March 2018 Top Gear Article Suggests Battery upgrade service possible

[DCYL725]

Was browsing around old articles and found this old Top Gear one from March 2018:

https://www.topgear.com/car-news/geneva-motor-show/2019-porsche-taycan-full-lowdown

Going a bit down, it says:

"Weckbach says Porsche will offer over-the-air software updates. It's also possible the company will offer owners the chance to upgrade their entire batteries when better ones become available."

Anyone else come across anything similar in a more recent article, interview or corporate press release?

Sponsored

 

[f1eng]

I hadn't seen this but it makes sense and I had expected such a thing would be available to comply with Porsche's philosophy of always keeping older cars going.

Older flat-6 engines are rebuilt with improved parts where appropriate and I had always assumed the same should apply to rebuilding or replacing batteries.

 

[FredC057]

I can’t even imagine the price!
I would ask a quote for the new model with also new more efficient engine before going in that direction.

 

[DCYL725]

I can’t even imagine the price!
I would ask a quote for the new model with also new more efficient engine before going in that direction.

Hard to say.
If at that time battery prices have come down, especially the older chemistry.

 

[f1eng]

I can’t even imagine the price!
I would ask a quote for the new model with also new more efficient engine before going in that direction.

Well it is expensive to rebuild an engine and gearbox and replace the clutch in older cars but people do it if they like the car.

My concern with the longevity of my Taycan is the unknown reliability of the electronics and displays.
Old digital cameras and smart speakers etc continue working as well as when new for many years IME, only ‘phones and computers ”need” replacing fairly often and that is deliberate adding of often completely un-needed software changes designed to rob the customer IMO.
I am annoyed by it.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Well it is expensive to rebuild an engine and gearbox and replace the clutch in older cars but people do it if they like the car.

My concern with the longevity of my Taycan is the unknown reliability of the electronics and displays.
Old digital cameras and smart speakers etc continue working as well as when new for many years IME, only ‘phones and computers ”need” replacing fairly often and that is deliberate adding of often completely un-needed software changes designed to rob the customer IMO.
I am annoyed by it.

+1 on ^.
Rebuilding an engine (especially a flat one) is an expensive ordeal. This is what kept the prices of aircooleds so low until the affluent discovered them. This is what keeps the price low on other, otherwise great Porsches (early gen watercooleds).

Software doesn’t decay in a steady state (well, maybe, every now and then someone increments past INT_MAX, but that’s rare). What does break older electronics are age (on the physical parts) and updates (on the software). I actually applaud Porsche for their conservative approach to OTA.

 

[mystermykee]

I actually applaud Porsche for their conservative approach to OTA.

Agreed. That is more or less an effect from Porsche not being a tech company.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Agreed. That is more or less an effect from Porsche not being a tech company.

Did you mean to say that Porsche is not a software company? If so, then yes/maybe; these guys were writing "software" for modeling cam profiles in the late 50s, managing dual clutches in race gearboxes 70s-80s, and all of the 959 relies heavily on custom programming of a myriad of circuits.

I find their UX software to be solid - does what I need, it's fairly responsive, and reliable. It has some clunkiness to it (scrolling in the tubes, for instance - better on my 8-year-younger still-Porsche ICE than in the Taycan, nav is another area where it's.. "peculiar").

My daily job is working on a product that provides availability and robustness to software services (at cloud scale) - in essence defense against effects of change. It's hard. I'm not kidding that I prefer my car to not be upgraded over the air; I respect Tesla for their achievements and record in this area, but I absolutely do not consider Porsche to be inferior for not providing functional parity. It's a choice.

Oh, and in any other, non-software respect, I'd say Porsche is the tech company. (Yes, at-feye, even more than Zeekr. )

 

[mystermykee]

Did you mean to say that Porsche is not a software company? If so, then yes/maybe; these guys were writing "software" for modeling cam profiles in the late 50s, managing dual clutches in race gearboxes 70s-80s, and all of the 959 relies heavily on custom programming of a myriad of circuits.

I find their UX software to be solid - does what I need, it's fairly responsive, and reliable. It has some clunkiness to it (scrolling in the tubes, for instance - better on my 8-year-younger still-Porsche ICE than in the Taycan, nav is another area where it's.. "peculiar").

My daily job is working on a product that provides availability and robustness to software services (at cloud scale) - in essence defense against effects of change. It's hard. I'm not kidding that I prefer my car to not be upgraded over the air; I respect Tesla for their achievements and record in this area, but I absolutely do not consider Porsche to be inferior for not providing functional parity. It's a choice.

Oh, and in any other, non-software respect, I'd say Porsche is the tech company. (Yes, at-feye, even more than Zeekr. )

Oh come on, you know what I mean...

Sponsored