Trip Report: my first relative long distance trip - about 350 miles

[Bresdo1962]

Bought my GTS in July...

On Wednesday I took my first relative long distance trip about 350 miles in all. From Peoria to Columbus...

Charged the car to 100% the night before, next day set the trip using Porsche Nav...
It have be making 3 charging stops.

The first one was only about 50 miles away in Bloomington. Got to EA and there was a 350 chargers
Plugged in and it gave me a whopping 73Kw...wtf Changed to the 150 and better with 123 Kw

The next stop will in in Indianapolis which was 165 miles away...my range was showing 210
Range mode let me do 90 most of the way with not much issue until I get about 20 miles from
the next EA. Then it started reducing my max speed to 75. I turned off everything, radio, heat, etc to conserve
Got to EA with 17 miles left, much to close for my comfort to be honest.
And of course the 350 stations did not work so used the 150 and got about 90Kw

Rest of the way to Columbus was very smooth and uneventful

On the return trip
Hotel charged my car to 100%
Hit the road and made it to Indy...again the 350 sucked and used the 150 to charge to 91% range 201

Left EA and the nav wanted me to return to the charger, I figured it was a glitch so keep going then it
rerouted me for about 10 miles back to the same station again. I say the freeway sign and figured to head
toward home. Then a message pops up to save time so I click it. Sends me about 25 miles out of the way to
the Indy airport. Figured I needed to charge more but there was not a single charging station even there......F*%K
Screw this so back toward home and I get the pop up again saying to make it to my next stop my speed needs
to be reduced to 50 MPH...so back to the charging station which was about 20 miles back the other way.
Get there after wasting over and hour of time and charge to 97%.
Hit the road and after 115 miles I am seeing my range and mile to go are getting very close. So now the care starts reducing
my speed first from 90 to 85, then to 75, a few minutes later it takes me down to 65 for about 5 miles. Keep in mind the
speed limit is 70 MPH so I am be passed by every piece of crap car and semi truck looking at me like I am some kind of idiot
Finally make it to EA with 6 miles of range left. And again the 350 is a piece of crap and takes almost an hour to get to 85%

finally get home...

Traveling from home to Cbus to 7 hours with 3 stops
Trip back took over 10 hours

If I still had my 2020 Macan Turbo I believe the trip would take 5 hours or less with 1 stop and now anxiety...

To be honest if I had experience this before buying the car I never would of bought and EV

EV's are basically road worthy Golf Carts that should stay within the city limits only and charged at home. They are
not good for traveling distance.

Driving a Porsche on the highway doing 65 is just plain embarrassing

Not a happy P customer right now

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[Genau]

To be honest if I had experience this before buying the car I never would of bought and EV

EV's are basically road worthy Golf Carts that should stay within the city limits only and charged at home. They are
not good for traveling distance.

Driving a Porsche on the highway doing 65 is just plain embarrassing

Not a happy P customer right now

I drive 850 miles each way several times a year between Florida and Virginia. The Porsche navigation re-routings can be farcical, as you eloquently described. My method is to let the Porsche navigation select the charging stops when I'm departing at full charge, then I disable Porsche navigation and use Waze while monitoring predicted range vs. distance to the charging stop. The downside to this method is that the Taycan will not pre-heat the battery for optimum charging speed when not navigating to a known charging station. Others on the forum use A Better Route Planner (ABRP) and completely avoid using Porsche navigation. Note that if you have Porsche Intelligent Route Manager (PIRM), and it suddenly forces you to drive too slowly, you can simply switch out of range driving mode to override. (But then of course the Porsche navigation system re-routes you to a closer charging station.)

 

[Vercingetorix]

Slowing down can actually be faster if it avoids extra stops.

 

[TYKHAAAN]

I’m sorry to hear that you had a bad trip there. EA and the car’s Nav failed you on this and I’d be angry too. I’ve gone on several road trips, more than twice as long and I haven’t had those issues. I dont use the built in Nav bc I’ve heard several say it sucks, so i use PlugShare to route me. It has a much more extensive database of highspeed and low speed chargers. I plan my route using it, then I just route to the location using plain old Google maps. You dont get the pre-conditioning, but you also dont get the foolishness of the Nav. As for EA, I can’t really say what happened there. I on occasion get low charge rates, but i just kill the session and try again on the same plug, or i move to another open plug and i get much better rates and am back on the road in 30 mins or less. PlugShare also gives user reviews of each charging station, so it can be helpful to know which ones to skip or which plugs work best and which suck at each station. I’d advise you to try that before your next road trip, if you decide to chance it again. That’s a pretty crappy time you had there and I wouldn’t blame you for not bothering. I just want you to know it can (and usually is) be better for road tripping in this EV. It may not ever get ideal until the infrastructure is really there and you can be sure another charging station is a few miles or so down the road, that may take several years tho. Good luck in whichever you decide!

 

[Bresdo1962]

Slowing down can actually be faster if it avoids extra stops.

Yes I am aware but I am not going to drive 50 in a 70 for 100 miles

 

[Bresdo1962]

I’m sorry to hear that you had a bad trip there. EA and the car’s Nav failed you on this and I’d be angry too. I’ve gone on several road trips, more than twice as long and I haven’t had those issues. I dont use the built in Nav bc I’ve heard several say it sucks, so i use PlugShare to route me. It has a much more extensive database of highspeed and low speed chargers. I plan my route using it, then I just route to the location using plain old Google maps. You dont get the pre-conditioning, but you also dont get the foolishness of the Nav. As for EA, I can’t really say what happened there. I on occasion get low charge rates, but i just kill the session and try again on the same plug, or i move to another open plug and i get much better rates and am back on the road in 30 mins or less. PlugShare also gives user reviews of each charging station, so it can be helpful to know which ones to skip or which plugs work best and which suck at each station. I’d advise you to try that before your next road trip, if you decide to chance it again. That’s a pretty crappy time you had there and I wouldn’t blame you for not bothering. I just want you to know it can (and usually is) be better for road tripping in this EV. It may not ever get ideal until the infrastructure is really there and you can be sure another charging station is a few miles or so down the road, that may take several years tho. Good luck in whichever you decide!

Nab wanted to reroute me to a 20Kw charger that would take about 20 hours to charge enough to get me to my next stop

 

[TYKHAAAN]

Oh and I did mean to point out too, speed kills in EVs as well as temperature On long trips. Once you go over 70, it takes much more energy to go at those speeds (in any type of car) and you are going to lose range very quickly. I usually do 75-80 (occasional jumps into 90 as needed) and I keep fairly good range. Nothing you can do about cold tho. Just know you will lose about 25% of your range from summer temps.

 

[TYKHAAAN]

Nab wanted to reroute me to a 20Kw charger that would take about 20 hours to charge enough to get me to my next stop

Yeah, it is about useless. Try PlugShare to pre-plan your routes. Takes a little more work up front, but you’ll have better trips.

 

[DJBlack]

Sorry to jump in on this thread with a newbie question, but have I got this right?…..

You need to make a 350 mile trip, and you are setting off with a 100% charged battery and you need to make 3 stops along the way in order to complete this journey? I thought the range was around 280 miles with the bigger battery? And would have presumed you would only need to stop once on a journey like this?

 

[Bresdo1962]

Sorry to jump in on this thread with a newbie question, but have I got this right?…..

You need to make a 350 mile trip, and you are setting off with a 100% charged battery and you need to make 3 stops along the way in order to complete this journey? I thought the range was around 280 miles with the bigger battery? And would have presumed you would only need to stop once on a journey like this?

I think the range is based off driving 55 on a flat road with no wind or elements...and nothing on in the car. oh and your range during the summer is different than the winter about 1/3 less in range. If you drive on the highway doing 90+ your range will be less than 120. And if you have things on like your AC, Radio, heater, etc your range drops even more

 

[daveo4EV]

I just did a road trip in Oct.

12 fast charging stops across 7 or 8 days

Santa Cruz, CA to Portland, OR - 700 miles - 3 fast charging stops (Willows, CA, Yreka, CA, Sutherland, OR)
Portland, OR to Walla Walla, WA - 250 miles - 1 fast charging stop (Hermiston, OR)
Walla Wall, WA to Kenniwick, WA - 120 miles round trip - 1 fast charging stop (Kohl's Shopping in Kenniwick)
Walla Walla, WA to Seattle, WA - 300 miles - 1 fast charging stop (2nd fast charging stop for reconnaissance) - (Yakima WA, Ellensburg, WA)
Seattle, WA to Newport, OR - 300 miles - 1 fast charging stop (2nd fast charging at Newport, hotel did not have EV charging) (Astoria, OR, Newport, OR)
Newport, OR to Santa Cruz, CA - 700 miles - 3 fast charging stops (Grants Pass, OR, Anderson, CA, Vacaville, CA)

~2500 miles driven

• 2020 Taycan Turbo - 25,000 miles
• Goodyear Tires (summer grippy)
• sole passenger - light luggage
• highway speeds 55 mph to more…
• latest software
• 70% use of "range" mode
• mix of EA stations and hotel overnight charging
• very very experienced with EV road tripping
• I targeted 8% SOC with the Porsche NAV planning - arrived with 5% or slightly less on 5 of the 13 fast charging stops
• selected hotels w/EV charging for overnight stays - allowing me to leave at 100% next morning

2 of the 13 fast charging stops were extraordinarily fast and met Porsche's claims for charging speeds - they were glorious
10 stops were EA sh*t shows and had adequate charging speeds - but they worked first time
1 stop was horrendous and required all my EV experience and multiple attempts to get a charge session started

only 1 of 13 sampled EA charging stops had all stations operational
50% station functionality was common - abysmal
10 of the 13 stops were "started" via the Porsche app for the included 30 minute session
2 of the 13 stops were "free" because EA stations were "giving it away"
1 of the 13 stops required 2 separate 10+ min customer support phone calls to start/restart the charging session and EA charging station.

this vs. my 9 years experience with the Tesla supercharger network is terrible vs. the Tesla network that while far from flawless is a dramatically better experience

combining fast charging stops with meal breaks and personal stretching makes the charging stops less of a "cost" - but yeah it takes slightly longer with an EV vs. gas car

for me personally the occasional road trip and the increased time is worth it vs. the other 95% of the time when I simply charge at home and have no maintenance - but that's a personal perspective.

230 miles range was order of the day - never more than 230 - sometimes a bit less

extra-legal speeds will devastate expected/actual range with any EV - aero dynamic drag is majority of consumption once you're going more than 40 mph - aero-drag has a V^2 (velocity squared) component - it's very very costly the faster you go - it's not linear - I trade speed for range, but plan appropriately - I begin slow and "add" speed as one gets closer to the intended segment destination (i.e. once you have the segment destination "in the bag")

I would expect less than 230 if it was cold…about 30% less (cold being 40F or lower ambient temperatures)

if you're road tripping with an EV you need to plan your stops - the in car charge planning is less useful than Plugshare, ABRP, and some personal planning

Navigation to various destinations was spot on with battery estimates (+/- 5%) - so plan your route, check reliability of charging locations via plugshare, and use in car navigation to estimate battery usage at destination - adjust as necessary should estimate prove optimistic.

I used to be able to go 250-270 miles when I first obtained the vehicle, but it came with all season tires - I'm waiting for these to wear out and looking forward to seeing if I can claw back some of the range…

I could see 3 stops being plausible depending on route and charging locations - but 2 stops should've been max with some planning…1 stop in the cold would be dicy but possible with careful planning but not high speeds.

 

[TXAG]

@Bresdo1962 , does your GTS have the regular or large battery? Sorry to hear about your troubles. I have the large battery and only need one stop in Kingman AZ to drive 280 miles from Phoenix to Las Vegas and when I arrive I have over 150 miles remaining on the guess-o-meter.

 

[Bresdo1962]

I have the larger battery and in the summer my range was 340, now in the winter temps 30-50 F my range is 230

 

[Zcd1]

Bought my GTS in July...

On Wednesday I took my first relative long distance trip about 350 miles in all. From Peoria to Columbus...

Charged the car to 100% the night before, next day set the trip using Porsche Nav...
It have be making 3 charging stops.

Traveling from home to Cbus to 7 hours with 3 stops
Trip back took over 10 hours

Not a happy P customer right now

That's a terrible first EV road trip experience. This is what that trip COULD have looked like:

https://abetterrouteplanner.com/?plan_uuid=69aa0ad6-c289-4ebf-9822-3fd912c8d506

It's embarrassing that more EV manufacturers don't seem to prioritize education of their customers on this type of stuff.

 

[captainlk]

Is there no way to tell the Taycan's nav to go to a specific charger (as recommended by ABRP) such that it pre-heats the battery for arrival?

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