Porsche Whistleblower: “60% of all delivered Taycan have battery issues that caused replacements, damages and fires”

[Autolycus]

Except it's not even the high speed charging! It's on AC! Holy shit.

"The problem occurs when the batteries are charged at a low AC speed of up to 7.5 KW, a common use case for all charging, such as at home or on low-speed chargers, the source said. "

Oh, you’re right! My brain disconnected after I got to the involvement of their 800V system! How the heck is their BMS so bad that it can’t correctly handle load balancing with L2 charging?!?!

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[SeaGeo]

Oh, you’re right! My brain disconnected after I got to the involvement of their 800V system! How the heck is their BMS so bad that it can’t correctly handle load balancing with L2 charging?!?!

Gonna need one of our EE buddies to clarify that one. The article tries to explain it, but my trust in Teslarati is low.

 

[moosehead]

Pcar forums have picked it up in discussions.

Will see what the next response is from the company which surely will go beyond the initial drip.

 

[Craigins]

What the article says is that it charges cells in parallel and they don't do a good job monitoring cells when they fill up.

So if you're charging 4 batteries in parallel and one fills up first, you'd be overcharging it if you continue to charge to fill the remaining 3.

 

[Joints4Sale]

Great! For a second there, I thought I had two spontaneous combustion devices in my driveway. A Bolt and a e-Tron GT(Then I see that Audi uses a different charger) Phew.......

 

[manitou202]

The Taycan forum is ripping the article to shreds. Only a single Taycan fire has ever been reported, and no one on the forum is aware of any issues with their vehicles. No mass battery replacements going on. I've had my Taycan for 14 months and over 10k miles. I've never been back to the dealership.

There is a lot of misinformation regarding the warranty from the article. Porsche recommends not leaving the car parked unplugged in extreme temperatures, but says nothing about reducing the warranty. That is standard language for any EV.

They also found previous posts from the author who seems to post a ton of negative information about the Taycan.

I'm amazed how EV fanatics attack other EVs instead of going after the fossil fuel industry. This reminds me of the recent attack on Lucid for their battery size, based on false assumptions about charging losses.

Edit: Go read the Teslarati comment section. People are literally giddy to see reported problems with the Taycan. Who the F**k cheers for a story like this. If it's true, it really sucks for Taycan owners, and will stain EVs in general. If it's false, then Teslarati should be potentially held liable for posting such garbage.

 

[SoCal Rob]

To be fair, the ID.4 is 400v..

I’m not concerned about the ID.4 having the same technical issue. If the whistleblower’s story pans out I’m concerned about the corporate culture at VAG across all brands.

It seems reasonable to me that if their higher end brand is content to screw ovetheir customers then their less expensive brand will be even less likely to treat customers fairly.

After the Dieselgate mess I thought maybe they would behave more ethically, but it seems the VAG corporate culture may not be capable if this story turns out to be true.

edit: typo

 

[ironpig]

No idea if it's true or not, but never trust anything from Teslrati or Electrek. Those websites are Tesla shills that made tons of money off of referral codes. They are heavily invested in Tesla's continued success.

 

[manitou202]

No idea if it's true or not, but never trust anything from Teslrati or Electrek. Those websites are Tesla shills that made tons of money off of referral codes. They are heavily invested in Tesla's continued success.

The guy that wrote the article literally has his Tesla referral code in his Twitter profile.

 

[SeaGeo]

The guy that wrote the article literally has his Tesla referral code in his Twitter profile.

You mean the name of the website he writes for didn't give it away?

 

[Autolycus]

The Taycan forum is ripping the article to shreds. Only a single Taycan fire has ever been reported, and no one on the forum is aware of any issues with their vehicles. No mass battery replacements going on. I've had my Taycan for 14 months and over 10k miles. I've never been back to the dealership.

Thanks for posting. I was kind of wondering about the numbers being talked about and what was theoretically being done on those vehicles. That would be a LOT of repairs on cars without customers even knowing it's being done? That seems like a sketchy allegation.

 

[moosehead]

Note the Teslarati WB article comments have many defending Porsche and questioning the author's credibility due to his links to Tesla. Many also comment that Teslas have had more actual fires than any EV perhaps because of sheer numbers of Tesla vehicles in the market vs others.

As many note, other than a few Tesla meatheads and pirate capitalists, we all should be interested in seeing all EV's succeed. Similarly, all Pcar and Taycan owners should want to know the facts from Porsche and question these allegations rather than presume they are false. All EV customers and auto makers should be rooting for the 800v systems and next gen configs.

Also note the WB account does not state that there are frequent fires in the Taycan, but that the primary issue is the lower grade on board charger which renders battery cells inoperable in certain conditions (AC charging, charging intervals, storage conditions). It suggests that the batteries purposely have disposable cells and that eventually will need replacement, potentially sooner due to the above issues.

Porsche should easily be able to refute these allegations with facts about its on board chargers, disposable battery cell issue, recommended battery storage and charging conditions, and any associated range hit. Given the comparisons to Audi Etron chargers, Audi also has a vested interest in dealing with this alleged WB account.

My early Audi S7 model year had poor turbo oil screen design issues starve and fry the turbos at 40k miles, an issue that is a $10-$13k repair that Audi has sidestepped and has been elevated to the NTSB. I'm a fanboi but an engaged critic when warranted, pun intended.

If many of us are going to be beta EV testers, then at minimum we should see technology and safety optimized from our investments.

 

[AxelR]

I’m a big fan of Porsche and I have no idea if any of this is true but Porsche (and Audi) have a long history when it comes to bad powertrain.

Remember the 996 and 997.1 with a somewhat high amount of IMS failures? Remember the 991.1 GT3 with engines catching fires leading to a recall with engine exchange of “all” GT3s (of that generation).
There’s also talks about their current 4.0 (718 GTS version I believe) that appears to have a high failure rate.
Let’s not forget about the 997.2 with a trick system similar to the diesel one…
And that’s just a few.

Anyway, having worked in the car industry back in Germany, I can vouch that they always aim for the highest quality but I wouldn’t be surprised that after dieselgate they might hide certain repairs in order to not tarnish any further VAG’s reputation.

That being said I still love my 911 and it wouldn’t stop me from getting a Taycan (that’s why we have warranties on new cars).

 

[CharlieSA]

Exactly. The author is a hack, and his previous posting history shows him as a Tesla shrill. If there were 18,000 Taycan's out there that required significant service, or catching fire, there would be real press coverage. Not some a$$hat "reporting" it on f*cking Teslarati.com.

This! One plaid caught fire we heard it, but 5 digits worth of cars would have issues and no one heard… c’mon man!

 

[manitou202]

I’m a big fan of Porsche and I have no idea if any of this is true but Porsche (and Audi) have a long history when it comes to bad powertrain.

Remember the 996 and 997.1 with a somewhat high amount of IMS failures? Remember the 991.1 GT3 with engines catching fires leading to a recall with engine exchange of “all” GT3s (of that generation).
There’s also talks about their current 4.0 (718 GTS version I believe) that appears to have a high failure rate.
Let’s not forget about the 997.2 with a trick system similar to the diesel one…
And that’s just a few.

Anyway, having worked in the car industry back in Germany, I can vouch that they always aim for the highest quality but I wouldn’t be surprised that after dieselgate they might hide certain repairs in order to not tarnish any further VAG’s reputation.

That being said I still love my 911 and it wouldn’t stop me from getting a Taycan (that’s why we have warranties on new cars).

Dieselgate in theory only required a handful of people to change the code in vehicles to pass emissions testing. This could have been kept undercover with a small group of people. Although it came out eventually anyway and cost the company 10's of billion of dollars. No safety issue was involved, just fudging emissions.

IMS failures were a problem, but Porsche didn't hide anything. It's a well know issue with anyone buying 911s from those generations. They eventually improved the design on the 997.1 and then eliminated the IMS from 997.2 on.

With the 991.1 GT3's, Porsche recalled and replaced all of the engines at a significant cost. They didn't hide anything. They even added a long extended warranty after GT3 owners complained.

What this article is claiming is that Porsche is aware of a fire/failure risk with the Taycan battery, and is forcing dealerships and their staff to secretly replace battery modules, without the owner knowing. Some how they also need to trick customers into bringing their Taycan in for "service" and then quickly diagnose and replace modules.

The number of people involved with this level of coverup would be enormous. 40k+ Taycan's in the field. 650 Porsche dealers around the global, each with at least a half dozen staff that would need to be in on it. Not to mention all of the engineers, product managers, etc at Porsche Corporate.

To make these types of claims, the author should have required more than just the word from a whistle blower. He offers no actual documented proof.

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