High Voltage Battery Recall EXPANDED - ARB6 & ARB7

[WasserGKuehlt]

I've about had it with Porsche on this car.
...
This. Is. Insanity.

Oh, I know how to fix that: Design Your Model 3 | Tesla (just click 'Order').

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[DerekS]

Oh, I know how to fix that: Design Your Model 3 | Tesla (just click 'Order').

I was very close to doing that, but I just can't give Elon money.
I truly hope he is ousted somehow as I would love to dump this car and get a performance 3. Like tomorrow.

 

[whitex]

I'd say the 911 is better in traffic than the Taycan is at the track. Now, if only the damn thing could tow..

Ok, I will have to disagree on that one. 911 makes for a horrible daily driver on WA state roads (in CA no problem, I actually used a 911 as my daily driver there, then moved with it to WA, remember selling it and thinking I’d only buy another 911 as a track car). IMHO Taycan on a track would be way more fun than a 911 on WA roads.

Now, perhaps the latest 911’s come with air suspension that can handle WA roads, but I would have to drive it for a few weeks to decide.

 

[WasserGKuehlt]

Ok, I will have to disagree on that one. 911 makes for a horrible daily driver on WA state roads (in CA no problem, I actually used a 911 as my daily driver there, then moved with it to WA, remember selling it and thinking I’d only buy another 911 as a track car). IMHO Taycan on a track would be way more fun than a 911 on WA roads.

Now, perhaps the latest 911’s come with air suspension that can handle WA roads, but I would have to drive it for a few weeks to decide.

This detour is getting detoured; I put on a fair number of miles on my 911 this summer (996, of the same age your old 911 would be now) - going to and from various track events in WA and OR. Once you get past the horrible noise, it's a very comfortable car: perfect driving position, great 360* visibility, primitive equipment makes for no distractions, and it sips fuel (300+ miles of range from a standard tank). I have a BT radio transceiver and so can even listen to music - I know the songs already, so whatever fidelity escapes the tire and engine noise is just spot-on. As I said, the damn Taycan can't tow (and I'd have to stop and charge every 5mi/min), and once at the track there just isn't any contest: the Elf can lap all day with a tank of gas, whereas the Taycan may well run out of tires before the battery boils. @bsclywilly has taken his out on the track, and may have a different perspective.

My Taycan is going to its first trackish event next weekend, for the PCA PNWR season ender. If anyone here will be in attendance, or is interested in impressions, DM me.

 

[feye]

Don't get your hopes up that Porsche will do the right thing to resolve the battery issues. Per the recall notices "Affected high-voltage battery modules will be replaced". So let's leave in a few marginal modules so that the new detection software can find them 6 months after the the first module replacement. Rinse and repeat.

The only hope I have, is that the constant battery module failures and excessive frustration by the owners will cost Porsche in hard USD more than swapping all these old unstable batteries... Will that ever happen?

 

[feye]

As for the sunken ship, the article was paywalled and I was unable to find other sources (everyone, including wikipedia linked to that article), nor was I able to find any outcomes of the case.

There is no outcome of the cases (plural!) because they are ongoing. So far they have mostly argued about "Prozesskostensicherheit", which means who has what guarantees in order to pay for legal costs, since not all parties are located in the EU. I guess it takes years till we have a final finger to point.

 

[Tooney]

Coming out publicly with this recall is a bit curious: perhaps they are legally obligated to advertise the capability of diagnosing failures, if they have (acquired) it; or perhaps they are confident in their diagnosis, and are leveraging NHTSA to minimize the potential failures (by scaring owners into not charging to full SoC). Either way, from the moment they have a high confidence solution, until that solution is made compliant/localized/scrutinized for the global markets, some considerable amount of time will pass.

One recent example, simpler to resolve than inspecting and possibly repairing batteries and installing new BMS software:

Current status in US four months later?
Per latest NHTSB "Interim" owner letter:

Porsche has complied with US vehicle safety regs. All is well.
Why should anyone be critical?

 

[whitex]

However, as someone on "the other side", that of shipping software to users and hearing/reading their criticism, my first question would be: how would it help you knowing exactly what the bug is, or what I'm doing to fix it?

Let me try to answer this question in context of this new software update. As a customer I would like to know for example if the update is going to automatically cut 20% of my car's range if I let Porsche install this update. By allowing them to install it, am I agreeing that this 20% degradation in battery capacity is separate from the 30% degradation warranty? Nowhere in the recall does it say whether there will be a hard limit imposed, and whether I should be filing a warranty claim if I notice a 30% overall lower range after this update or not. Also nowhere in the recall does it say what is the mode of failure customers can expect (will the car just stop driving, will is spontaneously catch of fire, will it give some warning before catching on fire, will it just explode, etc, etc).

Demanding communication is a sign of lack of trust, and the only cure is to ship/fix/resolve the problem, quickly and quietly. That, presumably, is where the customer satisfaction comes from.

Lack of trust is created by being overly vague and putting at least some customers through really bad experiences (e.g. car stuck in the shop for months while Porsche gets its act together diagnosing and then trying to find parts to complete the repair). Porsche is just reaping the rewards of prior experiences. How should this recall be done? Let's say "please bring in your car for a software update which will test your car's battery over a period of 2 weeks or 500 miles, whichever comes first. During that time your battery will be limited to 80% SoC. At the end of the test period, you will come in and either have the 80% limit removed or a new battery swapped in within 2 days max, while you are provided equivalent or better loaner car to drive.". If they had such a recall, and in fact deliver on such guaranteed turnaround, customers would be much more trusting the next time around.

PS> The above example recall is already accounting for Porsche's last century engineering. A modern company would have installed the test software over-the-air on all cars, collected the results, then only limited the affected customers to 80% SoC and informed them they need to come in for a warranty battery swap, which they would perform in no more than 2 days in the shop. Or is such experience too modern for today's Porsche customers?

 

[whitex]

I was very close to doing that, but I just can't give Elon money.
I truly hope he is ousted somehow as I would love to dump this car and get a performance 3. Like tomorrow.

Buy a used one? Elon already got his cut from it, so your money will not be going to Elon.

 

[Tooney]

How should this recall be done? Let's say "please bring in your car for a software update which will test your car's battery over a period of 2 weeks or 500 miles, whichever comes first. During that time your battery will be limited to 80% SoC. At the end of the test period, you will come in and either have the 80% limit removed or a new battery swapped in within 2 days max, while you are provided equivalent or better loaner car to drive.". If they had such a recall, and in fact deliver on such guaranteed turnaround, customers would be much more trusting the next time around.

What you suggest here would be really expensive.
Letting owners wait for 3 -4 months while Porsche diagnoses the problem and ships the battery to and from Oklahoma City for repair is a lot more cost effective, and it meets terms of the recall shared with safety regulators.

 

[whitex]

What you suggest here would be really expensive.
Letting owners wait for 3 -4 months while Porsche diagnoses the problem and ships the battery to and from Oklahoma City for repair is a lot more cost effective, and it meets terms of recall as shared with safety regulators.

I wouldn't be so sure that it's more cost effective, as loaner cars cost money. They know they are planning to replace about 500 batteries (2% of recalled cars). Why not have a couple of hundred new or refurb batteries at regional distributions channels ready to go, then ship the old ones to be refurbs to continue feeding the parts supply channels. Oh wait, that is how Tesla does it, and Elon is evil, so we must never ever do things the same way he does?

 

[chun]

I wouldn't be so sure that it's more cost effective, as loaner cars cost money. They know they are planning to replace about 500 batteries (2% of recalled cars). Why not have a couple of hundred new or refurb batteries at regional distributions channels ready to go, then ship the old ones to be refurbs to continue feeding the parts supply channels. Oh wait, that is how Tesla does it, and Elon is evil, so we must never ever do things the same way he does?

You are way too efficient and logical thinking. One would say even qualified as an engineer.

Porsche would never hire you. They'd rather hire one more designer and 3 more marketing people to "create" a new color and then sell it.

But no, really. I have a feeling that the youngest engineer at Porsche is around 60, and still uses a wall phone. I don't think they are yet aware of how the world functions now, how other modern car companies handle such things, and how their competition in the EV market handles such things. And they don't seem in a hurry to hire people to modernize their 80 year old car pipeline.

They also seem to intentionally ignore the competition, and learn 0 lessons from them. "Don't look at them, so they won't exist" mentality. They could have easily learned some many things just by looking at Tesla's failure, and how they fixed it (charger failure, car under body issues, battery issues, software issues, recalls, OTA, etc), and implementing those fixes before the failures happen at Porsche, but they decided to simply pretend no other EV makers exist.

Porsche right now operates like a old Pharmaceutical company, refusing to modernize because "it has worked for 100 years, therefore it must be good"; and do patchwork on top of patchwork on top of patchwork instead of fixing things at the root of the issue.

 

[chun]

Not to mention that some battery fuck-ups can be fixed by updating 2020 models to 2025 software, which can be done but porsche doesn't officially allow it; as it has been done in the to the owner of the Taycan with the "Losing 5% battery per day"; which got his 2020 Taycan model updated to Taycan 2025 facelift software to fix his battery ?

So why not do this to all cars, if it's known to fix issues? Why wait until catastrophic failures? Why go to the chain of bad media coverage? Why destroy brand reputation and lose the trust of your clients, when you could just roll out the update?

 

[Bennachie]

AND don't forget that Porsche will be getting its cut from the supplier LG for supplying out of spec. components...........................................

 

[whitex]

You are way too efficient and logical thinking. One would say even qualified as an engineer.

Do you mean I'm wasting my life pumping electrons as a full service EV charging attendant?

Porsche would never hire you. They'd rather hire one more designer and 3 more marketing people to "create" a new color and then sell it.

Well, their recruiter did reach out once, I just wasn't particularly interested in the project. As for a new color, they already had it before, just didn't know it. I've had an 100% OEM Porsche monochrome hood ornament since 2023. Ok, they made it as an engine manifold ornament, but same size and fits on my hood just fine.

But no, really. I have a feeling that the youngest engineer at Porsche is around 60, and still uses a wall phone. I don't think they are yet aware of how the world functions now, how other modern car companies handle such things, and how their competition in the EV market handles such things. And they don't seem in a hurry to hire people to modernize their 80 year old car pipeline.

They also seem to intentionally ignore the competition, and learn 0 lessons from them. "Don't look at them, so they won't exist" mentality. They could have easily learned some many things just by looking at Tesla's failure, and how they fixed it (charger failure, car under body issues, battery issues, software issues, recalls, OTA, etc), and implementing those fixes before the failures happen at Porsche, but they decided to simply pretend no other EV makers exist.

Porsche right now operates like a old Pharmaceutical company, refusing to modernize because "it has worked for 100 years, therefore it must be good"; and do patchwork on top of patchwork on top of patchwork instead of fixing things at the root of the issue.

My theory is that all the old guys retired and the new generation cares more about spending time on social media, self-care, virtue signaling and political correctness than the technical aspects of the design. How else would Porsche, known in the industry for its brakes, end up with the brake lines failing on the Taycan? The fact that they don't learn from competition is also characteristics of young brain biology - they always think they know better than anyone else.

There is also the effect or large companies, which tend to always do that they've always done, as this presents the lowest risk path to continue the revenue stream they've had for years. The newcomers have not choice but to try new ways to try to break into the market. Consider the very simple idea of using 48V systems in the cars, instead of 12V systems. The benefits (way less wiring, so cheaper and lighter) have been known for decades. Why did no car company try this until now, after the Cybertruck implemented it? The simplest answer is that there was no compelling reasons for existing manufacturers to rock the gravy boat, i.e. customers will continue buying 12V systems if they have no other choice, so why spend the effort and face potential supply chain challenges?

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