[North America] - this is getting embarrassing - Porsche nerfing/neutering the PMCC via OTA update?

[Reg]

Well, they could make an argument that changing the setting outside of default, the customer acknowledges they know what they are doing, especially if they hide it under customer_service.

First off, yes, anyone can make any argument or claim or suit or countersuit. The point is what would a likely winning argument be?

As for that argument, unless Porsche is claiming that the only safe thing to do is to use the default, they will be torn apart with "if that is the case, why do you give the customer the option to go to 40a - a number that you say is in the range?".

I don't know what you mean by "hide it under customer_service"? You can go to the settings on the device and easily change that setting as well as many others.

But wait! One of the settings is using Celcius instead of Fahrenheit. If the default is Celcius and you switch to Fahrenheit, and there is a problem, do you think your argument would still hold water since you didn't use the default, although you used a valid configuration?

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[daveo4EV]

it will charge yoru Taycan just fine - no issues - these chargers are not vendor specific - they are honestly just fancy exentions cords - which is what makes this soooo disappointting - it doesn't have to be this complicated and Porsche seems to have botched it.

 

[whitex]

First off, yes, anyone can make any argument or claim or suit or countersuit. The point is what would a likely winning argument be?

As for that argument, unless Porsche is claiming that the only safe thing to do is to use the default, they will be torn apart with "if that is the case, why do you give the customer the option to go to 40a - a number that you say is in the range?".

I don't know what you mean by "hide it under customer_service"? You can go to the settings on the device and easily change that setting as well as many others.

But wait! One of the settings is using Celcius instead of Fahrenheit. If the default is Celcius and you switch to Fahrenheit, and there is a problem, do you think your argument would still hold water since you didn't use the default, although you used a valid configuration?

If you wire your PMCC to a 40A breaker and set it to 40A charging after your electrician signed off on 20A, then your home carches on fire, then yes, there is a very good argument that the fire was your own fault, especially if the setting shows the required breaker/circuit capacity to be 50A (I don’t have a PMCC
HOWEVER, as I said in the rest of my post you quoted, setting 40A as long as you have a 50A+ circuit will most likely not result in any safety issue, only charging failures. Those who are stubbornly changing it back 40A, will quickly learn not to do that when it's hot outside. Most people however will not do that, so they won't be calling their dealers to troubleshoot why they woke up to an uncharged car in the morning.

 

[whitex]

Unknowingly until seeing this thread yesterday I updated the charger on the weekend.. ??‍ I did however just pick up a F150 Lightning and the 80amp pro charger is en-route but I am not able to find any info on charging the Taycan with it. I’m assuming it’s possible.. I have a call in with dealership to confirm but wanted to see if anyone else had this?

It should charge just fine, unless Ford somehow messed up the design like Porsche, or they intentionally locked out other cars (IIRC Tesla did that early on with chargers outside of North America, and even today I'm told this is an option on the Wall Charger Gen3 settings).

Question: Is the charger you picked up 2-way, i.e. allows for your F150 to power you home in case of power failure? I heard this was supposed to be a feature of the Lightening.

 

[Kingske]

I can not replicate this behavior with my PMCC unit - I logged in as the "home" user - set the charge rate to 40 amps - charged at 40 amps - stopped the session - unplugged the vehicle - powered down the PMCC - and then powered it back up - and it was returned to 20 amps.

what software version are you running?

Hi @dave04EV, when I returned from my trip last night I wanted to charge my Taycan up to the usual 80% (I keep it at 50-60% when away for more than a week). Upon connecting the PMCC with the car, an update over WiFi kicked in and - lo and behold - the PMCC reverted to 20A upon starting my subsequent charging session. The newly updated software version was 3014. Whatever they did with the PMCC at the dealership when they performed the uPdate two weeks ago, it must have been on the version prior to 3014 as I could still reset it when logging in as "customer service" into the PMCC so that it did not revert from 40 to 20A each time. That loophole seems to be closed now.

 

[Deleted member 6348]

When I took my PMCC out of the frunk to charge at my AirBNB cabin, I noted that it gained a sticker and the firmware update. Looking at my recent service summary, it appears that WMP2 was addressed during my recent service. No big deal as I only use it when traveling and do so rarely. As long as I can crank up the amperage manually when available, I am fine with that.

 

[Reg]

If you wire your PMCC to a 40A breaker and set it to 40A charging after your electrician signed off on 20A, then your home carches on fire, then yes, there is a very good argument that the fire was your own fault, especially if the setting shows the required breaker/circuit capacity to be 50A (I

Not sure what point you are trying to make. Similarly, if you wire your PMCC to a 10a circuit breaker that your electrician signs off on and you set the charger to 16a and your home catches fire, that is also your fault.

 

[Vercingetorix]

If the EVSE burns, how is anybody going to know what setting it was on?

 

[daveo4EV]

If the EVSE burns, how is anybody going to know what setting it was on?

if it's on wifi there will be a record of the charging session on the porsche owner's portal - where you could clearly see the maximum charge rate…the data is streamed "live" during the charging session - so you'd have data right up until the unit melted and dropped offline due to the fire.

the data below is from the charging session for my 2021 cayenne hybrid last night - it didn't catch fire, but you can see the max charge rate is 7.5 kW - not 4.8 which would be the value for 20 amp default setting…

 

[Vercingetorix]

if it's on wifi there will be a record of the charging session on the porsche owner's portal - where you could clearly see the maximum charge rate…the data is streamed "live" during the charging session - so you'd have data right up until the unit melted and dropped offline due to the fire.

I assume the Wi-Fi is off.

 

[daveo4EV]

I assume the Wi-Fi is off.

like all devcies I'm sure a certain amount of forensic analysis could be performed - the question is cost/effort and if any of the parties subject to liability feel the analysis will benefit their case/assertions…at a minimum your electrical meter data which also close to live these days would also clearly show the overall demand from the meter at the time in question...and the incremental load from the EVSE at the time of the event could probably be deduced from avialable home elecitcity load data...

 

[Vercingetorix]

Or the hot tub was on.

 

[daveo4EV]

it's difficult to "hide" 9.6 kW of load in the normal pattern of home energy use - 9.6 kw or even 4.8 kW is a pretty big load vs. normal home appliance, lights and other light weight home appliances...

 

[daveo4EV]

Or the hot tub was on.

well the EVSE would be in addition to the hot tub - so it would be an even bigger spike...

the power usage graph from the time in question when compared to historical home power use data could probably be pretty accurately reverse engineered to make reasonable deductive claims.

 

[daveo4EV]

well the EVSE would be in addition to the hot tub - so it would be an even bigger spike...

the power usage graph from the time in question when compared to historical home power use data could probably be pretty accurately reverse engineered to make reasonable deductive claims.

wanna guess when I was charging my EV? and what AMP setting the PMCC was set to?

here is the data -and PG&E will provide a CVS file with the raw numbers so you can really dig into the data - there are enough digital bread crumbs that if it got testy regarding liablity one could analyse the direcxt and indirect data and come to some pretty sound and convincing deductive conclusions - that with the physical evidence (even cheap NEMA 14-50 plug sockets don't melt that easily) - once can make the case what caused the event…

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