"It's better in every single way"

[Vim Schrotnock]

I will definitely wait for the true 'next generation' car with new battery chemistry/solid state. I've got a 7 year, 100K mile warranty, so I will watch from the sidelines, and drive what I think is the most beautiful (maybe ever...) sedan on the road today for the next 4 years.

I can't imagine how they will improve the styling of the car, but I'm hopeful...

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[JimBob]

I was just at the Porsche dealership this morning to get the summer tires put on and do a few recalls. Wandering around the showroom, they had one lone 2024 Taycan Turbo S. Short of the GT 3's, it was the best looking car in showroom. The Cayenne's and Macon's looked like trucks. Frick, I hate depreciation.

 

[feye]

I was just at the Porsche dealership this morning to get the summer tires put on and do a few recalls. Wandering around the showroom, they had one lone 2024 Taycan Turbo S. Short of the GT 3's, it was the best looking car in showroom. The Cayenne's and Macon's looked like trucks. Frick, I hate depreciation.

I think depreciation is temp. We just had record temps in Europe, the current trend back to ICE will be very short lived!

 

[feye]

I will definitely wait for the true 'next generation' car with new battery chemistry/solid state.

Exactly! There is still so much stuff coming, like this one, taken 3 months ago.

BYD!

 

[Jonathan S.]

Much better technical review than the normal review. So does this overcome your depreciation shock and your wallet is now open for business? [...]

I here I had always thought Kyle was kind of annoying -- this guy takes it to a far higher level.

Technical, sure, undergrad MechE from NC State, so he must have sort of aptitude for such topics.
But he combines the narrow technical points to reach conclusions that are mainly nonsensical and/or irrelevant.
(Granted I listened to this while skinning up a closed ski area, so low opportunity cost of my time, especially since the Audible selection I delayed listening to in favor of this video was padding out its story of a fatal avalanche with details of the rather sadly unimpressive background of the most prominent victim, but still, wow, this was woeful even by the standards of social media influencers.)
Anyway:

1. Range, citing the specific % increase in ... WLTP?!? As absurdly irrelevant as EPA range results can be for actual interstate road tripping, WLTP is something else altogether. Those figures would imply I could get ~330 interstate summer miles in a Taycan. Perhaps that might end up being true, but this guy is just citing a meaningless regulatory test. (And if the Taycan increase is more like 50 miles, that would give me summer range in the winter, which would help a lot, making many more trips feasible w/o DCFC.)
2. Charging speed, I wonder if this guy has ever visited a CCS1 charger? Even more egregious than the usual social media influencer references to the theoretical charging curve that will be unobtainable in almost all of North America, he then caveats the "idle conditions" to claim that the real world performance will be even better.
3. Power, sure, the hp is up, although given that the Taycan already had so many different power configurations, doesn't matter much.
4. Handling, sure, those design details are fun, but he has zero insight as to whether all that tech will actually make a difference for handling in the real world.

 

[Jonathan S.]

The significantly improved real world charging speed from 10-80% and the magical suspension are very desirable to me but not worth it enough to dislike my GTS.
Or so I’m convincing myself
but I do still prefer the gen 1 front bumper and headlights design over gen 2

I think you meant imaginary world charging speed?
Or at least a CCS1 world that most of us can only imagine.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Good to note that the difference is way bigger in colder weather. As the new gen charging speed is radically faster in the cold. This was a significant factor for me in deciding to upgrade, as I live in Finland and have definitely felt the inconveniences with my current Taycan in winter time.

Curious if Finland has chargers that are actually capable of such speeds in cold weather?
We have many Electrify America chargers with 350kW claims, but on a good day in warm weather they put out more like half that. In cold weather, cut that in half again, regardless of the EV model.

 

[Fish Fingers]

Hm, I wonder what that alternative colour scheme is about, where the front inlet blades are black. I haven't seen that in the configurator. Feels a bit Audi E-tron GT esque to me.

That looks truly dreadful imo.

Looking at it more closely, it just looks like random parts bin pieces have been stuck on.

 

[kempez]

That looks truly dreadful imo.

Looking at it more closely, it just looks like random parts bin pieces have been stuck on.

Random Audi parts bin at that!

 

[Singularity]

Curious if Finland has chargers that are actually capable of such speeds in cold weather?
We have many Electrify America chargers with 350kW claims, but on a good day in warm weather they put out more like half that. In cold weather, cut that in half again, regardless of the EV model.

There is a lot to unpack in this comment.

First of all, I'm not aware of any chargers having significantly differing output in different temperatures. They will output more or less whatever they output, regardless of the weather.

The key issue is battery temperature. The car will be able to take in much less electricity when the battery is cold and this applies to all EVs. The new gen Taycan charges much faster at lower battery temperatures which will significantly impact cold weather charging.

For example last winter I was on a trip to a destination and then back home on the same day, on a route in which the range was just enough to get to the destination and I had to charge to almost full in the destination, due to the fact that in between this route there were no 100kW+ chargers. The weather was really cold, like -20C or something, and it took me more than 90 minutes to get the charge done. With the new gen this sort of situation will be much more convenient.

Note that as explained earlier, the issue wasn't with the charger, it was a high output Ionity station with low usage level, meaning that it could have output even the max 270kW (which I have received in summer weather) but with my battery being pretty much at like 0 C degrees when starting the charge, it started at something like 40kW and then gradually increased as the car warms up the battery during the charge. Near the end it reached 100kW or so, after warming the battery up for a long time. Higher than 100kW was not possible as near the end the battery was also becoming quite full, which also limits its capability to take in electricity.

Finally, one very important thing to keep in mind regarding chargers, is the total electrical capacity of the station. Even if one charger can output 350kW, the station itself has a specific max electricity output. It can often be the case that even though there are multiple 350kW chargers, the whole station can output a max total of 350kW, so the usage level of the station as a whole will matter a lot for the available charging capacity.

In general Finland has a very good network of high speed charging. It's rare to drive a route where they don't exist. There are a lot of 200kW+ chargers and they seem to be responding well to user feedback and I'm constantly seeing upgrades of the electrical grid of the stations, resulting in larger total output.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Nice to hear that Finland does it well. Curious about the economics and public policy behind that. Here in the U.S. we’ve combined the worst aspects of the public and private sectors. Except for Tesla.

In New England, most CCS1 chargers deliver a constant speed regardless of air temperature. Because they’re 50kW, or the 62.5kW ChargePoint units, which if paired can get into the 80s, or more like 30s if you’re the second of the pair to start charging.

Almost all of the CCS1 chargers that can in theory hit the charging curve of either my Taycan or my wife’s i4 are EA ostensible 350kW. Many of the newer installations are euphemistically described as balanced but this of course just means shared. Although that usually makes no difference because at least one charger out of four is almost always not in use because it is broken.

The general consensus is that EA chargers are always incapable of reaching their ostensible speeds regardless of battery temperature if the air temperature is about 0 degrees C or less. (I hope you appreciate that I performed the conversion from the original 32F in Freedom Units.)
Although the consensus is that they are often derated in hot temperatures too.
Then again, a day of the week ending In the letter y will also usually be sufficient to drive charging speeds down in the double digits.

(The Tesla Magic Docks though work just fine here, so it’s not like some curse upon New England by King Phillip, even if he wasn’t a king, that wasn’t his name, and the war wasn’t his.)

 

[Scandinavian]

The general consensus is that EA chargers are always incapable of reaching their ostensible speeds regardless of battery temperature if the air temperature is about 0 degrees C or less. (I hope you appreciate that I performed the conversion from the original 32F in Freedom Units.)
Although the consensus is that they are often derated in hot temperatures too.

Not sure what brand of chargers EA use in US. We can have close to 40 C (about 100F) here in France. And the Ionity stationseven if all 6 stalls are occupied, still will give me 260 kW. Given that SoC is 10% and precondition has been done. It has never been any issue on the Ionity stations in Norway or Sweden at minus 10 or minus 15 either. The car has still charged at wy over 200 kW.

And there are so many other networks now as well that will perform just as well with different brands of chargers. Circle K, Eviny, Total etc.

I am surprised that the US still has so much issues now after 4 years hearing about the problems. I could understand all of the critic in 2020 but not any longer.

 

[ShiftyWolf]

I am surprised that the US still has so much issues now after 4 years hearing about the problems. I could understand all of the critic in 2020 but not any longer.

Unfortunately it seems like, with the exception of Electrify America and Tesla, almost all the charging network here is either AC or lower kW DC.

 

[Jonathan S.]

Not sure what brand of chargers EA use in US. [...]

Part of the problem is that EA isn't sure either: upon its debut, in May 2018, EA went all-in for some combination of publicity and hubris with 350kW chargers. Which didn't really exist yet in sufficient quantities.
So EA installed chargers from four different companies.
Which made all the IT, maintenance, repair, etc., all that much more complicated.

Not that EA cared about any of that, since VAG is treating EA like a prison work release program.
And the consent decree has zero performance metrics (other than spending $2b in officially termed creditable costs).
But the limited resources for IT, maintenance, repair, etc. were even that much more insufficient b/c of the inherent problems with so many different charger designs.

EA claims in its final investment cycle report to CA (rpt to U.S. EPA for the other 49 states still hasn't been released yet) that its newest charger design will be more reliable.
And that many existing installations will be upgraded to these chargers.
But the consent decree expires at the end of 2026.

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