Has Taycan Depreciation Changed the Porsche Experience?

[prj]

Wasn’t the UK hit harder because of EV tax incentives? A lot of businesses and directors bought Taycans, wrote them off, and then returned them, leading to the big influx of used cars on the market.

Yes, that also played a big part of it, but the reason for it is also the fact that the secondary market is constrained. E.g. if a single country in the EU did that then it wouldn't matter much for the bottom line.

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[D00notD00d]

Ahh comparing the incomparable. There has been insane inflation due to QE and negative interest rates by the governments during covid.
My Audi S8 has "lost" 5000 EUR in the past 8 years (it's 12 years old now). But that's because money isn't worth anything anymore compared to 8 years ago, not because the car holds it's value well. Adjusted for inflation the depreciation has not changed.

The percentage drop is similar between a Panamera, Cayenne and a Taycan. Or any 4 door German executive car for that matter e.g. Audi A8, BMW 7 Series or MB S-Class.

The only thing that hurt the Taycan a little more is that the facelift is so much better technically that the pFL is essentially obsolete. Not just due to range but because the pFL cars have widespread battery issues. Or well, obsolete is perhaps not the right word, but the value proposition is significantly skewed towards the facelift.

Some valid objective points about inflation and some subjective speculation.

It’s not accurate to say j1.1 has widespread battery issues. A minority of the 150,000 j1.1s has had/may in future have battery issues. J1.2 has sold in much fewer numbers. The j1.2 apparently has a different cell chemistry, but the j1.1 issues were latent cell hardware manufacturing/assembly defects, not chemistry. Perhaps there has been module manufacturing improvements and perhaps the addition of preventative on board monitoring allows early detection.
Value is a subjective thing.

 

[prj]

It’s not accurate to say j1.1 has widespread battery issues.

It is absolutely accurate, and I will just say I have some inside information about the topic, but I can't elaborate further.
J1.2 uses different pouch cells where these issues have been fixed.

 

[chun]

Some valid objective points about inflation and some subjective speculation.

It’s not accurate to say j1.1 has widespread battery issues. A minority of the 150,000 j1.1s has had/may in future have battery issues. J1.2 has sold in much fewer numbers. The j1.2 apparently has a different cell chemistry, but the j1.1 issues were latent cell hardware manufacturing/assembly defects, not chemistry. Perhaps there has been module manufacturing improvements and perhaps the addition of preventative on board monitoring allows early detection.
Value is a subjective thing.

All j1.1 cells produced before 2024 Q3 have been manufactured on the same line that can produce the manufacturing defect.

At a hypothetically and unlikely low 1% rate of occurrence of the defect, that’s at the very least 3 defect cells in every car. The real rate is much higher likely, as it is a low variable automated constant manufacturing line; they aren’t producing multiple chemistries at once.

Now multiple that by 3, since there were 3 separate defects as per recall fillings in EU.

All batteries are affected It’s why porsche was forced to develop a monitoring software for hundreds of millions instead of replacing “a few batteries”. They are looking to spread out the cost of billions in battery replacement over many years, that is if they will even do it post initial 8 years warranty - which is unlikely based on their internal PIWIS classification of the defects as “aging defects” which are not covered by porsche approved warranty

 

[prj]

At a hypothetically and unlikely low 1% rate of occurrence of the defect, that’s at the very least 3 defect cells in every car.

It's much less than 1% but due to the fact that there are so many cells in every car unfortunately very many cars will be affected over time.

 

[chun]

It's much less than 1% but due to the fact that there are so many cells in every car unfortunately very many cars will be affected over time.

I haven’t been to a HV cell plant tour to know for sure, but working myself in manufacturing automation, in such low variable automated lines, defects at below 1% rate of occurrence are almost impossible.

But yes, even at below 1%, the conclusion is the same sadly.

 

[D00notD00d]

My take.
All j1.1 HV batteries carry a manufacturing defect risk,
But not all HV batteries have the defect.
In their submission to NTHSA Porsche estimated 2% of vehicles were affected.
That doesn’t match my understanding of the word widespread.
Safety authorities obligated Porsche (and others) to implement preventative onboard monitoring to mitigate a potential fire risk.
The latent nature of the defect means it may surface across the car’s life.
If the preventative monitoring identifies the fault after year 8, whether that is due to normal wear and tear and therefore excluded from approved warranty cover is a subjective decision.
If the failure rate dramatically increases after year 8 in Porsche maintained relatively low mileage cars, given the history and circumstances. Porsche could not reasonably say this is normal wear and tear.

 

[chun]

My take.
All j1.1 HV batteries carry a manufacturing defect risk,
But not all HV batteries have the defect.
In their submission to NTHSA Porsche estimated 2% of vehicles were affected.
That doesn’t match my understanding of the word widespread.
Safety authorities obligated Porsche (and others) to implement preventative onboard monitoring to mitigate a potential fire risk.
The latent nature of the defect means it may surface across the car’s life.
If the preventative monitoring identifies the fault after year 8, whether that is due to normal wear and tear and therefore excluded from approved warranty cover is a subjective decision.
If the failure rate dramatically increases after year 8 in Porsche maintained relatively low mileage cars, given the history and circumstances. Porsche could not reasonably say this is normal wear and tear.

The 2% you quote was for the initial recall. After that there were 6 or 7 other HV recalls adding more and more cars, until eventually 150.000 cars were included. Over 60k in EU alone.

At 396 cells per battery; even at 0.3% defect rate, you are looking at 1 cell per car minimum with the defect - per defect, and there are 3 defects identified.

 

[D00notD00d]

The 2% you quote was for the initial recall. After that there were 6 or 7 other HV recalls adding more and more cars, until eventually 150.000 cars were included. Over 60k in EU alone.

The 2% of vehicles came from the ‘latest‘ NTHSA doc, Oct 24.
Eventually recalls covered the entire J1.1 production set, 2019-2024.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V732-8320.PDF

The EU ones I‘ve seen did not quote the estimated percentage of vehicles affected.

The number of vehicles at risk increased, the estimated % affected did not?

 

[Longy_UK]

To answer the initial question.

Yes. I could have bought a 911 GTS instead and been quid's in.

Simples.

 

[RodeoDrive]

To each, his own, I think.

I value my CT 4S for the way it drives, for the way it looks like.
For merging the joy of driving and a healthy dose of middle-age crisis with the kid, dog and skis in the back - could not do that with a 911 as a daily.

Provided not too many dealer visits get in the way, I hope to keep it till wheels fall off - that keeps my mind off the resale value

Electric resale values will be poor until things settle re: battery tech, competition with China, inflation, pandemics and who knows what else tomorrow brings..

 

[prj]

The 2% of vehicles came from the ‘latest‘ NTHSA doc, Oct 24.
Eventually recalls covered the entire J1.1 production set, 2019-2024.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/rcl/2024/RCLRPT-24V732-8320.PDF

The EU ones I‘ve seen did not quote the estimated percentage of vehicles affected.

The number of vehicles at risk increased, the estimated % affected did not?

The 2% was for those where faulty batches were 100% identified. A quote from my source "Almost every pFL Taycan has potential battery problems".
At the moment they are in survival mode, they are hoping that the warranty ends before more fail, and then they called it an "aging fault", so that the Approved doesn't have to pay for it. This is a horrible move, which is scummy. We shall see what happens - there is no way a fault that disables the car suddenly can be "normal aging". Normal aging is the SoH dropping over time, but not the car becoming useless. So we shall see how that is interpreted, we will know in a couple years.

On the bright side, if the battery lasts 8 years then most likely the defects have shown themselves by that time, at least on higher mileage cars.
The problem is with high age and low mileage vehicles that weren't driven much. If I were purchasing a 2020 or 2021 I'd try to get one with higher rather than lower mileage.

As for the failure rate you are arguing with info from engineering in Audi Sport and Porsche, I don't know what to tell you.

 

[W1NGE]

Wasn’t the UK hit harder because of EV tax incentives? A lot of businesses and directors bought Taycans, wrote them off, and then returned them, leading to the big influx of used cars on the market.

So far I’m very happy with my J1 and I’m hoping it lasts another 5–6 years.

Actually there was more to it than that.

Porsche UK bought a huge number of J1.1s towards the last quarter of 2023 leading to a fire sale through 2024 - £30K discounts weren't unheard of as dealers scrambled to sell. Embedded within that discount was £10K from Porsche, and chunk from the dealership and a slice from VAG finance.

My local dealer had 15 unregistered cars at one point.

Utterly daft thing to do and just flooded the market taking months to clear (new orders were paused) and did an excellent job of contributing to the depreciation and loss of buyer confidence.

Great if you were in the market for a new Taycan!

In addition, the Taycan managed to find it's way on to the UK company car list for salary sacrifice schemes which led to a glut of cars. I think they're no longer listed due to leasing companies getting burnt with the depreciation when contracts came to an end. This pushed them out of reach for many people on such schemes.

 

[f1eng]

I am an engineer with zero brand loyalty.

I look into what I am after and evaluate cars that do what I want.
I had test driven Porsches several times over 30 years or so and the Taycan was the only one which appealed to me enough to buy it.

Depreciation is a disappointment but I keep cars I like a long time, which eases the impact a bit.
I have zero interest in ever having a SUV, I prefer cars, and won't buy another piston engined car.

At the moment the Taycan is the only car on the market which appeals to me and since I have had mine over 3 years already and none of the gains of the J1.2 are worth the extra price and some things, like the front styling, standard adaptive cruise control and electric charge ports, neither of which I want, make it appeal to me less than the one I already have.

It hasn't been very reliable though so far never left me stranded - if it does I will dump it.

 

[AKAM]

I bought new and for me the depreciation doesn't detract from the sheer joy and pleasure of the machine. There is no better EV out there to drive. Though the quality you would want from Porsche is really lacking I tend to view ownership as being like an early adopter of a new technology . . . you know there will be bugs, admittedly a lot of them. Many of them seem to be traceable back to the 22KW charger (at least on J1.1 models) based on what I read. Is that the experience of others?

Specifically for the depreciation, I tend to look at the excess deprecation over whatever would be expected to be normal. For example, If the car loses say 60k over three years but an ICE Porsche would lose say 40k then I try to find some comfort in being down only (?) 20k. I would have lost 40k anyway! There is some logic in there somewhere.

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