Dreaded Red Electrical System Error & Poll

[AaronS]

Well, after being told a couple weeks ago that it could take between 4 weeks and 6 months to get a new battery from Germany, my service advisor called yesterday and said a new battery had arrived. Guess they found one lying around somewhere stateside (or got one on a ship quick!)? Maybe one fell off a truck? Fingers crossed. Anyway, she said I "should" have my car back sometime next week. So optimism on the wait times at least for those experiencing this. A couple of weeks seems way more reasonable than 6 months.

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[Buckeye]

My Story, for what it's worth -- I have a 2020 Taycan 4S that was purchased as a CPO with 9K miles in February 2022 (original purchase was September of 2020 so CPO warranty runs through September 2026). Last Friday morning (2/23), without warning, got the dreaded Electrical System Error (which I didn't know was dreaded until after seeing it and firing up some Googling on the topic). Had the car towed to the nearest dealer, at which point they told me the entire thing appeared dead (nothing came on anymore). Middle of last week they said that it appeared both the 12V and HV batteries were dead and they were looking into a fix, and on Friday they said either HV cells would need to be replaced or the entire battery replaced. Today they heard back from Porsche that the instruction is to replace the entire pack. On the one hand, I guess I'm glad as certainly concerned re: reliability of replacing only some cells, on the other hand they said it could take anywhere from 4 weeks to 6 months, sounds like the new pack will need to be shipped from Germany via a specialty handler of some type. They are providing a loaner (though apparently their policy is I need to swap loaners every 15 days, no idea why) so for now I have a Cayenne and I guess I'll try out a bunch of different porsches (including other base taycans as they do have some taycan loaners), but certainly will be missing my Taycan. Experience definitely has me (A) glad that I have a CPO so there is no possible argument over coverage through 2026 and (B) concerned about owning one of these after that as this would be a nightmare out of warranty. I'm prone to switiching cars anyway, but the depreciation here will be a tough pill to swallow for sure

Main point -- it does seem like they are now repalcing whole batteries without first doing individual cells. Will be curious how long this takes and hopefully battery condition of the new one is worth it. Ugh.

I also wonder what reliability will be for updated 2025+ Taycans vs the new Macan on brand new PPE platform. Usual rule of thumb on cars is that with new models you're better off waiting which would argue for Taycans, but at the same time with technology evolving you have to wonder if they've learned some lessons and one would be better off just going Macan/PPE or other newer platform models?

In same boat, bought a 2020 Turbo CPO with 4900 miles in January and the Red Light came on 2 weeks later. Dealer came and picked it up and has had it for 6 weeks. They gave me a Taycan to drive though it’s Frozen Berry! Have no idea if it’s cells or whole battery yet. New loaner Taycan 2024 has had no issues. Doesn’t have the power of Turbo but still fun to drive

 

[Caraholic]

In same boat, bought a 2020 Turbo CPO with 4900 miles in January and the Red Light came on 2 weeks later. Dealer came and picked it up and has had it for 6 weeks. They gave me a Taycan to drive though it’s Frozen Berry! Have no idea if it’s cells or whole battery yet. New loaner Taycan 2024 has had no issues. Doesn’t have the power of Turbo but still fun to drive

Sorry to hear hopefully you get a new battery.

 

[Buckeye]

Sorry to hear hopefully you get a new battery.

Just heard back from dealership that after 6 weeks of having my car they still don’t have a time frame for repair. They need Porsche engineer on electrical batteries to fix the issue. Now saying they are fixing the defective cells only. Not happy at all, Spent over $100k on the car and within 2 weeks this is the result? Now they have it for 6 weeks and still no time line for a fix? Told them I want a new battery today, let’s see where that goes.

 

[Caraholic]

I was in a very similar situation had 12 cell modules replaced and wouldn’t do a full battery. I really believe they are just using some cars for demonstration to teach local techs. Hope yours gets wrapped up soon mine spent a little over four months at the dealer.

 

[jld1]

Curious what everyone's wait time has been on this. Seems variable but 3-4 months is about average?

Maybe need a new poll for it.

 

[Buckeye]

Curious what everyone's wait time has been on this. Seems variable but 3-4 months is about average?

Maybe need a new poll for it.

Will be just short of 3 months till it actually gets worked on. Will update when it’s actually complete. Expecting between 3-4 months total.

 

[Gino]

I am interested to know if replacing cells has *ever* resulted in a reliable pack long-term, or if every cell replacements has eventually led to a full pack replacement.

I wonder if all these battery issues are now about to come to a head with the 2 latest recalls from the NTSB from Porsche for over 600 vehicles from 2021 to 2023 where they are warning not to charge over 80% to avoid shorts which could result in battery fires.
A letter to the affected owners is supposed to go out on May 17th 2024.
I guess we'll see shortly what is going on.

 

[electricsidecar]

I'm starting to aggregate and track all of these threads in the Electric Sidecar issue tracker, given how many of these failures are going on: https://github.com/ElectricSidecar/Porsche-Taycan/issues/15.

11 failures in this thread now tracked. If you experience other failures you can submit them via the tracker discussions in https://github.com/ElectricSidecar/Porsche-Taycan/issues/15.

 

[Dr Bob]

I'm wondering what is the incidence of battery failure. This poll shows currently 9 out of 90 respondents with battery problems plus another 5 with other HV issues. I guess that all the people on here with problems will have logged them but only those interested in the issue but without the problems will have logged it. For instance, I am very interested but there is no way I am going to tick the box 'happy with my exisiting batteries' as that will be the trigger for mine to go belly up!!
What do we think 1 in 20, 1 in 50, 1 in 100? The various recalls don't paint a happy picture along with comments about poor battery manufacturing quality. Keeping my fingers crossed.

 

[unbiased]

Mine is currently in the shop awaiting a new battery pack. Has been 5 weeks.

 

[TaycanCJ]

Mine was down for about 3 months to have cells replaced, had the car back 3 weeks and its back down again with an electrical system error. Dealership says its not the battery this time, but who knows...

Has anyone looked at whether these long downtimes count as a lemon? Isn't it X number of repair attempts OR a certain period of downtime?

 

[Caraholic]

If it’s new then yes it can be lemon lawed. I believe even some states will do that on CPO vehicles as well.

 

[timo]

2022 GTS, been at the dealership for 4 weeks. 3 cells bad. All parts have arrived except the battery cover, which got "lost in transit" and is now on backorder. The tech cannot be scheduled until all parts are in hand.

 

[sun]

My 2020 4S just went in last week, April 24th. 20k miles. I tried to start the car in the morning on got the red error. They diagnosed it and they said the E-box needs to be replaced. They said the battery cells look okay. Parts are supposed to arrive this week, but they don't have a tech to do the install as there are 2 Taycans in front of mine. The advisor said to expect 3-4 weeks.

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