Red Circle of DEATH

[snstevens]

My GTS was bricked by the red circle of death a few weeks ago. I had driven the car the previous evening and it had about 150miles of range left in the battery. The battery was still showing the same range after the "Electrical system error" came up on the main display the next morning.

Unfortunately it was a full six days before my car was actually inspected by a Porsch technician:

• I waited a day in the hope the car would reset itself and clear the fault condition overnight (it didn't)
• The tow itself took an extra day as my car had to first be extricated on tow dollies from the sixth floor of my apartment's limited-headroom garage
• By the time it got to the dealership it was midday on a Friday and there was a long queue of other Porsche's already waiting for scheduled maintenance and mine had to wait in line
• The techs only got their first look the following Tuesday

By that time the fault condition had cleared itself so there was nothing to diagnose (Sod's Law ?) and apparently there was no history info available on the electrical system failure that had bricked the car (really ??).

My dealership tested the car over the next two weeks and were not able to find any faults in the electrical system and told me they were ready to return the car to me. Even though they were not able to find any issues with the electrical system and have given it a clean bill of health, they also can't explain why my was bricked for several days (there's no way to know when the fault condition actually cleared itself but it lasted at least 3 days). I have no confidence that this was a one-off glitch and am dreading the red circle of death reappearing at a less convenient time and location. This time it was in my own garage; the next time it might be at a rest stop on a long distance drive.

When I return from travel and pick up the car this coming week, the conversation I plan to have with the dealership is about the service protocol to employ should my car need to be towed in again with the same issue, so they can have the best shot of retrieving detailed diagnostic information while the vehicle is still in a fault condition.

For example if they assigned a technician to immediately examine my car as soon at it arrives at the dealership, that would mean jumping the queue ahead of other vehicles already in for scheduled maintenance, but without this immediate examination there is every possibility that the fault condition will reset (as it did this time) before the tech has a chance to diagnose the fault. Once fault/diagnostic info has been retrieved and an initial diagnosis completed, the car can go back to the queue and wait for an available slot for the actual repair or remediation work to be done, and the tech can get back to their planned work on other vehicles ahead in the queue.

Given the sporadic and intermittent nature of EV system faults, and the critical need to retrieve error information from the faulty EV's system, perhaps this “rapid diagnostic” protocol should be standard operating practice at all dealerships.

This is a great user community and I've learned a lot over the past couple of years, so I'd appreciate any thoughts, advice and suggestions you all might have.

Thanks ...

One small addition to your suggested protocol. I would suggest taking pictures of the dash every time you get in the car when the red circle of death has happened. You want to be able to show with a timestamped series of photos how long this event is lasting.

And of course you could get one of those obd system monitors and record its result.

Perhaps you already are doing these things.

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[whitex]

My GTS was bricked by the red circle of death a few weeks ago. I had driven the car the previous evening and it had about 150miles of range left in the battery. The battery was still showing the same range after the "Electrical system error" came up on the main display the next morning.

Unfortunately it was a full six days before my car was actually inspected by a Porsch technician:

• I waited a day in the hope the car would reset itself and clear the fault condition overnight (it didn't)
• The tow itself took an extra day as my car had to first be extricated on tow dollies from the sixth floor of my apartment's limited-headroom garage
• By the time it got to the dealership it was midday on a Friday and there was a long queue of other Porsche's already waiting for scheduled maintenance and mine had to wait in line
• The techs only got their first look the following Tuesday

By that time the fault condition had cleared itself so there was nothing to diagnose (Sod's Law ?) and apparently there was no history info available on the electrical system failure that had bricked the car (really ??).

My dealership tested the car over the next two weeks and were not able to find any faults in the electrical system and told me they were ready to return the car to me. Even though they were not able to find any issues with the electrical system and have given it a clean bill of health, they also can't explain why my was bricked for several days (there's no way to know when the fault condition actually cleared itself but it lasted at least 3 days). I have no confidence that this was a one-off glitch and am dreading the red circle of death reappearing at a less convenient time and location. This time it was in my own garage; the next time it might be at a rest stop on a long distance drive.

When I return from travel and pick up the car this coming week, the conversation I plan to have with the dealership is about the service protocol to employ should my car need to be towed in again with the same issue, so they can have the best shot of retrieving detailed diagnostic information while the vehicle is still in a fault condition.

For example if they assigned a technician to immediately examine my car as soon at it arrives at the dealership, that would mean jumping the queue ahead of other vehicles already in for scheduled maintenance, but without this immediate examination there is every possibility that the fault condition will reset (as it did this time) before the tech has a chance to diagnose the fault. Once fault/diagnostic info has been retrieved and an initial diagnosis completed, the car can go back to the queue and wait for an available slot for the actual repair or remediation work to be done, and the tech can get back to their planned work on other vehicles ahead in the queue.

Given the sporadic and intermittent nature of EV system faults, and the critical need to retrieve error information from the faulty EV's system, perhaps this “rapid diagnostic” protocol should be standard operating practice at all dealerships.

This is a great user community and I've learned a lot over the past couple of years, so I'd appreciate any thoughts, advice and suggestions you all might have.

Thanks ...

If only Porsche had remote diagnostics. In my decade of driving Teslas, the ability of service to login to my car remotely to diagnose came handy 3 times. Two of those time not only did they diagnose the problem, but also fixed it remotely - no waiting for an appointment, dropping car off etc. First time they took overnight (they told me they’d schedule a tech to work on it overnight and car will not be drivable), second time took about an hour from the time I sent them a message, to the time they messages me back that they fixed the issue (which I confirmed was fixed).

That said, maybe Porsche dealer should give you an inexpensive OBD scanner which can at least pull all the error codes should this error show up again. Not sure if OBDeleven works with Taycan - it has a very simple user interface for error codes reading. I know CarScanner does, with probably a slightly steeper learning curve. None of this should be necessary if Porsche just thought ahead, allow customer to trigger an error code scan to be stored at any time in the car until service retrieves it (even locally if Porsche is still learning cloud tech).

 

[whitex]

'A better process' would cost Porsche a lot more money. Replacing an HV battery with local inventory instead of replacing modules would mean higher spare parts inventory costs.

Replacing modules means waiting for a limited number of fly-in battery techs to schedule travel to the dealership. Still less cost (and potential liability) to Porsche than training techs at every dealership.

It costs PorscheNA much less to pay for your loaner for 3 - 4 months than its expenses to quickly repair the HV battery problem.

POSIWID: Purpose of the system is what it does.

I respectfully disagree.

First, a simple improvement could be to use loaner batteries on hand instead of loaner cars. I suspect 3-4 months of loaner battery is cheaper than 3-4 months of Taycan loaner.

Second, they could just learn from others who have more experience in this (like they should have with PMC+/PMCC fiasco saga, completely avoidable as Tesla went through the same a decade ago, except it took Tesla 3 months to come to the same conclusion it took Porsche 5 years). Tesla used to repair batteries at each service center too, then they realized it’s expensive, so today they just replace the whole battery with either new or refurbished one which they either keep in stock or can ship within a day or two. You as a customer are guaranteed to get same capacity or better (on occasion you might actually get a higher capacity battery if you had a smaller battery to start with).

Maybe there are even better solutions to keep customers happy, I don’t know, but at the very least why is Porsche refusing to learn from other companies’ lessons?

 

[violuma]

Tesla used to repair batteries at each service center too, then they realized it’s expensive, so today they just replace the whole battery with either new or refurbished one which they either keep in stock or can ship within a day or two.

I'm a bit leery of entering into this because you seem to have so much more domain knowledge than I do, but it would seem to me like there are a couple of key factors there that might make that choice not quite so simple.

1. Factoring all of the externalities involving shipping batteries that weigh >500kg a piece across a continent as large as America, including pollution and road damage &c, it's conceivable that local repair could be more competitive, especially given:

2. There seem to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 Teslas on the road in the USA (somewhere around 2 million) for every Taycan (maybe 40,000?). I think that makes some strategies far more practical for Tesla than they would be for Porsche here, perhaps including this one.

 

[whitex]

Guses the problem for Porsche is that the design is not intended to cater for a quick battery drop or swap. Like the design for Nio which can change a battery fully automated. Perhaps it would be better to have a few centres where they can change modules in a more factory like environment, while providing a stock of refurbished batteries.

I am a bit surprised that Porsche takes so long to do these repairs since one of the initial sales arguments, was for the possibility to exchange modules easily. I can understand the complicated process of repairing a battery with all the safety and sealing aspects etc. But just unplugging the battery from the car should be ( could be as proven by Nio) much easier!

Swapping an entire battery is much easier than opening the battery to swap modules. The latter requires not just more work, but higher level techs who know how to take appropriate precautions. I’m going to guess that once you disable the battery via opening the fireman’s loop, the battery is very safe to handle (as far as electrical safety) because 800V is completely shut off to any connector accessible from the outside of the battery. When you open the battery however, there are live voltages all over the place, which can kill you.

 

[whitex]

I'm a bit leery of entering into this because you seem to have so much more domain knowledge than I do, but it would seem to me like there are a couple of key factors there that might make that choice not quite so simple.

1. Factoring all of the externalities involving shipping batteries that weigh >500kg a piece across a continent as large as America, including pollution and road damage &c, it's conceivable that local repair could be more competitive, especially given:

2. There seem to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 Teslas on the road in the USA (somewhere around 2 million) for every Taycan (maybe 40,000?). I think that makes some strategies far more practical for Tesla than they would be for Porsche here, perhaps including this one.

Batteries should be nicely crated, stackable. Shipping a 2 ton car, privately coast to coast recently ran me $1,800. You could ship 4 500kg batteries cheaper than that, and that's a retail shipping price to private customers. Bulk freight shipping is significantly cheaper. Porsche charges $1,650 to deliver a Macan EV from Germany, and that includes pre-delivery inspection and profit for both dealer and corporate. A plane ticket, hotel and meals will run Porsche more than shipping a battery via bulk freight shipping. Let's not forget that the loaner car also needs to be shipped to the dealer (it will not be shipped back, but it would be comparable to shipping a few loaner batteries to the dealer to permanently keep as loaners).

Yes, there are many more Teslas around, but they do the same swap procedure for Model S/X as well which has way lower volumes, and IIRC they started this swap before Model 3 came out, so it must have been already been cheaper at lower volumes too. The fact that they stuck with this procedure means it worked - Tesla changes things which don't work out very quickly.

This of course is all my speculation. There may be things I have not considered or am not privy of. However, it is fair to say that the Porsche battery repair customer experience today is not something which will keep customers coming back. Sticking someone who is paying for few thousand dollars a month lease into a base Macan for months is absolutely going to anger a lot of customers. I've heard of customers getting their lease payments covered by Porsche while in service, but at over $4K a month (Turbo S lease with $25K down), I'm going to guess it quickly adds up. Even a base Taycan with no option leases at ~$1,500, so 3-6 months of that is still very expensive compared to shipping prices.

 

[violuma]

Let's not forget that the loaner car also needs to be shipped to the dealer

I was deliberately ignoring that, but probably shouldn't have been, because:

Sticking someone who is paying for few thousand dollars a month lease into a base Macan for months is absolutely going to anger a lot of customers

...this was what I had in mind for that, and you're right. Extrapolating my several-days-worth experience of what I call "lawnmower mode" into several months would indeed be frustrating, although perhaps less so if it was one of the new electric Macans that would presumably not be so deserving of the "lawnmower" sobriquet.

 

[whitex]

I was deliberately ignoring that, but probably shouldn't have been, because:



...this was what I had in mind for that, and you're right. Extrapolating my several-days-worth experience of what I call "lawnmower mode" into several months would indeed be frustrating, although perhaps less so if it was one of the new electric Macans that would presumably not be so deserving of the "lawnmower" sobriquet.

Macan EV would definitely be more palatable for daily driving over the ICE. That said, I have a feeling it would be a base model, which would not compare to a Taycan Turbo for example, plus I have a feeling Porsche would balk at at taking it on road trips to Canada, coast to coast, or to the track (same usage as would customer would use their own car).

 

[Scandinavian]

Swapping an entire battery is much easier than opening the battery to swap modules. The latter requires not just more work, but higher level techs who know how to take appropriate precautions. I’m going to guess that once you disable the battery via opening the fireman’s loop, the battery is very safe to handle (as far as electrical safety) because 800V is completely shut off to any connector on the outside of the battery. When you open the battery however, there are live voltages all over the place.

Yes I completely agree with that. But I think Porsche have made it a bit more complicated since they have some equipment bolted on top of the battery like the HV battery controller and e module or what ever it was called. There is probably also a much better cooling design for the Taycan battery that makes a quick battery swap more difficult, but not impossible.

But the idea of loaner batteries and a module change facility in different regions would make a lot of sense. Skilled persons and necessary space and equipment in one place. Overnight transport in most countries is available. US probably needs a number of such centres though.

I guess in the end there was a problem with the Porsche supply chain for battery cells that is hitting them hard now. Either a problem with the design of the cells, manufacturing issues or a lack of quality control. Hopefully that has been addressed and we will be able to avoid these issues in future.

 

[whitex]

Yes I completely agree with that. But I think Porsche have made it a bit more complicated since they have some equipment bolted on top of the battery like the HV battery controller and e module or what ever it was called. There is probably also a much better cooling design for the Taycan battery that makes a quick battery swap more difficult, but not impossible.

I've seen the batteries dropped from a Taycan, it's not that bad. Yes you may have to drain the cooling loop (I am not certain), but I'm going to guess battery swap will be less than a day worth of work. If they know they need 3-6 months to get the original battery fixed, the extra few hours of labor will easily pay for itself by not having to pay for a Porsche loaner, only the Porsche loaner battery. I know there is a second swap to put the new battery back in, but one swap will be required no matter what - there is no replacing modules unless the battery is completely removed from the car.

 

[Vim Schrotnock]

Swapping an entire battery is much easier than opening the battery to swap modules. The latter requires not just more work, but higher level techs who know how to take appropriate precautions. I’m going to guess that once you disable the battery via opening the fireman’s loop, the battery is very safe to handle (as far as electrical safety) because 800V is completely shut off to any connector accessible from the outside of the battery. When you open the battery however, there are live voltages all over the place, which can kill you.

This is absolutely correct. I was told that replacing the battery is very simple - a few hours that doesn't require a specialized technician. Module replacement is much more difficult, and requires a specialized technician, which, when I had my modules replaced, there were only 11 in the country. I spoke with the Certified Battery Technician when I picked up my replaced battery, and he was showing the staff how to 'reseal' the battery. It was a very precise task, involving an automated sealing dispenser that extruded a garden-hose size bead of sealant around the entire perimeter of the battery section that was opened.

I really like the idea of using 'loaner' batteries. This wouldn't cost Porsche a lot, in comparison to keeping your car for weeks or months. I think this solution fits well with shipping the batteries to a remote location. They wouldn't need a lot of loaner batteries, and the goodwill resulting would be tremendous. Hopefully they'll listen.?

 

[MAPC]

UPDATE:

Status- will have full DX by early next week- to determine how many cells need to be replaced and how long to get the parts

Loaner- swapped out the Panamera 4 today for a base Taycan with fewer than 1000 miles on it. Seems fine so far, but the spec of this car is, IMO, a bit unique:
Base model, white, black standard interior( no full leather)
- PID
- HID
- Sport Chrono
- Passenger Display

I am not complaining, just thought it was an odd combo of options for a base model

More to come....

 

[MAPC]

Surprise (to me) about driving the base model: I am seeing 270-275 miles of range. While I have not taken it all the way down to truly validate, the combo of 'remaining range' and 'miles traveled' on my last few charges have been in this range.

 

[Caraholic]

Surprise (to me) about driving the base model: I am seeing 270-275 miles of range. While I have not taken it all the way down to truly validate, the combo of 'remaining range' and 'miles traveled' on my last few charges have been in this range.

Same here at 100% I get 350 miles of range on the guess o meter. Just took it on a long road trip 75-80mph and got about 300 per 100% charge. While my Turbo (driven the exact same way) get 265 on the guess I meter and about 210 miles on a road trip. Had the loaner for over two months and over 4,000 miles so it’s fully adapted to my driving.

 

[MAPC]

LATEST UPDATE: Patience wearing thin

Dealer (who has been very good so far) called me the other day to say that all tests have been done and waiting to hear back from Porsche on how they want to resolve. I asked how long that typically takes and he said 1-2 weeks. I told him that wasn't really acceptable and he agreed and told me to call Porsche. I did.

Porsche was very polite, responsive, asked a lot of questions, documented my comments etc and said that they'd get back to me within 24 hours.

They got back to me within an hour (impressive) and said that they spoke with the Service Manager and that they were waiting for parts. COMPLETELY different story than what the dealer told me. Further, I was told that that message came from the specific service manager (by name). That person, however, had not been in the dealership in the past 2 days.

Where I stand: no idea. I don't know if the hold up is Porsche decision or if dealer parts. My SA was very specific that he was standing with the tech, under the car, with the battery out, and waiting on decision from Porsche as to how much of the battery had to be replaced.

Not sure where I go from here other than to wait to speak directly with the service manager when he, hopefully, returns on Monday.

......sigh.....

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