When will Porsche release a 1000HP Taycan?

[Jhenson29]

Trying to increase this magnetic field over the ideal value can oversaturate the core and create excess heat as well. Hence why companies have been using multiple motors to increase power and torque, vs. trying to design a motor that spins faster or has a stronger magnetic field.

My only thought is that there are certainly higher HP electric motors, so it’s not a general limitation of electric motors, so it must be application specific, possibly related to packaging (and thermal management within those constraints).

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[whan]

My only thought is that there are certainly higher HP electric motors, so it’s not a general limitation of electric motors, so it must be application specific, possibly related to packaging (and thermal management within those constraints).

Agreed - definitely has to be packaging specific as well. Perhaps the best trade-off right now is to add more motors instead of increasing motor size given constraints (maybe easier to add motors side by side, vs increasing diameter, but just a guess)

 

[Jhenson29]

Agreed - definitely has to be packaging specific as well. Perhaps the best trade-off right now is to add more motors instead of increasing motor size given constraints (maybe easier to add motors side by side, vs increasing diameter, but just a guess)

Yes. My primary thought was increased surface area for cooling.

 

[JimBob]

To increase the power/torque of an electric motor you need to increase the strength of the magnetic field.

You can do this by

• Increasing the strength of the magnet
• Increase the number of windings
• Increase the thickness of the windings to carry more current

This article from Porsche https://newsroom.porsche.com/en/202...can-high-voltage-christophorus-398-23809.html shows how they addressed each of those issues.

 

[Archimedes]

Tesla is all about maximum straight line acceleration. What is the complete opposite of that which you want to enjoy?

You'd be wrong there. I talked with many dealers while searching for a Taycan Turbo CT allocation (on waiting lists 10 months and counting), and they all said a very large portion of Taycan shoppers have had a Tesla (some are switching, others replacing their other ICE car).

That’s not cross shopping. That’s replacing what was pretty much the only game in town with the first real drivers EV once it became available.

I see you’re still shilling Tesla on a Porsche forum…

 

[whitex]

Well, that’s your opinion.

Absolutely correct.

We do it because we need mostly 20A power supplies for larger loads (e.g. 24VDC solenoids for hydraulic valves [small individually, but add up] and linear actuators (large on their own), but separate analog inputs on a different power supply so they aren’t affected by loads and leave them at 20A for commonality of parts and because the cost and size difference between the two is quite small.

Commonality makes total sense given the right cost differences and volumes of course. However, Porsche or Audi does not have a 1000hp battery they ship elsewhere and they'd want to have commonality with. When it comes to batteries, the cost difference would be a lot. They don't even put the same power electronics in the front as the back, except for the Turbo S - it was worth designing 2 versions of power electronics. Also, I've never worked with Porsche, but have been working with other car manufacturers and they will fight even a single dollar in parts cost which can be saved. I had one of those fights not long ago over ~$1 cost increase for a car which would allow us to simply the software significantly. Long story short, the answer was no - they'd rather spend months on software and save a dollar per car. Given the annual volume of the car, I couldn't argue with the math - few years of cars * $1 was easily more than a couple of man-years of development.
'

It’s also possible that the battery could provide higher power at a higher SoC, but have to taper off as it decreases and Porsche doesn’t want that.

Maybe, but again, they would have to redesign the battery (interconnects and fuse at least) and then requalify it at those higher numbers to ensure it would last at least the duration of the warranty.

 

[Jhenson29]

Commonality makes total sense given the right cost differences and volumes of course. However, Porsche or Audi does not have a 1000hp battery they ship elsewhere and they'd want to have commonality with. When it comes to batteries, the cost difference would be a lot. They don't even put the same power electronics in the front as the back, except for the Turbo S - it was worth designing 2 versions of power electronics.

But….same battery (optionally) in RWD and Turbo S, no? ? There may be other reasons or factors than max power for the specific battery choice and it may or may not be at its power limit. I don’t personally know one way or another without more specific information.

 

[Jhenson29]

Maybe, but again, they would have to redesign the battery (interconnects and fuse at least) and then requalify it at those higher numbers to ensure it would last at least the duration of the warranty.

Not necessarily. I was imagining that the higher power came from higher voltage while the current stayed the same. This is something I see in under-supplied systems where the DC bus drops below the AC peak voltage when under load causing the same current to develop less power due to voltage clipping. So, the higher voltage at the higher SoC could provide the extra power while it gets reduced at lower SoC. Depends on the system specifics.

 

[whan]

But….same battery (optionally) in RWD and Turbo S, no? ? There may be other reasons or factors than max power for the specific battery choice and it may or may not be at its power limit. I don’t personally know one way or another without more specific information.

I agree, and we can apply this to Tesla as well. It seems that the battery pack is very similar between the Model S LR and the Plaid. There didn't seem to be any fanfare about any battery improvements between the two - most discussion was around the addition of a 3rd motor, and the carbon sleeved motor design that enabled higher torque and possible RPM (why the Plaid has a much higher top speed). Thus it seems to me that the design limitation for Tesla was the motor (since they needed to add a 3rd with improved design), as opposed to the battery's peak power output

Of course it's all speculation, but given multiple other manufacturers seemed to have increased HP by adding motors, there's more evidence that points to Taycan being motor limited like everyone else vs. battery limited

 

[Mike in CA]

The battery conversation is interesting and worthy of discussion. That said, I agree with many of the points already made about a 1000 HP Taycan. Not necessarily in this order:

1. Porsche builds "complete" cars; acceleration, braking, handling, build quality, etc. A 9 sec 1/4 mile Tesla is a gimmick, IMO, unless one plans to go drag racing and Porsche doesn't build gimmick cars.

2. Porsche has never concerned themselves with having the highest HP and won't build a 1000hp car just because Tesla (or Lucid) does.

3. As has been pointed out, Porsche won't build a car that's faster than the fastest 911 for the foreseeable future, if ever.

4. Finally, I have no interest in a 1000HP Taycan. What would be the point? I owned a 3 second flat 0-60 GT3 and that kind of performance is meaningless away from the track. My 4S feels almost as quick in most situations and I'm of an age now where fully exploiting that kind of performance on public roads seems risky and, dare I say it, stupid. Just speaking for myself.

 

[whitex]

I'm not sure that's the case, given Porsche for their 911 Turbo S literally was tested doing 50 launch controls in a row and not breaking. Historically Porsche has always overengineered their cars - their GT products have usually been known to be one of the few cars that are track-day ready.

Porsche designed for repeatable performance from the beginning. It is not overengineering to spec high goals.

I'm more with Jhenson29 that the fuses are likely designed to protect the motors / items downstream of the battery vs. the battery itself.

The 800A fuse in the battery protects the battery (either motor would blow at 800A). The 350A fuse between the battery and each contactor protects the power electronics and the motors.

BTW, wasn't able to find sourcing for the 800A fuse, would be curious if you had that handy?

The source is this manual which some service folks have access to:

There is someone on ebay who is trying to get rich off of selling a copy here. One of the sample pages you can see on ebay shows the 350A fuses, I copy pasted it below for convenience:

the 800A fuse is mentioned in there too (I found this somewhere else when researching things about the Taycan):

Agreed, but GMC uses pouch cells as well and has said they can deliver 1000hp. It's possible they're capable of doing that because of the immense pack size - you're right in that Lucid and Rivian both use cylindrical cells. Still I'm not sure if VAG's battery cell module is that much worse than 18650 which have been around since well before the Taycan

Pouch cell is an extremely generic term. Cell phones and tablets use pouch cells, so do hand-held vacuums, etc. It's just a very generic description of a form factor, not even giving its size. 18650 is also just a form factor (18mm diameter, 65.0 mm height, hence 18650). Even though 18650 is more specific than "a pouch cell", it still doesn't tell you its capacity or other parameters. You can buy 18650 lithium ion batteries with different capacities ranging from 1000 to 3500mAh. Even Tesla has been changing the 18650 chemistry for their cells. So, two batteries made of same number of 18650 cells may have a very different capacity and other parameters.

At lower speeds, there's a limit to the amount of torque a motor can safely produce, given it can only produce a certain strength of magnetic field.

Actually, electric motor produces peak torque at 0 rpm. Higher speeds never produce more torque than at 0rpm.

 

[whitex]

That’s not cross shopping. That’s replacing what was pretty much the only game in town with the first real drivers EV once it became available.

I see you’re still shilling Tesla on a Porsche forum…

Not really. I was just curious what you consider opposite of max straight line acceleration, since you said that is what you want.

 

[whitex]

But….same battery (optionally) in RWD and Turbo S, no? ? There may be other reasons or factors than max power for the specific battery choice and it may or may not be at its power limit. I don’t personally know one way or another without more specific information.

I thought there was 2 batteries, with RWD getting the smaller by default, having the option to get the performance battery. You'd think performance battery in a RWD would be the same as Turbo S, but I have not seen anyone sharing actual part numbers between the two so we could confirm. I suspect there are some software limits in sub Turbo S trims for marketing reasons, though RWD is further limited by only one motor, so less torque and power, plus less traction for 0-x times. I'd be curious whether or not the batteries are binned as well, like chips in the electronics world (e.g. chip that fails at high clock speeds, but passes at lower speeds, is simply sold as a lower speed chip - remember the old days where the binning was very wide, Intel sold you a 33MHz or 66Mhz chip, nothing in-between, then eventually figured out that there is money in creating many more bins).

 

[whan]

Porsche designed for repeatable performance from the beginning. It is not overengineering to spec high goals.

The 800A fuse in the battery protects the battery (either motor would blow at 800A). The 350A fuse between the battery and each contactor protects the power electronics and the motors.

The source is this manual which some service folks have access to:

There is someone on ebay who is trying to get rich off of selling a copy here. One of the sample pages you can see on ebay shows the 350A fuses, I copy pasted it below for convenience:

the 800A fuse is mentioned in there too (I found this somewhere else when researching things about the Taycan):

Actually, electric motor produces peak torque at 0 rpm. Higher speeds never produce more torque than at 0rpm.

Thanks for sending the manual - definitely some interesting tidbits. I'd still argue that just because there is an 800A fuse in the battery doesn't necessarily mean the battery's max safe output from a capability standpoint is 800A. As the fuse is meant to prevent internal battery short circuiting, it could be possible that they're designing the fuse to reflect the peak amperage that would be drawn by the motors + a buffer for the max amperage drawn by other HV-driven accessories, in order to detect the short as early as possible

RE: EV motor torque, yes agreed - I was referencing that the torque hits its limit/peak at low RPM as governed though its V/Hz ratio to avoid overflux and core saturation. At higher RPMs there aren't issues with overflux since the magnetic field strength and torque decreases due to lower V/hz, but rather different issues with high rotor speed

 

[Gwaihir]

Agreed - definitely has to be packaging specific as well. Perhaps the best trade-off right now is to add more motors instead of increasing motor size given constraints (maybe easier to add motors side by side, vs increasing diameter, but just a guess)

I would think Porsche will add an additional motor, not just for more power, but to gain torque vectoring. Now that Will improve handling. . . .

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