What is your route through Switzerland? Passing by Lake Zurich???

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[Maximilian]

Introduction

After an enjoyable trip to Norway in winter – it is now September and we're heading back to Switzerland and surrounding countries to experience how our performance orientated Taycan Turbo S handles the alpine passes.

Our planning has been completed and we get underway tomorrow morning.

We're taking a different route from our last time in Switzerland, including travelling through two new countries for the first time: Slovakia and Czechia/Czech Republic – so there should be plenty of variance on this journey.




Our high-level route

Ireland –> United Kingdom –> Netherlands –> Germany –> Switzerland –> Italy -> Austria –> Slovakia –> Czechia/Czech Republic –> Germany –> Netherlands –> United Kingdom –> Ireland


Full-resolution photos

All the photos we share will be available at full resolution on this Flickr photo album including full EXIF data.


Apple Music

If you are an Apple Music subscriber you can listen along to some of the music that's accompanying us on our trip via our BOSE audio system and the car's in-built Apple Music player, streamed over the roaming data connection provided by Porsche.

Charging Log

We'll publish a charging log each day and a final combined log at the end of the trip. Additionally, to help support the services we use in our own planning – we'll be submitting photos and charging experiences back to the PlugShare and MyPorsche apps.


Charging Networks

This time we plan to use IONITY exclusively as much as possible. Both, for cost reasons – they consistently provide the cheapest electricity for Porsche Charging Service subscribers – and also to test how good the network has become for pan-European long range road-trips.

We do have a small number of Porsche Charging stops planned and we will of course avail of destination charging where it makes sense.


Hotels

Additionally, we'll publish a full hotel log at the end of the trip. We use – as much as possible – hotels.com to book accommodation as it gives a 10% discount (via 1 night free every 10 nights booked) and easy management and cancellation of bookings.


Emissions regulations & Tolls/Vignettes

We will have plenty of stickers on our windscreen for this road-trip – though thankfully more and more European countries are issuing "digital" vignettes based on our registration plate. We have pre-purchased the appropriate vignettes or emissions stickers for: Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Slovakia and Czechia/Czech Republic.

Germany​

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Germany issues a lifetime emissions sticker for €13.95 – this grants you access to city centres that otherwise have emission zone limitations.​

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Switzerland​

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Switzerland issues a one year motorway road vignette for €39.00 – while these are easily purchased at border crossings when entering the country – having them post it out to you in advance cuts down on one more chore.​

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Austria​

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Austria issues a 10-day motorway vignette for €9.90 – which is issued digitally – so no windscreen stickers required.​

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Slovakia​

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Slovakia issues a 10-day motorway vignette for €12.00 – which is also digitally issued.​

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Czechia/Czech Republic​

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Czechia issues a lifetime exemption to requiring a vignette for fully electric vehicles. However, there is a significant amount of bureaucracy required to get one issued. You need to get a verified EU-wide digital signature as part of your application – and here in Ireland – that cost more than the vignette – so we decided to skip the paperwork and just purchase the thing!​

Tyres

Our car has the 21-inch RS Spyder Design summer wheel-and-tyre set that came with from the factory – fitted with Pirelli P Zero R21 XL Elect NF0 (PZ4). The tyres have about 8,000 km wear and have plenty of thread left on them.

Front axle: 265/35 R21 101Y XL tyres
Rear axle: 305/30 R2 104Y XL tyres

With two people in our four seater car but luggage for two weeks and frunk full of technical equipment, we're running on a 0.1 bar higher pressure then the officially recommended part-load tyre pressures:

Front tyres: 2.8 bar
Rear tyres: 2.7 bar

We'll keep on eye on the tyre pressure each day to account for local atmospheric conditions.


Road-trip series

Welcome to our latest road-trip adventure in our continuing series:

2021

• Taycan to Western Europe
• Taycan to the Scottish Highlands

2022

• Taycan to the Arctic Circle
• Taycan to the Alps

2023

• Taycan to Tromsø

Join us

We hope you'll join us on this 5,000km journey over 15 days – though eight countries as we road-trip across beautiful Western and Central Europe and learn about how we and our new performance orientated Taycan Turbo S handles the alpine passes.

In particular we welcome all the new and awaiting delivery Taycan owner's – we hope these road-trip reports give you the confidence to use your Porsche on your own wonderful adventures. Please feel free to ask questions along the way.

If you would like to be notified of each daily update to this travel log – you can use the "watch" function on the top right of this post to follow along.


Day Reports

Day 1: Dublin (Ireland) -> Harwich (United Kingdom)

Safe travels! Maybe see u in Austria if you are quick, you might make in to IAA Motorshow in Munich

 

[tigerbalm]

What is your route through Switzerland? Passing by Lake Zurich???

Not this time. Be more Bern -> Interlaken -> Zermatt -> Andermatt -> Davos. But with plenty of detours on the way!

 

[SwissTaycan]

Enjoy. Couple of truly epic mountain roads there. Susten. Gotthard. Nufenen. Arolo. And you can channel James Bond on Furka. The glacier there is depressingly small now.

Again enjoy!!!!!!!!

 

[tigerbalm]

Day 2: Hook of Holland (Netherlands) -> Baden-Baden (Germany)

After a smooth crossing that made the North Sea seem like a lake, we are woken from our sleep by the ship's alarm call at 06:30 local time (05:30 Irish time that our body clock's are still on). The ferry docks at Hook of Holland near Rotterdam Europort right on time.

We climb down the steep stairs to deck three car-deck – with no issue from the PVTS+ tracking service which we had set for 10 hours before boarding – and we are soon driving off.

Into the early morning sun.

On our previous Taycan 4S we had Innodrive from the factory – but skipped it on our Turbo S order. Prior to leaving Ireland, we subscribed to the three month free trial that is available as a Feature-on-Demand (FoD) option – which was quickly delivered to the car.

However, on the ring-road around Rotterdam, it really struggled with the adjusted speed-limits that were applicable at the time we were driving – it's 100 km/h during the day and 130 km/h during the evening.

Additionally, it made a few bad speed choices at curves in the road – slowing down too much ahead of the bend and then accelerating excessively while in it.

This driver "assistance" had already become a distraction – and we turned it off – keeping the ACC+Active Lane Keep (ALK) options that were already on the car.

We'll unsubscribe from that FoD when the trial expires.

We picked up our first charge at a quiet IONITY station at Sevenum in The Netherlands and grabbed some supplies from the nearby services store.

Shortly afterwards, we crossed into Germany.

And onto the autobahn, where most of today's route is restricted to 130 km/h – or lower during the many roadworks sections. Driving alongside the Rhine – with it's massive population centres – this was never going to be the route to really stretch the Taycan Turbo S's legs.

However, for short periods the combination of unrestricted speed limits and reduced traffic volumes gave us the opportunity for some higher speed sprints. Once the speeds increase above 200 km/h – and in Sport Plus mode – the Turbo S hunkered down, fully deployed the spoiler, firming up its suspension and delivered a linear acceleration curve right up to the maximum speeds that traffic would allow.

The combination of ACC informing you of the velocity of the car in front, the rear-wheel steering making the frequent lane changes confident inspiring and PDCC keeping the car flat in tight curves – makes the car a joy to drive in this environment.

You can't go fast unless you're also able to slow down quickly – and with the unpredictable behaviours on a public road at these speeds – forget about regenerative braking. Coming down from these high speeds requires physical friction braking and the carbon ceramic discs felt smooth – never snatchy – and provided plenty of stopping power. The sticky Pirelli PZero's too – felt in their element.

This car is performing and behaving perfectly – we couldn't have asked for more!

We stopped in to services for some food – and spotted a group of Porsche's on a tour.

And an hour later – we were at our planned charging stop at the new Porsche Charging Lounge.

Where it was quick to get a charge going. Plug & Charge is not yet enabled – they are waiting for a software update on the chargers – that will also enable display of charging curves. However, it was trivial to tap the Porsche Charging Service RFID card to auth.

The layout of these chargers allow for maximum flexibility and it was no problem getting the cable to reach out to the car – despite us having the DC charging port on "the wrong side" compared to German spec cars.

In fact, this charging facility was explicitly designed to accommodate wheelchair drivers from being able to park away from the charger – and still be able to reach when they get out.

As the pricing was good here – 33c/kWh – we decided this would be our final stop today and we'd charge up to the full 100% – while using the fast wifi and comfort facilities provided.

There was a steady collection of Taycan's coming in to charge while we were there – though never got close to the full six chargers being occupied.

We were pleased – though not too surprised – to hear that we were the first Irish registered Taycan to visit.

Afterwards, it was just an easy 150 km to Baden-Baden – our stop for tonight – driving into the tunnel under the town.

And eventually finding a car park close to our hotel.



Which thankfully is also close to the town centre.



After two big transit days - we're now "in position" to start to enjoy and explore.


The days charging stats

Location	Start SOC %	End SOC %	kWh added	Cost	Duration	Ambient Temp	Battery Temp	Charger Type	Network
IONITY Sevenum	24%	95%	60.8	€20.06	28 mins	18.5	43	DC 350 kW	IONITY
Porsche Charging Lounge	22%	100%	65.30	€22.10	52 mins	25	48	DC 350 kW	Porsche

Today we did 625 km over 8:14 hours, with an average speed of 112 km/h, consuming 24.7 kWh/100km.

 

[McgR]

Nice trip for the second day. The 100 kmh speedlimit is not just the ring of Rotterdam. It is for the entire country until 7 pm. After 7 pm it is 120 or 130.

Strange fact about PID: when entering Croatia I got a message that Innodrive was not allowed in this country and it was deactivated and unable to activate. Same for ACC so I drove with standard CC. Thing were back to normal automatically when we left the country 10 days later.

and maybe subjective. I had a feeling ACC did a better job in PID. Not sure. Maybe I should try again. I switched auto speed change off

 

[kailifish]

ahh here we go again.. the most enjoyable series of threads on the forum!

 

[tigerbalm]

Day 3: Baden-Baden (Germany) -> Interlaken (Switzerland)

We awoke to a beautiful morning in Baden-Baden – with blue skies and an already rising temperature.



Arriving last night we had 47% charge and the plan was to drive the short distance outside of town to the local Porsche Centre to use their 300 kW Porsche Design chargers. We had charged there when driving through in 2021 – so it seemed like a good idea. It was also the last non-IONITY charge we had built into our plan for this road-trip.

When we arrived, the charging screen showed two options: (a) use a RFID charging card or (b) use Plug & Charge to initiate service. We had been wondering if these chargers supported Plug & Charge – so of course that was the choice we made – plugging it straight into our car.

That's when trouble hit: Authorisation Failure. Ah well, maybe it isn't configured correctly, we restarted this time using our Porsche Charging Service card. Same outcome – auth failure. A third attempt did not produce any different outcome.

We rang our local (its UK based) Porsche Charging Service support number, explined the situation and they were able to confirm that these chargers are no longer part of the Porsche Charging Service and are only available to users who have been approved by the local dealers "database".

Bummer! Had not anticipated this and because we charged here before with no issue – it didn't even cross our mind during planning to verify. Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Though we do have to say, that it really feels like the entire Porsche Charging Network at dealers is a mess, very confusing – becoming unreliable – and the rules are very unclear for users. We do have to acknowledge that the chargers here had been taken off the PCM list – we just failed to check.

It remains a lost opportunity to have built a nice private charging network for Porsche EV owners and the lovely Porsche Lounge we were at yesterday will not be enought to keep the fleet on the road!

There was no obviously brilliant alternative – so we chose a 150 kW EnBW that was just off the autobahn outside the town – which we knew for sure would accept our Porsche Charging Service RFID card.

When we arrived – there was already one car plugged into side A of the 150 kW charger and side B was broken. Either way, guessing that plugging two cars in would have turned each charger into 75 kW – which wouldn't be brilliant.

There was a banged-up looking 50 kW unit idle – so we plugged into that – under the philosophy that taking in power is always good – while we figured out a new plan.

We found a set of 300 kW Aral/BP chargers along our planned route in the Black Forest that looked good and would start with the Porsche Charging Service card – so we plotted that in, unplugged from the frankly glacial 50 kW charger and set off. Despite the branding on the side there was nothing quick about it!

We soon picked up the B500 road through the Black Forest – and its race track like curves and crash barriers.

We attach our Go Pro to the car to capture some of the driving experiences at 4K – pulling in over 100 Gb of footage over the next hour or so. Enjoying the endless kilometres of forest.

Reaching our new planned charging stop in the early afternoon with a 29C sun high in the sky. The charger quickly started with our RFID card and started delivering 265 kW of energy.

Has there ever been a charging station painted to match the Neptune Blue of our car so well?





It wasn't long until our "tank" had reached 85% and we continued on our scenic route – with our co-driver enjoying the 3D views of the landscape from the passenger display!

Later, we avail of a comfort break – we pulled onto a random service station that was attached to a nearby autobahn – and spotted a bank of idle IONITY chargers. This wasn't expected!

Time for a bit of on-the-spot replanning – we'd grab a full charge here – while eating some currywurst – that would allow us to cut out a planned IONITY stop near Bern – and we'd arrive at our hotel tonight and grab a destination charge there.

The outside air temps was 32C at this stage and we had just done a short but fast autobahn run to reach the service station – when we stepped outside to plug in the car – could not believe how loud the cooling fans were running. We've heard the fans spin up before – but never like this! In fact, plugging into the charger caused them to spin down a little.

They make an impressive sound – drawing air across the radiators to cool down the battery – that was now hitting 60C.

Altogether, a rather messy charging day – due to Porsche Centre Baden-Baden – but one that didn't disrupt our plans too much.



After our pit stop and refuelling both our car and our bodies, it was back to the B500 forest road.

Before eventually reaching the German/Swiss border at Waldshut-Tiengan. There were long queues going the other way – entering Germany – but the Swiss side was idle and we drove straight through without being stopped.

Joining the motorway network towards Interlaken – our destination for tonight.

Picking up the lake to our left as we got closer to the town.

Eventually arriving at our hotel for tonight – The Victoria–Jungfrau Grand Hotel – where we had the valet plug in our car for a 22 kW AC overnight charge.



And headed out to grab some late night food – after a freshen up and download of footage from our various cameras.

The days charging stats

Location	Start SOC %	End SOC %	kWh added	Cost	Duration	Ambient Temp	Battery Temp	Charger Type	Network
EnBW Rasthofweg	44%	62%	22.17	€15.65	28 mins	27	31	DC 50 kW	Porsche Charging Service
Arel Sulz am Neckar	28%	85%	48.0	€22.10	22 mins	29	47	DC 300 kW	Porsche Charging Service
IONITY Neckarburg West	69%	100%	25.5	€8.41	30 mins	31	51	DC 350 kW	Porsche Charging Service
Victoria–Jungfrau Grand Hotel	25%	100%	62.8	€20.96	3 hours 25 mins	27	33	AC 22 kW	Destination Charging

Today we did 454 km over 8:11 hours, with an average speed of 88 km/h, consuming 22.6 kWh/100km.

 

[tigerbalm]

Regenerative braking & Range

Despite some high speed runs yesterday and climbing up to over 1,000 meters – what goes up must come down – and when doing so – the Taycan is so great at recovering energy via regenerative braking.

We are achieving some impressive ranges considering we're driving the least efficient Taycan on the least efficient 21" wheel and tyre package and driving the car "like a Porsche" (while respecting local limits).

 

[McgR]

Day 3: Baden-Baden (Germany) -> Interlaken (Switzerland)

We awoke to a beautiful morning in Baden-Baden – with blue skies and already a rising temperature.



Arriving last night we had 47% charge and the plan was to drive the short distance outside of town to the local Porsche Centre to use their 300 kW Porsche Design chargers. We had charged there when driving through in 2021 – so it seemed like a good idea. It was also the last non-IONITY charge we had built into our plan for this road-trip.

When we arrived, the charging screen showed two options: (a) use a RFID charging card or (b) use Plug & Charge to initiate service. We had been wondering if these chargers supported Plug & Charge – so of course that was the choice we made – plugging it straight into our car.

That's when trouble hit: Authorisation Failure. Ah well, maybe it isn't configured correctly, we restarted this time using our Porsche Charging Service card. Same outcome – auth failure. A third attempt did not produce any different outcome.

We rang our local (its UK based) Porsche Charging Service support number, explined the situation and they were able to confirm that these chargers are no longer part of the Porsche Charging Service and are only available to users who have been approved by the local dealers "database".

Bummer! Had not anticipated this and because we charged here before with no issue – it didn't even cross our mind during planning to verify. Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Though we do have to say, that it really feels like the entire Porsche Charging Network at dealers is a mess, very confusing – becoming unreliable – and the rules are very unclear for users. We do have to acknowledge that the chargers here had been taken off the PCM list – we just failed to check.

It remains a lost opportunity to have built a nice private charging network for Porsche EV owners and the lovely Porsche Lounge we were at yesterday will not be enought to keep the fleet on the road!

There was no obviously brilliant alternative – so we chose a 150 kW EnBW that was just off the autobahn outside the town – which we knew for sure would accept our Porsche Charging Service RFID card.

When we arrived – there was already one car plugged into side A of the 150 kW charger and side B was broken. Either way, guessing that plugging two cars in would have turned each charger into 75 kW – which wouldn't be brilliant.

There was a banged-up looking 50 kW unit idle – so we plugged into that – under the philosophy that taking in power is always good – while we figured out a new plan.

We found a set of 300 kW Aral/BP chargers along our planned route in the Black Forest that looked good and would start with the Porsche Charging Service card – so we plotted that in, unplugged from the frankly glacial 50 kW charger and set off. Despite the branding on the side there was nothing quick about it!

We soon picked up the B500 road through the Black Forest – and its race track like curves and crash barriers.

We attach our Go Pro to the car to capture some of the driving experiences at 4K – pulling in over 100 Gb of footage over the next hour or so. Enjoying the endless kilometres of forest.

Reaching our new planned charging stop in the early afternoon with a 29C sun high in the sky. The charger quickly started with our RFID card and started delivering 265 kW of energy.

Has there ever been a charging station painted to match the Neptune Blue of our car so well?





It wasn't long until our "tank" had reached 85% and we continued on our scenic route – with our co-driver enjoying the 3D views of the landscape from the passenger display!

Later, we avail of a comfort break – we pulled onto a random service station that was attached to a nearby autobahn – and spotted a bank of idle IONITY chargers. This wasn't expected!

Time for a bit of on-the-spot replanning – we'd grab a full charge here – while eating some currywurst – that would allow us to cut out a planned IONITY stop near Bern – and we'd arrive at our hotel tonight and grab a destination charge there.

The outside air temps was 32C at this stage and we had just done a short but fast autobahn run to reach the service station – when we stepped outside to plug in the car – could not believe how loud the cooling fans were running. We've heard the fans spin up before – but never like this! In fact, plugging into the charger caused them to spin down a little.

They make an impressive sound – drawing air across the radiators to cool down the battery – that was now hitting 60C.

Altogether, a rather messy charging day – due to Porsche Centre Baden-Baden – but one that didn't disrupt our plans too much.



After our pit stop and refuelling both our car and our bodies, it was back to the B500 forest road.

Before eventually reaching the German/Swiss border at Waldshut-Tiengan. There were long queues going the other way – entering Germany – but the Swiss side was idle and we drove straight through without being stopped.

Joining the motorway network towards Interlaken – our destination for tonight.

Picking up the lake to our left as we got closer to the town.

Eventually arriving at our hotel for tonight – The Victoria–Jungfrau Grand Hotel – where we had the valet plug in our car for a 22 kW AC overnight charge.



And headed out to grab some late night food – after a freshen up and download of footage from our various cameras.

The days charging stats

Location	Start SOC %	End SOC %	kWh added	Cost	Duration	Ambient Temp	Battery Temp	Charger Type	Network
EnBW Rasthofweg	44%	62%	22.17	€15.65	28 mins	27	31	DC 50 kW	Porsche Charging Service
Arel Sulz am Neckar	28%	85%	48.0	€22.10	22 mins	29	47	DC 300 kW	Porsche Charging Service
IONITY Neckarburg West	69%	100%	25.5	€8.41	30 mins	31	51	DC 350 kW	Porsche Charging Service
Victoria–Jungfrau Grand Hotel	25%	100%	62.8	€20.96	3 hours 25 mins	27	33	AC 22 kW	Destination Charging

Today we did 454 km over 8:11 hours, with an average speed of 88 km/h, consuming 22.6 kWh/100km.

We stayed in the Hapimag hotel a couple of years ago. It’s very close to your hotel, it looked awesome. Great view on the Jungfrau. I presume you don’t have time for it but the train to the Jungfrau joch is nice to do. And you can buy a Rolex at 3.000 meters. Have a nice trip.

 

[McgR]

Regenerative braking & Range

Despite some high speed runs yesterday and climbing up to over 1,000 meters – what goes up must come down – and when doing so – the Taycan is so great at recovering energy via regenerative braking.

We are achieving some impressive ranges considering we're driving the least efficient Taycan on the least efficient 21" wheel and tyre package and driving the car "like a Porsche" (while respecting local limits).

I was around 21-22 kWh/100 km avarage going up and down the mountain passes. I have seen 100 kWh/100 km going up and almost 0 going down again.

 

[Scandinavian]

We rang our local (its UK based) Porsche Charging Service support number, explined the situation and they were able to confirm that these chargers are no longer part of the Porsche Charging Service and are only available to users who have been approved by the local dealers "database".

Bummer! Had not anticipated this and because we charged here before with no issue – it didn't even cross our mind during planning to verify. Fail to plan, plan to fail.

Though we do have to say, that it really feels like the entire Porsche Charging Network at dealers is a mess, very confusing – becoming unreliable – and the rules are very unclear for users. We do have to acknowledge that the chargers here had been taken off the PCM list – we just failed to check.

Thanks for a superb travel report as always! Very informative and gives nice suggestions for future stops.

On your experience at a Porsche dealer, I am lost for words. I do not think Porsche have thought through this whole electrification. It’s such a shambles with the dealers chargers, not authorised, behind locked gates, fenced in!

With the latest Tesla Supercharging price reductions, I had planned to try a trip home, exclusively using those, before my car decided otherwise. Ionity networks are great in Europe and economic but would like to compare.

Netherlands, Belgium, France and Germany are a joy to drive through with all these HPC. An enormous difference to our first road trip in 2021!

 

[Poshfpg]

I was around 21-22 kWh/100 km avarage going up and down the mountain passes. I have seen 100 kWh/100 km going up and almost 0 going down again.

Driving down mountains is fun alright, admittedly I had the dog in the boot so was being relatively sensible.

 

[Lightning4570]

Sounds like a brave and epic journey, glad it’s mostly trouble-free so far. Thanks for the trip report. My bucket list trips include driving the Alps to/from Spielberg for the Austrian GP.
I notice you’re a Dubliner and will share that we were 2 of 40,000+ Americans that recently invaded for the Notre Dame v. Navy football game. We spent most of the 10 days in the west, and were happy (surprised) to see a Porsche Destination charging station with reserved parking in front of our hotel, the Great Southern in Killarney. We will be back for some fly fishing.
United Ireland,
Jeff

 

[ciaranob]

Enjoyed Interlaken when last there (driving the M4 Convertible picked up in Munich) - lot of hiking and after a high altitude breakfast (the James Bond locale!), we paraglided from Murren down into the valley below (furthest valley behind our heads in this pic )!