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A case for automatic overboost

whitex

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I was driving a few days ago. As I was passing a truck in an exit lane, he suddenly got confused by the road signage and decided he needed to get over fast (he didn't, as both lanes exited, but the sign might have been interpreted as only one lane was exiting). In the process, he almost ran me off the road. The saving grace was my Taycan's ability to emergency accelerate from 60mph up. Coincidentally, there was some car parts debris one the side of the road at about the same time, so perhaps some other trucker got confused at the exact same sport but the car next to him was not as quick as my Taycan Turbo.

In situation like this, having overboost available for all trims whenever the accelerator pedal hits the floor, would be very beneficial in avoiding accidents like this. Don't get me wrong, I get why for racing purposes, to improve lap repeatability, you want to have something like push-to-pass or attack mode, as it allows you to choose when your 12 seconds of extra power are unleashed - always at the same spots of the lap, not having to worry about accidentally pushing the accelerator pedal too far and using it up in a less than optimal part of the track. However, for regular road driving, there should be an option to just lock the overboost to be always available whenever accelerator is pushed far enough. My wife's Audi eTron does this - you have to enable it by switching to Sport (vs. Drive), but it's there. It is also shown on the instrument cluster power gauge, so the driver can always see if it's available and for how long. All of our Teslas also did this, not even special drive mode required - even in Chill mode, if the accelerator hits the floor, the car would unleash full available power. So for Taycans, for regular road driving, it seems automatic overboost would be the safest option, so that in an emergency situation you get access to full power without having to think about pressing extra buttons. Has nobody at Porsche thought of it, or would that screw up their trim pricing?

PS> I know push-to-pass and attack-mode are only available on 2025 Taycans, 2024 and older have the overboost locked behind Launch Control mode, which is only useful for drag racing. Maybe is hasn't occurred to Porsche engineers that even temporary boost can be beneficial, even in racing, then they learned that others do it and benefit from it? Or perhaps Porsche was scared that overboost would wear the battery too much, so they locked it under a mode most customers rarely or never use, then after 4 years they learned it's not so damaging, so they added push-to-pass option to 2025 Taycans, but of course no retrofit for older ones (at least from the OEM).
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Murph7355

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I agree it should be available all the time.

Warp speed or not, I never go up the inside of articulated trucks. The sort of thing you had on video happens all too frequently.
 
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whitex

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I agree it should be available all the time.
My suggestion is that it should be a (persistent) drive mode setting, push-to-pass/attack-mode, or auto/on-demand. When in auto, it should show as overboost power on the power meter in the instrument cluster and be activated when accelerator pedal goes far enough. When not in auto, activate overboost manually with a button or paddles - useful for racing around a track. If they wanted to be fancy, they could have the push to pass button accept a puss-and-turn to lock it in the pressed position, which would signal to the car that overboost should always be available. Then for racing, you turn it back to release it, so it's pressable again. For old Taycans, it should just be a setting in the PCM somewhere to enable auto-overboost on demand, with some info text warning about possible inconsistencies in track driving.
 

Murph7355

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Nobody's racing Taycans. Spending any time whatsoever pretending they are is wasted development cycles ? (Though as a "Weissach package" proves beyond doubt, there's huge money in fripperies).

As you note, a marker on the driver's display and a kick down style function would be fine and keeps it simple.

But as we know, Porsche aren't interested in J1 now. So any hope of that, especially with all the other easy to overcome shortfalls already on the list, is zero.
 

rim23

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While I’d also do what you did, most of the people (and authorities are also suggesting that) would just press the brake pedal. As a result regardless of a cars HP, it’d be quicker to escape from this situation.
 


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whitex

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whitex

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While I’d also do what you did, most of the people (and authorities are also suggesting that) would just press the brake pedal. As a result regardless of a cars HP, it’d be quicker to escape from this situation.
While that and/or laying on the horn and hoping the truck driver wakes up are valid options, rapidly decelerating risks getting hit from behind. Since as a driver I spend most of my time looking ahead, if I see there is open road in front of me, and I can accelerate, that is the safer option than hitting the brake and hoping the driver behind me is paying attention, has good reflexes, and/or is not on their phone.
 


Sly_North

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This situation is why in most European countries, passing a vehicle on the right lane is forbidden - even if to take an exit (unless the main lanes are jammed).
In Switzerland, this could cost a few hundreds CHF and several months of suspended license.
 

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it's simply stupid that porsche is still to it's legacy "ICE" roots that maximum performance is behind a settings - at most I should have to put it in sports/sports-plus - other than that it should "just" work...

my 2020 Taycan Turbo was quick - but if in normal mode and sitting a stop light un prepared a Model Y is quicker off the line and will out accelerate one of the worlds most powerful EV's

Porsche is going to have to re-think some of their approach to EV's (one pedal driving should be an option but not a requirement).
 

n3ophyte

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Flooring it has saved me a couple of times when mentalists have nearly T-boned me from a side junction. Having 800+ hp always available via RedShift’s ECU tune helped in this respect. The boost has to be instantly available via the throttle pedal for emergency situations. I wouldn’t have had time to find and hit a push-to-pass button on the steering wheel!
 

O2TheL

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I had the same situation this morning on the way to work with a truck moving left into my lane.
Was on my Ducati Multistrada and was able to skooch forward quickly.

Overboost can be a nice thing - but for sure I'd abuse it :confused: (just being honest)
 
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whitex

whitex

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This situation is why in most European countries, passing a vehicle on the right lane is forbidden - even if to take an exit (unless the main lanes are jammed).
In Switzerland, this could cost a few hundreds CHF and several months of suspended license.
IIRC you would also get a ticket for "camping out" in the left-most lane doing under speed limit, not getting over to the right to let people pass. I would love if we had such rules here, but sadly we don't, so we're stuck driving the American way, often forced to pass on the right.
 

Sly_North

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IIRC you would also get a ticket for "camping out" in the left-most lane doing under speed limit
Correct (almost). One rule cannot go without the other. One cannot pass/overtake on the right; but also: one must not stay on the left if the lane on the right is free (unrelated to the speed limit).
"Drive on the right, overtake on the left".
 

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All of our Teslas also did this, not even special drive mode required - even in Chill mode, if the accelerator hits the floor, the car would unleash full available power.
Maybe they've changed the behavior but when I had a '19 Model 3 Perf, flooring it in chill mode was pretty slow, close to economy sedan levels. Default startup mode "Sport" had full power though which was nice. I agree we should have access to overboost power without launch'ing. Something like Sport/Sport+ Mode + accel hits the floor then activate a cooldown timer on the screen. Not that it will ever happen though. Other than a few minor infotainment updates Porsche hasn't done anything to improve this gen. Once my warranty is over, I'll look into the Redshift products
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