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(Elbil24): The Porsche Taycan will now receive major upgrades, and Norway is the country in the world with the best sales of this electric car, compared to the population. In fact, we are also in one of the top places when just the number of cars is also taken into account – without taking the population into account.
This means that many people can enjoy the gift package Porsche has now announced.
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For one thing, in July they will start production of the 2023 model of the Taycan, with the changes this includes. The most exciting thing, however, is that the already existing Taycan will also get these changes, and that at no cost – regardless of model and year back in time.
If you are the owner of a Taycan, you should therefore jump on the phone and book an appointment for the upgrade as soon as possible, because there will be a queue. After all, the upgrade is expected to take one working day, so the workload can be large.
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The “facelift” of the future
It is actually quite a massive change that is now being made. It fits well with a kind of mid-life run for the Taycan, which since the end of 2019 has been approaching three years, and has sold over 75,000 copies.
Normally, a car in this phase would get a so-called “facelift”, or “a new grill”, which we journalists joke about. This is to freshen up a model that will, after all, live for a few more years.
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This now seems to be an old-fashioned way of refreshing a car, because in the future this will be more about functions and improvements in software, and that is exactly what Porsche is doing here, without being the first with this in any way.
In any case, software updates will be a common way to “facelift” a car in the future.
– The campaign will give all previous customers the benefit of the further development, says Kevin Giek, vice president for the Taycan portfolio.
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This will be new
As I said, a lot is now happening, and it is happening in the areas where we most want it. This means that the range increases, thanks to efficiency measures, and the charging speed increases during lightning charging. As is well known, the Taycan uses 800-volt charging voltage, and is still the car with the highest charging power on the market. Now all this will be even better, also for cars back in time.
Among other things, the changes mean that the range will be increased by around 50 kilometres, according to the WLTP method, with small deviations in one direction or the other depending on the type of Taycan you have, or buy. This means that the models with the longest range will now cross the 600-kilometer range mark.
Well, it is interesting that it will now have significantly better charging speed. This is not done by increasing the peak power, which will still be 270 kW, but it will be able to receive high power over a larger register.
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This is highly preferable to what we at Elbil24 call a “marketing peak”, a high peak that lasts for a few seconds in order to have a nice number on paper. This is also why we always calculate the average power delivered between 10 – 80% during our charging tests. It is simply the effect over time that is interesting.
When Elbil24 spoke to Kevin Giek about the changes, he was clear that Porsche is also in a learning phase. The experiences over the first three years have given them important information and experience about the technology, which now means that they can now increase the effect over a longer period of time.
However, he did not have some charging curves to share, so we will have to come back to this as soon as we have carried out our own charging tests, which always go from 0 to 100%.
If you own one of these cars, you should turn down the charging speed
Five points
Porsche highlights five points where the changes are greatest.
1
We have already visited the range, which is increased through the efficiency of the powertrain. Here, it is primarily an almost complete decoupling of the front engine that does the trick, all the time you don’t need four-wheel drive. At the same time, changes have been made to the way the car regenerates energy, which has become more efficient. Here, it is particularly the first two years of the Taycan – 2020 and 2021 – that will see the biggest gains, as some of the updates are already in place on the later editions.
2
After the update, the temperature control should be more effective in adjusting the temperature of the battery in a better way – especially in cold climates, says Porsche. This will also affect the charging speed when the scale creeps down to the blue. Here, too, it is especially the 2020 and 2021 models that will gain the most. It is also new that you can have the double on-board charger retrofitted afterwards, which will give you the option of 22 kW charging, compared to the standard 11 kW.
3
The PCM system (Porsche Communication Management) and Porsche Connect will get new functions. You will get updated screenshots, better voice control, and not least – a separate Spotify app will be integrated. And for those of you with Android phones, it will now also be prepared for wireless connection of Android Auto.
It is also new that charging stations can now be filtered by charging power, and you don’t have to drive past a number of slow chargers to finally find the right one.
4
The assistance systems have also undergone improvements, primarily when it comes to the parking assistant, which has gained more functions, with an improved search for available spaces, and more. This may not be as relevant for us Norwegians, but in more urban areas than we have to frolic in.
5
R&D – or “Functions on Demand” seems to be the car manufacturers’ new cash cow. Here you can buy or unlock features afterwards, some for free, but we expect that many of these will eventually come with a cost.
In the Taycan, a more extended system for OTA – Over The Air – or wireless updates if you will, will first of all be installed. This is to later be able to offer major upgrades without having to visit a workshop.
In addition, in this upgrade there will be a bigger and better choice for what is called comfort access, which determines whether the car should unlock one or more doors when you approach the car, as we already know to a greater or lesser extent.
If you order a new Taycan now, all these changes will be included. In addition, Porsche wants all existing customers to get the same, which we consider a nice gesture to existing customers.
This is definitely the way of the future to update cars, because who needs a new grill?
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