What happens after 8 year battery warranty?

[Gino]

It is.

Nothing to do with this. the built in charger is for both 120V and 240V, same plugs, wires, same wires, same onboard charger. The 120V bulletin was because L1 charging is very slow, which keeps the car awake too much, which further eats up the battery charge. I'd forger 120V charging unless it's an emergency. I've been charging using 240V/80A/19.2KW for over a year and half, no issues.

Thanks. Until I can figure out how to get 220 to my garage I’m stuck. My association won’t let me dig up the common driveway between my home & garage so I may not get 220 until I buy a second home and park my Taycan there.
I need extra garage spaces anyway…

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[whitex]

Thanks. Until I can figure out how to get 220 to my garage I’m stuck. My association won’t let me dig up the common driveway between my home & garage so I may not get 220 until I buy a second home and park my Taycan there.
I need extra garage spaces anyway…

Talk to an electrician. If you have more than one 120V circuit in your garage, you might be able to repurpose one of them for 240V, since most wiring which can handle 120V is certified for 240V as well. This would involve replacing the one breaker for a 240V one, same amperage, then either:

1. Replacing all wall sockets on that one breaker with 240V - 15A or 20A depending on your breaker and wiring.
2. Disabling/removing all wall sockets on that one breaker and hard wiring a 12A or 16A EVSE (80% of your breaker capacity)

240V using 12A (15A breaker+wiring) would give you 2.9KW, 240V using 16A will give you 3.8KW. This should be sufficient to charge your car overnight for most daily driving.

Again, talk with your electrician as to applicable codes, but the main point here is that 120V wiring is the same as 240V wiring (for the same current/amps). I know of townhomes which did this for all residents in their garages - it required no new wiring to be put in, provided sufficient charging for most people daily EV driving. At 3.8KW you can fill the Taycan from 0% to 100% in ~26hrs, but do you really use a full charge every single day?

 

[MnLakeBum]

As the original owner of a 2015 Model S and a 2023 Audi E Tron GT, I’ll give you my 2 cents. My Model S battery failed at 110,000 miles in 2021 and Tesla replaced it under warranty at zero cost. It now has 152k miles and is running perfectly. If the battery fails again the car will get sold for scrap as it’s only worth about $10-15k now. A new battery on a Tesla was $16k if their warranty hadn’t covered the cost and on a Taycan it would be more. It’s another potential cost but will only happen to a small percentage of Taycan owners unlike depreciation which hits all of us.

FWIW, boats are worse. I just replaced an outboard motor on our 2016 27 footer and it was $40k.

 

[whitex]

FWIW, boats are worse. I just replaced an outboard motor on our 2016 27 footer and it was $40k.

Wow, maybe next time consider replacing it with a Tesla drive unit and a battery or two, might be cheaper. Add a diesel generator to the boat as a range extender

 

[MnLakeBum]

Wow, maybe next time consider replacing it with a Tesla drive unit and a battery or two, might be cheaper. Add a diesel generator to the boat as a range extender

I’m age 59 and have been around boats from the beginning. They are the dumbest toy to own but they are somehow worth it.

 

[Gino]

Talk to an electrician. If you have more than one 120V circuit in your garage, you might be able to repurpose one of them for 240V, since most wiring which can handle 120V is certified for 240V as well. This would involve replacing the one breaker for a 240V one, same amperage, then either:

1. Replacing all wall sockets on that one breaker with 240V - 15A or 20A depending on your breaker and wiring.
2. Disabling/removing all wall sockets on that one breaker and hard wiring a 12A or 16A EVSE (80% of your breaker capacity)

240V using 12A (15A breaker+wiring) would give you 2.9KW, 240V using 16A will give you 3.8KW. This should be sufficient to charge your car overnight for most daily driving.

Again, talk with your electrician as to applicable codes, but the main point here is that 120V wiring is the same as 240V wiring (for the same current/amps). I know of townhomes which did this for all residents in their garages - it required no new wiring to be put in, provided sufficient charging for most people daily EV driving. At 3.8KW you can fill the Taycan from 0% to 100% in ~26hrs, but do you really use a full charge every single day?

I can’t get any electrician to touch the job because I only have a 12/2 romex & 14/2 romex which is the minimum required by code where the 14/2 is for lighting only and the 12/2 is for the garage door opener & outlets.
I would need to pull both out and run 8/3 to a new junction box in the garage but the fact the existing 2 romex cables are 80 feet away from the panel through a buried 1/2” steel EMT.
All the electricians fear the cables could break underground underneath the common association driveway and require them to dig it up to replace the EMT which is likely rusted through and packed with dried mud after 40 years.
I’m screwed if the cables break when I try to pull them. I’d be on the hook to dig up and repave after running new EMT and the 8/3 wire.
The fact I can’t increase the main above 100A mean I would only be able to use 20A max at 220 so I’m

Talk to an electrician. If you have more than one 120V circuit in your garage, you might be able to repurpose one of them for 240V, since most wiring which can handle 120V is certified for 240V as well. This would involve replacing the one breaker for a 240V one, same amperage, then either:

1. Replacing all wall sockets on that one breaker with 240V - 15A or 20A depending on your breaker and wiring.
2. Disabling/removing all wall sockets on that one breaker and hard wiring a 12A or 16A EVSE (80% of your breaker capacity)

240V using 12A (15A breaker+wiring) would give you 2.9KW, 240V using 16A will give you 3.8KW. This should be sufficient to charge your car overnight for most daily driving.

Again, talk with your electrician as to applicable codes, but the main point here is that 120V wiring is the same as 240V wiring (for the same current/amps). I know of townhomes which did this for all residents in their garages - it required no new wiring to be put in, provided sufficient charging for most people daily EV driving. At 3.8KW you can fill the Taycan from 0% to 100% in ~26hrs, but do you really use a full charge every single day?

code requires I have two separate circuits in my garage. One 12/2 20A for the garage door opener/outlets & one 14/2 15A dedicated for lighting only.
I have no additional spaces for breakers in my 100A breaker panel inside. Even if I pull new 8/3 wire and add a subpanel in my garage I’ll be limited to 20A total at 240V because of my limited 100A main I wouldn’t be able to more than 12A with all the other loads in the garage (fridge, freezer & 6 18V tool battery chargers).
I really need the 8/3 to be safe but it I combine the 12/2 & 14/2 romex at 220 to a sub panel in the garage I’ll be limited to 15A at 240v and couldn’t draw more than 7A for my Taycan.
This would surely be better than 10A at 120 for short periods less than 12 hours as Porsche strongly recommends or as I’m planning to charge at 50% or 6A on a timer every night from 9pm to 9am which would add 36-40 miles every night.
We typically don’t drive more than 200 miles in a week so 40 miles per day would be just enough for us most of the time. If I can’t increase the main to at least 125A then I’ll only get 6 miles per hour with my current 100A service where I only have 8A at 220 best case.
I will try to find an electrician confident to pull out my 80 feet of buried wiring which is 40 years old and the 1/2” EMT likely is completely rusted through. I’m amazed the builder used 1/2” EMT for an 80’ underground run to the garage. Pulling 8/3 through 1/2” EMT when it’s new is a bit tight but if it’s rusted away and packed with dried mud I could be opening a can of worms.
I’m leaning toward using my 120V charger for 12 hours every night to give us enough charge for the week at 36-40 miles per day.
I surely won’t be getting a second EV at this home. My next vehicle is likely to be a Porsche 911 convertible (ICE) or a Boxster (ICE) which will also get very light use. We don’t drive any of our 3 vehicles more than 5K to 6K miles per year and we almost always take our ICE vehicles on long trips. We use the Hummer H2 for ski trips, Airstream Interstate for camping, concerts and road trips and the Taycan around town usually never more than 100 miles in any one day and on average 30-40 miles a day.
I’m going to check the California Electric code to see if I could combine my 12/2 & 14/2 wiring to bring 240 to a sub panel but I think that is not allowed.
It could allow me to charge for a shorter time each night when we wouldn’t be using other high load appliances like the washer/dryer and get twice as many miles in half the time.
Thanks for the suggestions!

 

[whitex]

I’m going to check the California Electric code to see if I could combine my 12/2 & 14/2 wiring to bring 240 to a sub panel but I think that is not allowed.

I wasn't suggesting to combine. Just ask if you can move the lights onto the 12/2 (get some LED lighting that draws little power), and switch the 14/2 to 240V on which install a 12A EVSE, which will give you 2.9KW charging, sufficient for your needs as you describe them.

 

[CJW]

My biggest fear with this car is that it depreciates a ton more because no one will want a car this expensive out of warranty (I mean, I wouldn't). I'm hoping they prove to be solid long term, but I still hear of a bunch of issue that scare me.

 

[Gino]

My biggest fear with this car is that it depreciates a ton more because no one will want a car this expensive out of warranty (I mean, I wouldn't). I'm hoping they prove to be solid long term, but I still hear of a bunch of issue that scare me.

I’m in for the long term. They’ll bury me in my Taycan so I’m not worried about resale value…

 

[Gino]

I wasn't suggesting to combine. Just ask if you can move the lights onto the 12/2 (get some LED lighting that draws little power), and switch the 14/2 to 240V on which install a 12A EVSE, which will give you 2.9KW charging, sufficient for your needs as you describe them.

I’ll ask but code is pretty specific that I must have a 15A dedicated circuit for lighting and a dedicated circuit for the garage door opener & everything else in the garage. I think the only way I could do that is if I add a sub panel in the garage which I could then have a dedicated circuit for lighting, a dedicated circuit for the opener & outlets and then a 220 circuit for the charger. It’s worth asking an electrician to see if it is ok to do.

 

[whitex]

There are risks with ICE vehicles but they are well understood with decades of safe operation. A lithium ion battery only needs a pinhole to allow moisture into the pack leading to arcing. The last LG recall on their battery packs was due to a failed batch of adhesive which would allow the seams of an individual battery pouch to become open to ambient air. This failure just like a pinhole would lead to arcing and a runaway fire.

Last I checked the stats, there are significantly more ICE car fires per million miles driven than EV fires.

 

[Gino]

Last I checked the stats, there are significantly more ICE car fires per million miles driven than EV fires.

Very interesting. I wonder if that includes all the hybrids like the Prius which have much smaller battery packs with much lower energy density than full EVs from the last 10 years. Even the Tesla’s use traditional cells which are not as easy to breach the package. The LG battery design is encased in a soft thin pouch which is much easier to breach. I would love to see the fire statistics for the different lithium battery pack designs.
The bigger the batteries have become the thinner the materials which encase the lithium have become in order to increase the energy density year after year. There is however a big difference in an ICE vehicle fire and a lithium battery fire. The lithium battery fire is much hotter and much more difficult to extinguish.
I just saw a tractor trailer EV in San Diego that caught fire in the highway. There was nothing left but a small pile of metal & ash where the vehicle was. Several fire trucks couldn’t extinguish the fire so it burned until it ran out of fuel and the firemen focused on making sure nothing in proximity to the fire would be damaged.
In the 1900s there were electric cars. One manufacturer was Baker. In those days the sales pitch against gas/diesel cars was the risk of fire carrying around a large tank of extremely flammable fuel. Concern was overblown as the vehicle manufacturers engineered around the risks. They could never completely eliminate the risk of fire just as EVs will not eliminate the risk of fires.
Through trial & error they will try to squeeze as much energy out of these batteries as possible but if they go a bit too far as LG did with their recent packs that the seals would separate and allow moisture laden air into the packs.
They identified the issue quick enough to recall the affected packs but this will continue to happen for years until the battery designs & materials used become mature, stable & safe just like gas tanks in ICE vehicles have become.
Not sure how long LG and others have been making the soft pouch design but it is surely still not perfected since they don’t have enough extended life testing data to determine what adjustments will be required in their manufacturing process. They will get there at some point in the near future but I would say the existing batteries in my 2021 Taycan are a work in progress. Will they prove to be safe and reliable long term. Maybe yes but maybe no. The jury is still out…

 

[whitex]

Very interesting. I wonder if that includes all the hybrids like the Prius which have much smaller battery packs with much lower energy density than full EVs from the last 10 years. Even the Tesla’s use traditional cells which are not as easy to breach the package. The LG battery design is encased in a soft thin pouch which is much easier to breach. I would love to see the fire statistics for the different lithium battery pack designs.
The bigger the batteries have become the thinner the materials which encase the lithium have become in order to increase the energy density year after year. There is however a big difference in an ICE vehicle fire and a lithium battery fire. The lithium battery fire is much hotter and much more difficult to extinguish.
I just saw a tractor trailer EV in San Diego that caught fire in the highway. There was nothing left but a small pile of metal & ash where the vehicle was. Several fire trucks couldn’t extinguish the fire so it burned until it ran out of fuel and the firemen focused on making sure nothing in proximity to the fire would be damaged.
In the 1900s there were electric cars. One manufacturer was Baker. In those days the sales pitch against gas/diesel cars was the risk of fire carrying around a large tank of extremely flammable fuel. Concern was overblown as the vehicle manufacturers engineered around the risks. They could never completely eliminate the risk of fire just as EVs will not eliminate the risk of fires.
Through trial & error they will try to squeeze as much energy out of these batteries as possible but if they go a bit too far as LG did with their recent packs that the seals would separate and allow moisture laden air into the packs.
They identified the issue quick enough to recall the affected packs but this will continue to happen for years until the battery designs & materials used become mature, stable & safe just like gas tanks in ICE vehicles have become.
Not sure how long LG and others have been making the soft pouch design but it is surely still not perfected since they don’t have enough extended life testing data to determine what adjustments will be required in their manufacturing process. They will get there at some point in the near future but I would say the existing batteries in my 2021 Taycan are a work in progress. Will they prove to be safe and reliable long term. Maybe yes but maybe no. The jury is still out…

The stats I was looking at a little while back I think were from NHTSA, so USA market only, which has been dominated by Teslas so far. Also, ICE cars include a much larger portion of really old cars, which I think also contributes to them catching on fire (not many 20 year old EV's driving around barely maintained).

Yes, EV fires are harder to put out, but personally I think this is a temporary problem, just like diesel fires were harder to put out than gasoline (diesel fire cannot just be starved of oxygen, hence its use in submarines), and gasoline being harder to put out than wood, etc, etc. Eventually the fire fighting technology will catch up.

 

[rb33gl]

if you want to talk about boats or EV charging, can you please start a new thread?

 

[D00notD00d]

I’m in for the long term. They’ll bury me in my Taycan so I’m not worried about resale value…

A recovery truck may be needed to take you to your final resting place.

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