Teslerati: 60% of Porsche Taycans Will Have Battery Problems

According to an EV media outlet investigation published on the 1st December, 2021, six in 10 Porsche Taycan EVs have had to be repaired under warranty due to a faulty charging system. Despite being in circulation for six weeks to date, Teslarati has neither been sued or asked to remove the article by Porsche’s lawyers. 

The Charger Problem 

According to a whistleblower working for Porsche, Teslarati reports that the core problem in the Porsche Taycan is its lower-cost 800V charger. When on an AC slow charger it doesn’t evenly distribute the charge across all cells in the battery, leading some cells to be overcharged. If exposed to air in this state, they can catch fire - something that has occurred in 1% of all 60,000 Taycans delivered to date. 

While just 1% have caught fire, other cars have shut down cells and the vehicles have gone in for warranty repair. Internal Porsche figures suggest that this could apply to as many as 60% of the cars delivered to date. According to the leading EV publication, Porsche has known of the problem for some time, and even that for just €70 per unit more, could avoid the problem by putting a better charger into the cars. 

Porsche has instead stuck its head into the sand and not made a general recall or even put the more expensive charger in to cars on the production line. It is still selling lemons and apparently knows well that it is doing so. 

Warranty Repairs Not Effective 

When the warranty repair takes place, the sports car manufacturer charges €900 in labour costs for the job - a job that in fact costs just €26 in time. This doesn’t involve replacing the charging unit, but again according to Teslarati, just unlocking redundant cells in the battery modules and in some cases replacing the battery modules. The upshot in the cases of the vehicles where the battery is effectively reprogrammed, is that the range falls on the car, and consequently the resale value. 

As it is, Porsche only offers a 60,000km battery warranty, 100,000km fewer than on typical EVs. This is also highly restrictive and includes keeping the battery between 20% and 50% state of charge (SoC) and keeping it out of prolonged direct sunlight. 

The publication points out that a recall would result in a halt in production and ‘hundreds of millions of Euros’ in costs to Porsche to repair all 60,000 vehicles on the road. GM has seen a similar problem with its Bolt cars in the USA and Canada, which has cost it obscene amounts of cash to resolve, and it halted production of the cars too, stopping its income stream. 

Why Haven’t the Lawyers Called Teslarati? 

If the story was rubbish and inaccurate, Teslarati would have been sued out of existence or at the very least been asked to remove the story within the last six weeks. This strongly suggests that the story has a lot of truth in it, and that Porsche are knowingly covering up a problem that would wipe out its profits on the Taycan. 

It is the duty of media outlets to hold authority to account, and authority has all sorts of means of closing down even complete truths that have emerged - just look at Julian Assange of Wikileaks. That Porsche haven’t taken action on Teslarati is very worrying indeed for those who have bought a Taycan to date, as their vehicles aren’t up to the standards the German luxury car manufacturer is known for.