E-Shift (virtual gear shift) "Surprisingly Convincing" Review

[Sar]

Doesn’t this guy hate EVs? How did he get access?

Maybe explicitly to reach the audience of car buyers who hate EVs. Porsche is not developing this for EV enthusiasts. they want to convince petrol heads that EVs can be cool. So they should target the influencers who think it's cool to hate on EVs - as long as they're able to convince them...

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[whitex]

Personally I would probably skip as I don't like this type of thing and hated the Electric Sport Sound.

I would absolutely skip it (perhaps even pay to exclude it if I had to turn it off manually every drive - shhhhh.... don't tell that to Porsche marketing).

However, while I hated ESS during my test drive, and would have never ordered it on purpose, it came with the performance package on my Taycan, so I have it. Over the last 3+ years I learned that it does have good uses, I keep my steering wheel diamond button set to ESS toggle (also helps to toggle it off quickly when switching to SportPlus mode):

1. It works really well at scaring deer, and probably other animals, so I always turn it on when driving on rural roads at night and/or sparse traffic.
2. It works great as a pedestrian warning, I always click it on when I suspect pedestrians might need audible warnings, like parking lots, or driving in a narrow street with cars parks on both sides.
3. When passing people who drive slowly on highways. It reduces the chances of them being startled by a flying Taycan passing them (I prefer to overtake cars with a large speed differential to discourage them from instinctually speeding-up and to make the passing maneuver as fast as safely possible). I did a road trip recently, using the ESS to pass people, but then I forgot to turn it off for about a minute after passing, and that attracted attention from a passing police car (I didn't get pulled over, but me accelerating by him in the opposite direction with the ESS on caused him to turn on his instant-on rear radar, as indicated by my radar detector). So I passed the next car without the sport sound on, and I felt bad I might have given the driver a heart attack - he was driving under the speed limit on a single lane highway, taking in sights I presume but maybe checking his social media on the phone, so when the road allowed passing, I passed him with a significant speed differential (also needed as there were approaching cars). In my rear view mirror I realized he got startled and drove half way onto the shoulder right after I passed him. I started using ESS more diligently after that - it gives people warning there is something fast about to fly by them.