Taycan to the Alps 18-day road trip 2022

[B61]

It's true – it feels like 50% of my milage on this car was on the other-side-of-the-road!

You meant on the right side of the road, right?

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[Swissbob]

Would love that – but didn't want to add the PTS lead-time and complexity to the order. Or the price. However, since then I've learned that PTS car's are being painted all the time now and it does not add as much lead-time to car's as it did even a year ago.

Don't tempt me!

You have to do it!!!

 

[tigerbalm]

Taycan Factory Tour: Paint Shop

The two buses take the group the short distance – less than a kilometre – to the entrance to the Paint Shop. The building looks similar to the assembly building we were in earlier – they both look like they were constructed at the same time with similar designs.

We get out – some of the group take a quick comfort break – and we all head up in an elevator to the second floor.

Unlike the Assembly Line building – there is a very distinct smell of paints/solvents here.

Here we stand in a corridor – and can see a good view over the entire site. Across some public train tracks – we can see the building where both the Taycan (and Audi eTron GT) electric motors and V8 engines are manufactured and assembled. The V8 engines made here are sent to Leipzig (Panamera) and Bratislava (Cayenne).

Additionally from this year – the Taycan Paint Shop also paints 20% of all 911's and 718's manufactured. This is why we suspect that PTS has now become more "available". The Taycan Paint Shop technology is capable of handling a lot more paint colours and all PTS 911/718's are painted here, alongside all Taycan's.

Also we can see a small-ish building with six large chimneys – this is an electricity and heat generating station for use by the entire Porsche site. Although the complex has a public grid connection – most of the energy consumed is generated by Porsche themselves from this station. And yes, it uses Gas – and yes this is a problem for Porsche and Germany after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent sanctions imposed by the EU.

We go into a nearby room named the "Presentation Room". This is a darkened multi-media equipped room that helps demonstrate the painting process of the Taycan.

There is a full painted Taycan saloon body in the room that you can interact with. It is good for showing what the interior body looks like with nothing installed. The guide activates various multi-media presentations that describe the various metal composition of the Taycan – and the layers and processes that the metal goes through on its way to being painted.

We learn that the total thickness of all the layers – from metal corrosion protection – through to the paint and onto the clear coat – is thinner in total than a human hair. And even with that – due to the surface area of a Taycan – the layers add many kilograms to the overall weight of the car – nearly 30 kg in total.

At the various stands here – we can explore what the body metal feels like after each process – from rough unfinished aluminium up to highly treated final clear coat.

We get to run our hands through the various robot attachments – including the emu feathers.

It takes 12 hours to fully process a Taycan body ready to be sent along the 911 meter long bridge conveyer belt – to the assembly building we toured earlier. This is compared to 8.5 hours to assemble a Taycan body ready for shipping to a customer – at least during good times when no supply chain issues.

Due to the longer painting time – the paint shop runs on three staff shifts – compared to two shifts for assembly.

Eventually after about 20 minutes of various talks, videos and hands-on experiences – we stand at a wall within the room that is made from opaque perplex. Then with a press of a button – the guide makes the wall panel transparent – this looks like similar tech to the Variable Roof option on recent Taycan's – and we can see a car being painted by robots on the line within the building.

It is only now it becomes obvious to us that we're not going to be walking through the paint shop line like we did on assembly.

We watch the robots do their thing for a while as cars move slowly along the line – and then the wall is made opaque again.

The guide did mention that sometimes they can't show the live process – as they are testing either new colours or new car's that are not announced yet. The guide told a story of a colleague that accidentally made the wall transparent and there stood – a yet unannounced – Taycan Cross Turismo being painted – with the guide quickly making the wall opaque again before trying to talk over what the tour had just seen!

We then took the elevator back down to the waiting buses and drove back to the entrance of Porsche Museum – handing back the useless – and unnecessary – portable headphones.

The tour was over and lasted just under two hours in total.

 

[tigerbalm]

Day 16: Luxembourg City (Luxembourg) -> Bruges (Belgium)

If you remember, we were hoping to get a (originally unplanned) destination charge at our hotel in Luxembourg overnight. On having the valet bring the car up to us – it became apparent that had not happened.

The issue is that the chargers the hotel quotes on their website are actually public chargers that are available in the public car park that the hotel uses for valet parking. In this case – the chargers we block/in-use and so an overnight charge wasn't possible.

If the hotel controls the chargers then valet's are usually able to manger them to get everyone charged – not the case at this location.

We had even left them a hint that our car can take their fasted quoted charger.

We were at 24% charge so we fell to our backup – which was Porsche Centre Lëtzebuerg – that was only around 6km away from us. The PCM directed us to the chargers and the Porsche Charging Service RFID card got us going immediately.

The car didn't have much time to prepare the battery – so while charging rate started at 238 kW – it soon fell to just under 200 kW for most of the charge.

We really like the industrial design language of the Porsche Chargers.

As there is a power + time aspect to the cost of using these chargers – we stop the charge at just the PCM recommended amount to reach our next IONITY with 10% battery.

We cross the border into Belgium with frequent heavy rain showers and cloudy skies.

But sometimes things clear up.

We hit heavy traffic approaching the ring road around Brussels – that lasts nearly an hour.

And get our only – and planned/anticipated for – range warning on this road-trip – when we were around 18km away from our IONITY stop.

Charging at IONITY Wetteren Noord.

Two weeks ago we charged here at the other side of the road beside a Audi e-tron GT – in much better weather.

We continue towards Bruges – our overnight stop – driving through the gates into the old town.

Onto the cobble-stone streets.

Quickly reaching our hotel.

This being an old building – we wind ourselves down into the car-park. That thankfully has a traffic light system – meaning you won't meet a car on the slope.

And find a few empty spots – leaving us some room to get back in again.

There are destination chargers here.

But the "rules" associated with them – €40 deposit – get a key from reception to open a box – and €30 cost to charge regardless of energy used – puts us off. Especially as we're at our planned 60% battery level.

An IONITY top-up at the chunnel tomorrow will be better value and less hassle. We've no issue with paying for destination charges – but this one is the wrong side of messy (we'd tap a RFID card) and costly.

If we'd come in here on fumes – something we'd never do for a destination charge as you might not get one – then maybe.

Now to enjoy Bruges – our third time here – and our last night on mainland Europe on this road-trip.

The days charging stats:

Location	Start SOC %	End SOC %	kWh added	Cost	Duration	Ambient Temp	Battery Temp	Charger Type	Network
Porsche Centre Luxembourg	24%	74%	49.86	€21.59	0h 23m	16.0	22	DC 350 kW	Porsche Charging Service
Wetteren Noord	11%	71%	50.2	€0 (not billed yet)	0h 15m	19.5	38	DC 350 kW	IONITY

Today we did 268 km over 4:19 hours, with an average speed of 63 km/h, consuming 21.8 kWh/100km.

 

[tigerbalm]

Thumb update

Pain-in-the-ass bandage – turns out us humans use our thumbs a lot!

 

[proficient_mathematician]

I love the mystical traffic signs in different countries that I've never seen before - what does this omnidirectional arrow warn of that lies 1650 metres away? Obviously something that makes your car skid. ?

 

[PorscheCH]

I love the mystical traffic signs in different countries that I've never seen before - what does this omnidirectional arrow warn of that lies 1650 metres away? Obviously something that makes your car skid. ?

snow?

 

[tigerbalm]

I love the mystical traffic signs in different countries that I've never seen before - what does this omnidirectional arrow warn of that lies 1650 metres away? Obviously something that makes your car skid. ?

I read it as: "Road slippery for next 1650 meters when it's snowing".

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/...edia/File:Belgian_traffic_sign_GIII_Ijzel.svg

 

[MrB]

Thanks for the useful info too. I never do Flexiplus, so I'm not familiar with the boarding process. That's a useful insight though if I ever do it.

Yeah, because the structure of the double-deck carriages is load-bearing (the side walls have to support the upper deck and up to five vehicles also), they have to be extra strong, and therefore extra thick. The "channel" you drive down is quite narrow indeed, and it also has the metal lips just waiting to scrape your alloys. Not only that, they're much more awkward to drive into (both the lower and upper deck). Anything of 5 Series size or above, and you'll be looking at damaged rims. No way would I drive a Taycan into there.

I'm following this thread every day. Let us know how you get on at Calais.

Absolutely, I trashed the rims on my SL500 a few years back on the normal carriages. Never again!

 

[tigerbalm]

Just boarded.

All good.

 

[Throb]

Just boarded.

All good.

Great stuff! ?

I'll be doing the same this coming Thursday in my new C-Class, which I could probably drive on to the double-deck carriage without scratching the rims, but I don't want that stress to be honest.

 

[Bigben]

Fantastic photos to demonstrate how narrow the regular double-deck carriages are on the Eurotunnel trains. Thanks for posting @Bigben

That appears to be an E70 X5, which is 1,933 mm wide. The Taycan is actually wider than that at 1,966 mm, so you would have even less room in a Taycan.

Wow - the E70 was already feeling quite wide so will see how the CT will do in the tiny towns and single country lanes around here (if it arrives before we start using flying cars…)
I was then always selecting “high car >1.85m” and got into the habit of putting my cars (GL, Q7, RR Vogue..) in raised mode before going to the guy at the booth who gives you your lane number to make sure he wouldn’t redirect me to a double decker ?

Just boarded.

All good.

Wait until one of those bikes falls off on your hood ?
I’m always reluctant to get super close to each others’ bumpers but the train agents usually insist (with loads of impatient hand gestures too if they’re French)

Great stuff! ?

I'll be doing the same this coming Thursday in my new C-Class, which I could probably drive on to the double-deck carriage without scratching the rims, but I don't want that stress to be honest.

Hopefully if a quiet time to cross you’ll be fine but I’ve seen in busy periods people with high car hangers being redirected towards double decks upon arrival!
I’ve always feared that one day Eurotunnel would start charging more for high cars bookings but looks like they’re OK to keep losing money for now ??

Wishing you a smooth crossing of this island on the way to yours!

 

[tigerbalm]

Day 17: Bruges (Belgium) -> Stratford-upon-Avon (UK)

We leave our hotel just after 09:00 – with the PCM Navigation helping us to navigate the narrow, winding and almost all one-way streets of Bruges.

Until reaching the larger E40 towards Calais.

Crossing the border back into France – with bright blue skies – a big difference compared to the previous two days.

No shortage of electric grid infrastructure in this part of Normandy.

Driving along the security fence that surrounds the Channel Tunnel facility around these parts.

Circulating a roundabout that contains part of the tunnel boring machine that dug the Chunnel.

Stopping at IONITY Coquelles for a battery top-up.

Before heading into the Chunnel terminal and parking up at the Flexiplus Lounge.

Where there are Tesla chargers at the lounge – that are available for all car's to use. If we had planned this better – we would have made these our first ever Tesla supercharger attempt instead of going to IONITY. Next time!

And using the dedicated Flexiplus lane – we drive towards our train – with zero waiting.

Slight queue on the ramp down.

And drive on – remembering to set "Transport Mode" on our Porsche Vehicle Tracking Service (PVTS+).

Driving through the carriages – making sure we pick the double-decker based on the advice from many on this forum.

As we're the last car in our carriage – our wheels are chocked to protect the closed doors behind us.

And after 25 min we leave the train in the UK. Drive on the left. DRIVE ON THE LEFT!

And head straight onto the M20 towards London.

Very heavy traffic at the Dartford Tunnel under the Thames. Not helped by a broken down car in the middle of it!

We decide rather than go to another IONITY – we'll do a slight detour and check out "Gridserve – The Electric Forecourt" at Braintree.

With plenty of parking beside each charger.

And a comfortable waiting area – alongside high-quality and useful retail outlets.

You can even peddle in some watts to the grid yourself.

It was good to see air & water facilities here too. All too often EV charging facilities forget that they still are cars and need tyres pumped.

Soon we were full and it was time to go – after experiencing what we hope are facilities that will become more "the norm" in the future.

After another 150km – stopping at Rugby Services for a quick comfort break.

Where the same Gridserve company run a large bank – of very busy – chargers.

Before eventually arriving at our hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon – probably best known as the birthplace of William Shakespeare.

The days charging stats:

Location	Start SOC %	End SOC %	kWh added	Cost	Duration	Ambient Temp	Battery Temp	Charger Type	Network
IONITY Coquelles	27%	74%	44.06	€14.54	0h 14m	21.0	45	DC 350 kW	Porsche Charging Service
Gridserve Braintreex	39%	99%	50.00	€25.91	0h 42m	22.0	32	DC 350 kW	Gridserve

Today we did 497 km over 8:45 hours, with an average speed of 58 km/h, consuming 20.5 kWh/100km.

 

[ciaranob]

Love the Gridserve - is this a one off ahead of a more national setup - EA have a few similar concepts built in the US although not here in Texas as yet. Looks excellent.

 

[Bigben]

Wow - Ionity, 15€, 15min for 44kWh vs. Grid serve 25€ in 40min+ for similar charge! Is it because you consciously waited for longer to get from 80% to 99%?

I think this is where a 350mi range is handy - truth is, on long distance, you oscillate between 20-80% SOC, meaning you’re waiving 40% of capacity or 140mi, making the useable range closer to 200mi…

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