On off button on Taycan dangerous?

[Watchesandburgers]

I'm a little surprised that the OP doesn't want to press "P" to put the car in park, nor hold down the on/off button turn turn off the car. I've never gotten out of my car without pressing "P" first. Personally, I rarely if ever use the on/off button. When I get in the car it turns on automatically. When I exit the car and press the lock button on the key fox (or touch the spot on the door handle), the car locks and turns off. The on/off button is largely redundant in this case.

My suggestion, for better or worse, is to use the "P" button to put the car in park and engage the parking break before you exit the vehicle.

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[W1NGE]

Thanks for the responses. Yes I agree the using the Park lever will get round the problem. However if the driver prefers to (or just does) use the on off switch to engage Park and turn the car off in one press (ease of use) surely the on off switch should just operate when you press it and should not have to be held down for a period. When the car shot backwards (with the door part open by the way) I could have killed someone had they been standing there. As Saturator mentioned this is probably what happened on the clip of the Taycan launching itself forward with disastrous results. The car should be programmed not to allow this.

My BMW is much more failsafe on this.

There is a visual display to confirm you have powered the car off. If you don't see it then clearly it ain't off.

I don't see an issue ot dangerous scenario at all.

 

[irrelevant]

Sometimes I read things, and fear for the future of our species.

 

[RacingDuck]

Well, it's only natural to suspect cars working quite similarly on basic aspects.

The Ioniq 5 would turn off immediately if you press the power switch at standstill (pressing the brake). It automatically engaged the parking brake. It's a sensible thing to do. Sounds like the BMW does this as well.
The Taycan does not, for whatever reason the engineers thought to do it differently.
Every car has its quirks.

The lesson to learn is: always stay alert, be aware of your surroundings and the state of your car (and learn the quirks).

 

[Isaac]

Well, it's only natural to suspect cars working quite similarly on basic aspects.

The Ioniq 5 would turn off immediately if you press the power switch at standstill (pressing the brake). It automatically engaged the parking brake. It's a sensible thing to do. Sounds like the BMW does this as well.
The Taycan does not, for whatever reason the engineers thought to do it differently.
Every car has its quirks.

The lesson to learn is: always stay alert, be aware of your surroundings and the state of your car (and learn the quirks).

This is the forum at its best I think. Looking through other threads elsewhere on the forum it seems that a few people do use the on off button as I was eg one comment "the power button puts it into park anyway (and if there's and incline I've likely engaged Hold with the brake)". I also saw one thread about a Nissan experience where the off button was reachable by the passenger, they pressed it while the car was in motion and everything locked up! Not what you want on the motorway! So my guess is that Porsche decided to have the delay to avoid problems of accidental pressing. But I do think the Ioniq and BMW system is safer because realistically the driver is the only one who can reach the button on this car and clearly wont press it while the car is in motion. The much bigger risk is that it does not turn off when pressed and stationary and then shoots off (as the video of the Taycan landing on another car shows).

We can all agree that its better to always use Park. However it seems that others like me realised that you could engage park from the off button and in my case I decided to use that as a shortcut. I wont be in the future though! (and it sends a shudder down my spine that I could have hurt someone when it shot off). Its into the dealer this week so I will post what they say. My ideal would be to have a button that does what it should when its clearly pressed home.

The rear bumper actually survived quite well on meeting the concrete wall but the camera inside did not...

Thanks for all contributions.

 

[violuma]

I guess you're not alone in this, because I remember my SA saying very clearly "if you want to turn the car off with the power button, you have to press and hold it for two seconds".

This may be dependent on what sort of seats you have, but there should be an option in the PCM under Vehicle > Comfort > Comfort Entry (move seat and steering wheel). I don't have an electrical steering wheel, so only the seat moves, but if you can, you may consider enabling this option. In addition to all of the other indicators on the instrument displays, pressing and holding the power button for the requisite two seconds causes the seat to move back, which is a very clear indicator that something has happened. The inverse is also useful, as now and again the car will not turn itself on immediately upon entering. I can tell immediately whether this has happened by whether I feel the seat begin to move or not. If it doesn't move, I know I need to press the power button to enable.

In a somewhat similar vein, if you have foldable exterior mirrors, there is a setting in the PCM whereby they fold up upon locking. My SA also strongly recommended enabling it during my orientation, as it allows easy visual confirmation from outside the car as to whether it is locked or not.

 

[ShiftyWolf]

Maybe I'm just too "old school" in my thinking. I use the start/stop button before I exit because I want to KNOW that my car is shut off when I open the door.

Feel free to add age-related jokes. It also took me a long time to stop checking my doors after I locked them... thereby unlocking them. ?

 

[seattlefox]

I'm a little surprised that the OP doesn't want to press "P" to put the car in park, nor hold down the on/off button turn turn off the car. I've never gotten out of my car without pressing "P" first. Personally, I rarely if ever use the on/off button. When I get in the car it turns on automatically. When I exit the car and press the lock button on the key fox (or touch the spot on the door handle), the car locks and turns off. The on/off button is largely redundant in this case.

My suggestion, for better or worse, is to use the "P" button to put the car in park and engage the parking break before you exit the vehicle.

> and engage the parking break before you exit the vehicle.

Wait, you mean floor the break and get to "hold"? Do we actually need to do that before exiting the car? Never thought that I should do that.

 

[whitex]

HI no you aren't doing anything wrong and selecting Park is clearly the right thing to do. But if (conditioned by years of turning cars off) you choose to just engage park by hitting the off button then beware as it may not actually be off. Cannot understand why the off button has a delay on it before it works. Quite dangerous in my view in certain circumstances.

Have you really been leaving your car in gear (or Neutral) and simply turning off the ignition for years on other cars? The off button is your ignition equivalent. Arguably, it is completely unnecessary for an EV, and Porsche semi-acknowledges that by you not even having to use it, you simply enter the vehicle, it will turn ON all by itself, and when you exit and lock the car, it will turn off (the assumption here is you exit after putting the car in part). Even in ICE cars, just shutting off the ignition while the car is in whatever gear (D, N, R) is the wrong thing to do and always has been, even on 10 year old ICE cars (with automatic transmission). In other words, you have been using the ignition wrong for years, possibly getting lucky with some cars which could automatically switch to Park when you turned the key (some older cars required a physical lever movement to switch to Park, so turning off the ignition just left the car in gear with engine off).

Side note, I find it fascinating that the dealership did not know that turning a Taycan OFF requires a longer press. There is a message on the screen that appears when you do a short press while the car is on. Accepting a car for a service in order to run diagnostics to make sure the button in fact requires a long press to turn off is just milking Porsche warranty or the customer. Unless of course they told you that but you insisted something is wrong with the button.

 

[whitex]

Thanks for the responses. Yes I agree the using the Park lever will get round the problem. However if the driver prefers to (or just does) use the on off switch to engage Park and turn the car off in one press (ease of use) surely the on off switch should just operate when you press it and should not have to be held down for a period. When the car shot backwards (with the door part open by the way) I could have killed someone had they been standing there. As Saturator mentioned this is probably what happened on the clip of the Taycan launching itself forward with disastrous results. The car should be programmed not to allow this.

My BMW is much more failsafe on this.

I suggest you get a Tesla. You don't have an ON/OFF ignition button at all, and if you forget to put the car in Park, it will do it for you as you exit the vehicle (IIRC it goes into park when you lift your butt off the seat with the driver's door open and seatbelt unbuckled). It will also beep at you before then, as soon as you open the driver's door with the car not in Park.

 

[whitex]

Well, it's only natural to suspect cars working quite similarly on basic aspects.

The Ioniq 5 would turn off immediately if you press the power switch at standstill (pressing the brake). It automatically engaged the parking brake. It's a sensible thing to do. Sounds like the BMW does this as well.
The Taycan does not, for whatever reason the engineers thought to do it differently.
Every car has its quirks.

The lesson to learn is: always stay alert, be aware of your surroundings and the state of your car (and learn the quirks).

Come on, doesn't everyone learn to put the car in Park before exiting? Sure, you can claim you were a Tesla only driver, where you can simply exit the vehicle while it's ON and in Drive and it will put itself in park when you lift yourself off the seat and shut the vehicle off when you lock it, but really, would you really want to rely on this? Would you condemn all all cars which don't automatically park themselves when the driver leaves the vehicle while in Drive?

I think in this case is the OP relied on some quirk of another manufacturer, which is missing in Porsche. No different than a Tesla driver always just exiting the vehicle while ON and still in Drive.

 

[RacingDuck]

My first "automatic" was the Ioniq 5, so no, no one taught me to always put the car in park mode manually. And even that wouldn't be enough, always engage park brake manually to be actually sure that the car won't move.

It's just that the car behaved like my cars before: press the brake, push the ignition and it's off, instantly. Added bonus: it automatically engaged parking brake and switched to park.

I don't understand why Porsche thinks it's a good idea to have to press the button for 2 seconds for the car to turn off.

 

[W1NGE]

My first "automatic" was the Ioniq 5, so no, no one taught me to always put the car in park mode manually. And even that wouldn't be enough, always engage park brake manually to be actually sure that the car won't move.

It's just that the car behaved like my cars before: press the brake, push the ignition and it's off, instantly. Added bonus: it automatically engaged parking brake and switched to park.

I don't understand why Porsche thinks it's a good idea to have to press the button for 2 seconds for the car to turn off.

For the reason that you can't inadvertently power off the car whilst driving by accident - it takes a deliberate act.

Powering off your mobile phone is a two step process.

 

[RacingDuck]

You couldn't just turn off the car while driving, you needed to be at standstill pressing the brake. It's not that hard really...

Just like you can't put a car in reverse while going forward with a manual transmission.

 

[whitex]

My first "automatic" was the Ioniq 5, so no, no one taught me to always put the car in park mode manually. And even that wouldn't be enough, always engage park brake manually to be actually sure that the car won't move.

It's just that the car behaved like my cars before: press the brake, push the ignition and it's off, instantly. Added bonus: it automatically engaged parking brake and switched to park.

I don't understand why Porsche thinks it's a good idea to have to press the button for 2 seconds for the car to turn off.

I think I see the disconnect. If you first and only car has been one of the most recent EV's, I can see how you can get confused. We allow manufacturers too much freedom to deviate from norms. Tesla's automatic blinkers with manual override using touch buttons instead of stalks, their automatic gear shifting (yep, if you never drove anything but the latest Tesla, you might assume the car will shift the gears for you, not just to park, but also Drive and Reverse), their yoke instead of a steering wheel, etc. Other manufacturers, like Hyundai obviously have their innovations. It sounds to me like there needs to be more standardization, such as "must place car in park before exiting". I do remember older cars which allowed you shut off the ignition while the car was in Drive, but you could not remove the keys from the ignition until you placed the car in Park. Perhaps we need something similar, for example do not allow the car to be locked (with appropriate audio visual warning) unless the driver puts it explicitly in Park. This would reinforce that unless you put your car in Park, even if the car does it for you, it will make you go back inside and press Park before letting you lock it. This is just an example, but generally it sounds like we need more standard for car controls.

The other approach of course is RTFM, but most people don't.

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