Week three observations & issues

[OzzieT]

Just coming to the end of week 3 in my 2023 Taycan GTS. With the giddy feeling of excitement having abated somewhat, I thought it a good time to add some additional insights as a new owner.

• The driving experience continues to be amazing, and with more time behind the wheel, a willingness to take on some more aggressive manouvers and cornering. Just a thrill to drive.
• The reality of Sydney's(non-Tesla) supercharger network is hitting home. There is one 350kw rated supercharger within 50km of my house, which is not that far from the CBD. It is a NRMA owned and Chargefox operated supercharger at Zetland shopping centre. These superchargers are highly utilised and at 6:15am this morning when I went for my first supercharge, there was already a queue (only 2 superchargers). The Chargefox app says up to 350kw, but you can see from the photo, while it did go up to about 150kw for a couple of minutes, it stabilised closer to 100kw. So on the "Porsche" partnered Chargefox network, it appears we don't have a 350kw supercharger in and around Sydney that operates at that rating - would be interested to hear from fellow Sydney owners.

• The Taycan tech. It's just a bit disappointing and unfortunately just nowhere near as good as my BMW 8 series (2019 model). Lots of little things that all add up such as the 'Hey Porsche delay' and the cars inability to follow basic instructions, it seems to take a couple of tries for most things. My mp3 music on a USB drive while accessible in the native interface, only gives a list view of your artists and albums, and it always goes back to top of the list alphabetically each time and scrolling through the albums is tough. Spotify is VERY slow to load and often if I have left the car mid way through a track it will not commence playing on returning to the car, but will happily skip to the next track. Spotify sound quality on the Burmester is poor. No Apple Carplay capability outside of the main screen, so nothing in the HUD or main instrument display. The Porsche navigation software works but feels quite dated in terms of capabilties. There are phone book issues (see below) and whenever I open the My Porsche app it says the right rear window is open, for about 30-40 seconds, when it flips to closed. Notably all of these issues have nothing to do with the driving experience.
• My main screen has been displaying only "Taycan" all day. I've left the car off and locked for over an hour but it has not reset the issue. I'm hoping an overnight sleep will enable the reset. This seemed to happen when I was using Apple Carplay navigation, it was paused while I stopped at the shops, and when I returned to the car went to Taycan black. If things reset I will attempt to re-produce this issue, if it is indeed an issue.
• Comfort access, in terms of the automatic extension of the door handles, seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it works perfectly. Sometimes there is a delay until you are actually touching the door handle, and at other times there is nothing and it requires an unlock on the keyfob.
• My car has the noise insulating glass. I've read other posts about mobile and wireless device transmission issues. Not sure I quite believed the mobile issues, but sure enough virtually no signal sitting inside my car in my garage, but if I wind down the drivers window and hold my phone outside of the vehicle if works just fine. Garage door remote control does not work through the front windscreen, again if I wind down the window and activate from outside the car, no issues. Sorry to those I may have challenged on this matter in earlier posts.
• Then there is the weird phone book issue, where my phone book only transfers email addresses to the vehicle, so no phone numbers. Seriously. There are a couple of challenges here. It's hard to know who is calling me and a couple of times I've had to apologise as I did not quite know who I was talking to. Then trying to use Hey Porsche to call someone doesn't work...because there are no phone numbers. I've spend hours trying to solve this but it has me stumped.
• Which all leads me to Apple Carplay. It seems if I use Apple Carplay it solves a multitude of issues. Firstly there is no delay with Hey Siri. My phone book with telephone numbers is available. The navigation interface is excellent, and I have to say since I've not used Apple Maps for a long time, it really is very good. Apple Carplay works with my phone inside the car inside the garage. So having been mildly anti Apple Carplay, I don't really have an option, and am discovering it is very good. Perhaps this explains why the native Porsche tech is so disappointing, Porsche are moving to Apple Carplay (and Android Auto).

If anyone has experienced some of the above issues, and identified fixes outside of Apple Carplay, then I would be delighted to hear about them.

Sponsored

 

[Eugene88]

Just coming to the end of week 3 in my 2023 Taycan GTS. With the giddy feeling of excitement having abated somewhat, I thought it a good time to add some additional insights as a new owner.

• The driving experience continues to be amazing, and with more time behind the wheel, a willingness to take on some more aggressive manouvers and cornering. Just a thrill to drive.
• The reality of Sydney's(non-Tesla) supercharger network is hitting home. There is one 350kw rated supercharger within 50km of my house, which is not that far from the CBD. It is a NRMA owned and Chargefox operated supercharger at Zetland shopping centre. These superchargers are highly utilised and at 6:15am this morning when I went for my first supercharge, there was already a queue (only 2 superchargers). The Chargefox app says up to 350kw, but you can see from the photo, while it did go up to about 150kw for a couple of minutes, it stabilised closer to 100kw. So on the "Porsche" partnered Chargefox network, it appears we don't have a 350kw supercharger in and around Sydney that operates at that rating - would be interested to hear from fellow Sydney owners.

• The Taycan tech. It's just a bit disappointing and unfortunately just nowhere near as good as my BMW 8 series (2019 model). Lots of little things that all add up such as the 'Hey Porsche delay' and the cars inability to follow basic instructions, it seems to take a couple of tries for most things. My mp3 music on a USB drive while accessible in the native interface, only gives a list view of your artists and albums, and it always goes back to top of the list alphabetically each time and scrolling through the albums is tough. Spotify is VERY slow to load and often if I have left the car mid way through a track it will not commence playing on returning to the car, but will happily skip to the next track. Spotify sound quality on the Burmester is poor. No Apple Carplay capability outside of the main screen, so nothing in the HUD or main instrument display. The Porsche navigation software works but feels quite dated in terms of capabilties. There are phone book issues (see below) and whenever I open the My Porsche app it says the right rear window is open, for about 30-40 seconds, when it flips to closed. Notably all of these issues have nothing to do with the driving experience.
• My main screen has been displaying only "Taycan" all day. I've left the car off and locked for over an hour but it has not reset the issue. I'm hoping an overnight sleep will enable the reset. This seemed to happen when I was using Apple Carplay navigation, it was paused while I stopped at the shops, and when I returned to the car went to Taycan black. If things reset I will attempt to re-produce this issue, if it is indeed an issue.
• Comfort access, in terms of the automatic extension of the door handles, seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it works perfectly. Sometimes there is a delay until you are actually touching the door handle, and at other times there is nothing and it requires an unlock on the keyfob.
• My car has the noise insulating glass. I've read other posts about mobile and wireless device transmission issues. Not sure I quite believed the mobile issues, but sure enough virtually no signal sitting inside my car in my garage, but if I wind down the drivers window and hold my phone outside of the vehicle if works just fine. Garage door remote control does not work through the front windscreen, again if I wind down the window and activate from outside the car, no issues. Sorry to those I may have challenged on this matter in earlier posts.
• Then there is the weird phone book issue, where my phone book only transfers email addresses to the vehicle, so no phone numbers. Seriously. There are a couple of challenges here. It's hard to know who is calling me and a couple of times I've had to apologise as I did not quite know who I was talking to. Then trying to use Hey Porsche to call someone doesn't work...because there are no phone numbers. I've spend hours trying to solve this but it has me stumped.
• Which all leads me to Apple Carplay. It seems if I use Apple Carplay it solves a multitude of issues. Firstly there is no delay with Hey Siri. My phone book with telephone numbers is available. The navigation interface is excellent, and I have to say since I've not used Apple Maps for a long time, it really is very good. Apple Carplay works with my phone inside the car inside the garage. So having been mildly anti Apple Carplay, I don't really have an option, and am discovering it is very good. Perhaps this explains why the native Porsche tech is so disappointing, Porsche are moving to Apple Carplay (and Android Auto).

If anyone has experienced some of the above issues, and identified fixes outside of Apple Carplay, then I would be delighted to hear about them.

Nice post!
I am in my week three and love this car. Personally what I love, is driving experience and comfort. I must admit however that it is noisy but depends on the road, I can feel all bumps but this is a sport car so makes sense. UK around Manchester is full of construction so this is why.

Infotainment is ok, does what I need and I am pretty simple tbh. haha However once the screen was on, all night long for some reason. So when I got in the car PCM was not working as out of charge??? Had to pull out my phone to navigate ahaha. Never happened again, but not sure why that happened in the first place. Phone book issue is something common, I didn't even go there and my dealer suggested not to haha

I don't have glass insulating thing, connections and receptions are fine inside the car. Even my dash cam from blackvue manages to connect to my home wi-fi haha.

I am very happy with cameras as well. Parking is so easy, I have never had problems in my life but this is a wide car low profile tire so very important. I have managed to curb my allow day 1, as there is a very narrow barrier drive bank in multi-storey parking near work. Since then I always have my side cameras on when going through narrow drive banks - short cut button =) Thank God I have 10 alloy repairs protection.

Also line assist is so funny, pulling your steering wheel haha
Once or twice I had distance sensor activated in the rain on a motorway for no reason?

Overall for me its 9/10 =)

 

[anonymouse]

whenever I open the My Porsche app it says the right rear window is open, for about 30-40 seconds, when it flips to closed. Notably all of these issues have nothing to do with the driving experience

That is indeed an annoying bit of bad design. It causes me to panic each time it happens. Should be easy to fix: the status indicator should not default to windows open until the car connection is made, it should be blank.
Suggest next time this happens you shake your iPhone from side to side while the app is open — that gives you a bug report page — and report it. You can send them a screenshot too. I‘ve already logged it; but if a few of us report this, it might get attention. Porsche does read the bug reports and sometimes responds personally which is impressive.

A more annoying bug is when the server decides your car is in privacy mode but it isn’t, just that your mobile was in a bad signal area once when trying to connect. It stays that way until you power up the car, leaving your mobile app unable to connect until you get home. Again I’ve reported that but if it happens to others please report too.

 

[McgR]

For the super charger : I never have used a SC within 50 km of my home. For that range I charge at home. It is easier, cheaper and better for the battery. The SC close to home are not important, it the one further away that you will need on long trips. Unless you can’t charge at home. But even then it would be better for the battery to look for a 11 of 22 Kw charger close by.

For the slower charging on the 350 Kw charger. If it is not 800V but 400 the charge speed is 150 Kw. With Fastned / Allego chargers around here we can have faster charging but only with the 300 Kw chargers and not with the Kw ones. In don’t know if those are 800 V or maybe the have some other build in solution.

The app showing open window is annoying. I don’t look at it anymore. My work around was to use the My Porsche website that is more reliable. And I make sure they are closed before I leave my car

Comfort acces : make sure the key is not behind your phone / keys. I don’t have issues on approach but I do have the Auto Unlock issue.

I do have insulated glass and don’t have any problems with cell phone reception. Even in my garage with windows closed. The toll badge is in the black zone behind the mirror. I have the build in garage door remote and don’t use a separate one. Work around could be to hold it behind the black zone around the rear view mirror.

I had BMW’s for ten years before the Porsche and our second car a Mercedes. Both systems are easier to use. After 1.5 years I have got used to PCM and I can live with it. I have PCM in the PCM mode. Music is direclty with Apple Music. I navigate with PCM. Route planning is not always great. Apple / Waze / Google are better in preventing traffic jams. Recently it is possible again to activate Siri by king pressing the voice button on the steering wheel and asking the read the last message’s.

for the black screen: try the two finger reset on the right top of the screen.

 

[Archimedes]

I have the insulated glass and have zero issues with my phone signal or using a garage door opener.

 

[or1]

That is indeed an annoying bit of bad design. It causes me to panic each time it happens. Should be easy to fix: the status indicator should not default to windows open until the car connection is made, it should be blank.
Suggest next time this happens you shake your iPhone from side to side while the app is open — that gives you a bug report page — and report it. You can send them a screenshot too. I‘ve already logged it; but if a few of us report this, it might get attention. Porsche does read the bug reports and sometimes responds personally which is impressive.

A more annoying bug is when the server decides your car is in privacy mode but it isn’t, just that your mobile was in a bad signal area once when trying to connect. It stays that way until you power up the car, leaving your mobile app unable to connect until you get home. Again I’ve reported that but if it happens to others please report too.

Both these errors happen to me too. Agree with your assessment of them.

 

[SergeyIndy]

I can only comment on this " Garage door remote control does not work through the front windscreen, again if I wind down the window and activate from outside the car."

I have mine for 4 weeks but only driven a few times due to PPF redo and work and family travel.
I have thermal glass and after configuring Home Link, I was surprised there are no more overhead console buttons, and it is all a screen pop up, when I need to focus on Surround View as I am backing out of the garage or going into the garage, and you have to hold it down, basically a mess I cannot deal with, but I gave it as many tries as I could before giving up. However, I did not want a clip on garage opener on my visors, so I removed the clip, put double tape velcro on it, and stuck it on the side of the central middle storage bin, so it is not visible and I can easily reach and press a button on the remote, so it is pretty deep and it has zero issues from a long distance to get to my garage opener. One thing that you might want to check is your garage remote battery, if it is low then the signal is very weak to reach your opener. I have a battery tester and make sure all my remotes and garage openers are max power.

 

[OzzieT]

Nice post!
I am in my week three and love this car. Personally what I love, is driving experience and comfort. I must admit however that it is noisy but depends on the road, I can feel all bumps but this is a sport car so makes sense. UK around Manchester is full of construction so this is why.

Infotainment is ok, does what I need and I am pretty simple tbh. haha However once the screen was on, all night long for some reason. So when I got in the car PCM was not working as out of charge??? Had to pull out my phone to navigate ahaha. Never happened again, but not sure why that happened in the first place. Phone book issue is something common, I didn't even go there and my dealer suggested not to haha

I don't have glass insulating thing, connections and receptions are fine inside the car. Even my dash cam from blackvue manages to connect to my home wi-fi haha.

I am very happy with cameras as well. Parking is so easy, I have never had problems in my life but this is a wide car low profile tire so very important. I have managed to curb my allow day 1, as there is a very narrow barrier drive bank in multi-storey parking near work. Since then I always have my side cameras on when going through narrow drive banks - short cut button =) Thank God I have 10 alloy repairs protection.

Also line assist is so funny, pulling your steering wheel haha
Once or twice I had distance sensor activated in the rain on a motorway for no reason?

Overall for me its 9/10 =)

Thanks for your comments. On the address book issue that is good to know. Will steal your idea on short cut button for cameras.

 

[OzzieT]

That is indeed an annoying bit of bad design. It causes me to panic each time it happens. Should be easy to fix: the status indicator should not default to windows open until the car connection is made, it should be blank.
Suggest next time this happens you shake your iPhone from side to side while the app is open — that gives you a bug report page — and report it. You can send them a screenshot too. I‘ve already logged it; but if a few of us report this, it might get attention. Porsche does read the bug reports and sometimes responds personally which is impressive.

A more annoying bug is when the server decides your car is in privacy mode but it isn’t, just that your mobile was in a bad signal area once when trying to connect. It stays that way until you power up the car, leaving your mobile app unable to connect until you get home. Again I’ve reported that but if it happens to others please report too.

Thanks for the tip, I will report the bug.

 

[OzzieT]

For the super charger : I never have used a SC within 50 km of my home. For that range I charge at home. It is easier, cheaper and better for the battery. The SC close to home are not important, it the one further away that you will need on long trips. Unless you can’t charge at home. But even then it would be better for the battery to look for a 11 of 22 Kw charger close by.

For the slower charging on the 350 Kw charger. If it is not 800V but 400 the charge speed is 150 Kw. With Fastned / Allego chargers around here we can have faster charging but only with the 300 Kw chargers and not with the Kw ones. In don’t know if those are 800 V or maybe the have some other build in solution.

The app showing open window is annoying. I don’t look at it anymore. My work around was to use the My Porsche website that is more reliable. And I make sure they are closed before I leave my car

Comfort acces : make sure the key is not behind your phone / keys. I don’t have issues on approach but I do have the Auto Unlock issue.

I do have insulated glass and don’t have any problems with cell phone reception. Even in my garage with windows closed. The toll badge is in the black zone behind the mirror. I have the build in garage door remote and don’t use a separate one. Work around could be to hold it behind the black zone around the rear view mirror.

I had BMW’s for ten years before the Porsche and our second car a Mercedes. Both systems are easier to use. After 1.5 years I have got used to PCM and I can live with it. I have PCM in the PCM mode. Music is direclty with Apple Music. I navigate with PCM. Route planning is not always great. Apple / Waze / Google are better in preventing traffic jams. Recently it is possible again to activate Siri by king pressing the voice button on the steering wheel and asking the read the last message’s.

for the black screen: try the two finger reset on the right top of the screen.

Thanks for the response, very helpful. My new home charger is not working, hence my search for a SC nearby. Agree I will not use them other than on long road trips once my home charger is going.

On the 800 / 400V issue, I’ve read about that in a number of posts, but now “get it”. Appreciated.

Screen reset itself overnight. It was getting plenty of the two finger treatment the day before but not in the way you have suggested.

 

[OzzieT]

I can only comment on this " Garage door remote control does not work through the front windscreen, again if I wind down the window and activate from outside the car."

I have mine for 4 weeks but only driven a few times due to PPF redo and work and family travel.
I have thermal glass and after configuring Home Link, I was surprised there are no more overhead console buttons, and it is all a screen pop up, when I need to focus on Surround View as I am backing out of the garage or going into the garage, and you have to hold it down, basically a mess I cannot deal with, but I gave it as many tries as I could before giving up. However, I did not want a clip on garage opener on my visors, so I removed the clip, put double tape velcro on it, and stuck it on the side of the central middle storage bin, so it is not visible and I can easily reach and press a button on the remote, so it is pretty deep and it has zero issues from a long distance to get to my garage opener. One thing that you might want to check is your garage remote battery, if it is low then the signal is very weak to reach your opener. I have a battery tester and make sure all my remotes and garage openers are max power.

Thanks. I like the idea of the remote in the storage bin, held in place and easy to press. I will replace the battery and revert, good suggestion.

 

[SergeyIndy]

Thanks. I like the idea of the remote in the storage bin, held in place and easy to press. I will replace the battery and revert, good suggestion.

I made a picture. I like it so far. I used strips of Velcro with sticky sides, and that is not a big deal.

The remote stays in place and I just reach to press the buttons. That is my only usability complaint so far, so they should have left HomeLink physical buttons alone in the upper console, and that would not be in conflict since seat memory buttons are still present.

The key I take in and out and it works just fine, also on its own Velcro strip. Macan and Cayenne have a cubby in the center console, so we keep them there, but no such a thing in the Taycan as I like to keep things super clean and ergonomic, so keeping it in a pocket, center cubby or storage below, is not something I like. This setup, is out of the way and I do not see it when I am driving.

 

[OzzieT]

I can only comment on this " Garage door remote control does not work through the front windscreen, again if I wind down the window and activate from outside the car."

I have mine for 4 weeks but only driven a few times due to PPF redo and work and family travel.
I have thermal glass and after configuring Home Link, I was surprised there are no more overhead console buttons, and it is all a screen pop up, when I need to focus on Surround View as I am backing out of the garage or going into the garage, and you have to hold it down, basically a mess I cannot deal with, but I gave it as many tries as I could before giving up. However, I did not want a clip on garage opener on my visors, so I removed the clip, put double tape velcro on it, and stuck it on the side of the central middle storage bin, so it is not visible and I can easily reach and press a button on the remote, so it is pretty deep and it has zero issues from a long distance to get to my garage opener. One thing that you might want to check is your garage remote battery, if it is low then the signal is very weak to reach your opener. I have a battery tester and make sure all my remotes and garage openers are max power.

It was indeed the garage remote battery

 

[f1eng]

I don't use much of the non-car related tech and whilst I thought I had registered CarPlay after a few months of not bothering it doesn't seem to automatically connect so back to not bothering .

I usually drive without music but do have a thumb drive with a lot of music on it for if I want to, but most of the tracks show up in a mix up in one vast "album", only a handfull of discs are listed as albums with tracks and the big "album" isn't much use for a classical music listener like me, since the movements in a work are not contiguous. This is a common problem with file based music though, and why I have mainly gone back to CDs and LPs at home so may not be all Porsche's fault.

My phone connects fine and works when I need it to without doing CarPlay which, according to the manual does disconnect the phone itself so presumably means if carplay is used the car SIM is being used for phone calls???? I didn't really look into it since carplay only worked for a day or two for me so I haven't bothered much.

I don't use voice control since I feel such a complete plonker talking to a phone/car but I can see it may be useful hands free so will try to overcome my embarassment (I even feel and idiot doing it when there is nobody else in the car).

I bought the car entirely because it suited me as a car better than any othet I could find.

I find the non-chassis or engine tech to be very much a minor part of the software engineering and a relatively inconsequential part of any car but think since there is so much of it nowadays I should get used to using some of it - but it really is something and nothing to me compared to it being a good car.

The most important part (IMHO) of the tech works brilliantly, that is the motor control, suspension dynamics, the stability control, the rear wheel steer and particularly the superb blending of the regenerative and disc brakes. I have the active anti-roll bars too which is vastly more sophicticated and important tech than getting the radio to work better, though the latter would be welcome

 

[OzzieT]

@f1eng good post. Appreciate the great things about this car and let go of the irritations. Sage advice. I'm getting there.

Sponsored