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Comment by Mikeb85 | Hacker News Reader

Porsches have never really been about straightline speed. Always about overall performance and a sports-car feeling.

I'm guessing they optimized things like power, gearing and weight placement to offer good acceleration through a range of speeds with amazing handling and decent range at speed.

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True, and the Taycan may well be a better car in many ways. But a discussion of the gearbox has nothing to do with handling or sports car feeling.

I'm wondering what we're missing here. 5% efficiency improvement at high speeds isn't anything to write home about today. The transmission is a known quantity -- it's just gears, it won't get more efficient as they develop it. The efficiency of the whole system (battery/drivetrain/regen/motor/aero/etc) can be optimized quite a bit going forward, but if the 2-speed transmission will only ever get us a 5% increase, I'm not sure it's worth the added weight and complexity.

Obviously Porsche knows what they're doing, and it may be about thermal management on the Autobahn more than about outright efficiency, but I'm skeptical.

If this were 2010 I'd say "yeah, obviously Porsche knows something about building a real sedan that you can take on a real highway trip, Tesla has no idea what they're doing".

But, having produced actual sedans that actually work, and Porsche going with a more complicated system for 5%.. I don't know what I'm missing.

>True, and the Taycan may well be a better car in many ways. But a discussion of the gearbox has nothing to do with handling or sports car feeling.

There isn't a single published metric in which the Performance Model S doesn't trounce the Taycan.

How about 0-60 or 1/4 mile where you haven’t spent 10 minutes warming the batteries first?

if you're looking for the best car on paper, Porsche is probably not for you.

Well in terms of looks, charging network, city driving, autopilot, price and drag racing I'll take the Tesla. So far we've just seen a bunch of hand waving about how Taycan is better on the track... looks like there is a Model S being sent to Nurburgring to lay that to rest.

> looks like there is a Model S being sent to Nurburgring to lay that to rest.

It looks like that Model S might just be sitting next to the Nurburgring for a while once it gets there.

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a28942079/tesla-mod...

sounds like you're the target audience for tesla. nothing wrong with that, but everyone has their own taste. for the money, I'd much rather have the new GT4, but that's neither here nor there.

> charging network

The charging network available to the Taycan is the combination of different CCS charging network providers. They've been doing roaming deals with each other to simplify charging for their users. For example, Electrify America has roaming agreements with EVgo and ChargePoint:

https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/evgo-electrify-america-ch...

Road trips don't seem to be a problem in the Taycan. 408 miles, one 24 minute stop for charging:

https://www.carscoops.com/2019/09/porsche-taycan-makes-408-m...

There’s almost no chance Tesla is going to get anywhere near the Taycan. There’s been a few professional drivers who’ve given it a shot and breaking 9 minutes has been a challenge. For context, that’s the same lap time as a Mazda MX-5.

There’s almost zero chance Elon is going to find another 1:20 with the existing Model S. Just not going to happen.

https://youtu.be/Dphw4km60m4

At the end of the video the dude was barely able to break the 170 kph on straights.... The performance degradation throughout 2/3rds of a lap was atrocious. The driver was pretty decent considering he was hauling around a massive sedan, the guy knew the ring very well.

Nurburgring Ring times. P100D has terrible thermal management and goes into limp mode before completing the course. If people really cared about 0 to 60 times, we see a lot more Dodge Demons on the road instead of 911s and Corvettes.

If Porsche can get price point for a regular Taycan below $100k, i'll gladly trade in my Porsche and Tesla for one because it does everything i want. I can drive canyon roads and never have to fill up.

Nurburing will be put to the test next week. To compare a 2014 model S or even p85 is pointless. Until then it is just another attempt at hand waving and cherry picking from Porsche.

> Nurburing will be put to the test next week.

Unlikely. The track is fully booked for a while. I know that Musk wants to get an apples-to-apples comparison between the two cars, but Musk needed to start working on this (starting with a Nurburing reservation) months ago.

I'm sure they'll get a test-run in within a few months, but there's no way they'll get the info within a week.

Lots of jeering on Twitter right now as Nürburgring is saying that Tesla does not have a lap reservation for them next week as Musk had claimed. https://twitter.com/RoadandTrack/status/1170044182808977408

> Porsche has tons of experience setting fast Nürburgring lap times, and a huge asset in the form of factory racer Lars Kern. The Model S Performance is a quick car, but Tesla has no prior experience attempting to lap the Nürburgring. It's hard to imagine the automaker could go out and beat Porsche on its first visit to the track.

Maybe they're hoping Autopilot will set the track record? LOL

Sure, and it's an ancient car, by EV standards. I'd hope that a Porsche that nobody has taken delivery of yet and costs way more is better.

Last time I was at the track (in my BMW M car, mind you) we had a couple of Model 3 Performance cars, and a couple of Model S.

I could pass the Model S with ease. I couldn't get close to the Model 3 Performance.

Model 3 performance needs ceramic brakes for the ring. Car is too heavy for the Brembos and it is at the limit for brake size.

The Taycan currently only comes with two brake options: carbon surface coated brakes or full carbon ceramic brakes.

Porsche have said in many interviews the coating is for cosmetics rather than performance.

Like most electric cars, when driving “normally” you don’t really ever touch the brakes as the energy regen that kicks in when you step off the accelerator pedal slows the car down so effectively. Porsche were worried the discs would develop unsightly surface corrosion from lack of use for some drivers - the coating keeps them looking good.

The Taycan freewheels when you take your foot off the accelerator and only regenerates when you hit the brakes. This is quite different than most other electric cars.

That's just a default configuration difference. You can configure it to do lift-off regen if you like. There's also a camera based auto-regen mode that can switch between coasting and regen based on the distance to the car in front.

Philosophically, Porsche believes it's easier to drive a car fast when one pedal is solely responsible for accelerating and one for braking. Having the throttle be responsible for acceleration and light braking makes it difficult to modulate speed consistently. You can even see the philosophy at work on their gasoline cars, in Sport+ mode the anti-lag system pretty much removes engine braking.

Primarily for cosmetics since it generates much less brake dust, but it's also has a shorter stopping distance due to increased coefficient of friction from increased contact area and seems to be more resistant to fade.

https://thebrakereport.com/porsche-surface-coated-brake-pscb...

Which seems pretty reasonable...large family sedan vs a sports sedan.

Besides, when the new Tesla roadster rolls out in 2020/2021, it is game over for everyone else anyway. At a price point of ~$200k, it'll kind of make the Porsche Taycan a joke. Unless you are a Porsche only individual. Which, to their credit, is a fairly sizable market.

I'm skeptical Tesla can even roll out the Model Y before 2021. Meeting deadlines has never been their strong suit.

Rimac pretty much stole the show in the electric supercar segment already.

Tesla's capex spending is lower than their depreciation, meaning they're not investing enough to maintain their existing production lines. There is no way they will be rolling out any new models any time soon.

Additionally the MS and MX interiors are starting to get a bit dated compared to the ultra-sleek Model 3’s interior - the MS’s interior design is still fundamentally unchanged since 2012. They did upgrade the infotainment system in early 2018 though, but that’s invisible to users who don’t notice smoother framerates.

Replying here because I can't to child.

Tesla's capex being lower than depreciation doesn't mean that they're not maintaining their production lines (but neither does it mean they're not - the two are largelty unrelated).

Depreciation is set by accounting policy, not by how much maintenance capex you'd need to spend to keep the facility in the same condition.

Side note, but when you see a missing reply option it's an attempt to slow down fast replies.

You can still reply though, you just need to click on the time stamp above the comment and you'll get a reply box for that comment.

From road and track: """At launch, Porsche will offer two versions of the Taycan—the Turbo and Turbo S. The Turbo will carry an MSRP of $153,510 at launch, while the Turbo S will cost $187,610. Both of those numbers are minus destination charge."""

I suppose that leaves room for a non-turbo (lol) Taycan closer to your prices sometime in the future.

What's the turbo doing?

I (lol)ed because "turbo" and "turbo-s" are a naming convention from their conventional cars that is fairly non-sensical on an electric car given that they don't have turbochargers.

Eg. Macan < Macan S < Macan Turbo

Of course, the two non-turbo Macan models above both turbochargers so the moniker really just means "the fastest model" in Porsche speak.

The combustion non-turbo 911s also have turbochargers, so yes, long time marketing label, not feature description.

hilarious :)

Plus the GT2RS has a turbo but doesn't have a turbo trim. And the various GT3 cars don't have a turbo.

That’s more a marketing thing and emissions driving them to use small turbo 4 cylinders. Up until 2-3 years ago the bae 911 was naturally aspirated

> that is fairly non-sensical on an electric car given that they don't have turbochargers

Lots of things have had "turbo" terminology over the years.

- PCs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo_button or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Turbo_Boost

- Video games: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_Fighter_II_Turbo%3A_Hyp...

- Folk music: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turbo-folk

In areas where it didn't already mean a very specific feature. If I bought a sound card and it had "turbo boost" I would laugh pretty hard too! And if Intel started selling 'turbo' processors that couldn't turbo, that might even be bad enough to get lawsuits...

I’m surprised people are getting so pedantic about using the Turbo moniker on an electric car. Sure, historically in cars it has typically referred to a type of forced induction commonly used on combustion engines, but it’s also been generally used to mean “FAST” in virtually every other marketing field for decades. I love cars, regardless of the means by which they generate forward motion, and couldn’t care less Porsche called this one a Turbo - it’s performance characteristics are entirely in keeping with what one expects from a Porsche with the Turbo branding.

There are a number of lower trims coming. Plain taycan will be single motor, I believe they mentioned a 4S that will be the lowest dual motor option and a GTS, all below the turbo.

Porsche has been saying all along the base taycan will be right around the base panamara price, around 90K. Makes sense since taycan shares rear suspension and interior parts with panamara, and unlike other ICE cars where BEV raises costs, the cost of motor + battery is likely to be around the price of a porsche engine. Panamara turbo is 150K just like taycan turbo as well.

Does the Taycan overheat and go into limp mode if you take it to the track?

The old Model S had a hard time keeping up with a Nissan Leaf on the track.

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/16/how-did-a-nissan-leaf-b...

Does it pop glued coolant lines making you pay for track cleaning like the rest of track oriented Porsches? https://rennlist.com/forums/997-gt2-gt3-forum/592328-catastr...

A 5% efficiency gain might be a big deal when it comes to motor heat. Electric motors tend to be around 85-90% efficient or so, and if you can get the motor from, say, 85% efficient to 90% efficient, that might translate to a one-third reduction in waste heat.

> that might translate to a one-third reduction in waste heat.

Is that a big deal, though, compared to battery heat? Or is it in the context of a race scenario?

Speculation, since I’m not an expert:

The battery is big, so it has high thermal mass and lots of area for cooling. The motor is small. Motors can also easily be thermally limited. A permanent magnet motor that overheats will demagnetize and be destroyed. Induction motors and other non-permanent-magnet motors are less sensitive, but resistance goes up and metals and glues soften at higher temperature.

My understanding is that getting rid of waste heat is one of the main factors that limits how much power you can get out of an electric motor for any length of time. Less heat means you can get up a long steep hill without overheating (or causing the electronics to back off on the motor amperage to avoid damage).

I think the early versions of the original Tesla roadster had gearboxes with multiple speeds, but Elon eventually got rid of it and settled on just having one for later versions of the roadster (and all subsequent Tesla cars).

I think they found it didn't give much of an advantage when it did work and that they generally just didn't work very well.

And anybody who has driven a Porsche knows what an immaculate steering and transmission feels like. I seriously doubt Porsche would release something that was not up to the standard of the regular vehicles.

I had the recent boxster and was a fan (though it was stick).

I have driven the older “tip-tronic” (I think that was the name) paddle shifters though and they weren’t very good at the time. Supposedly they’ve improved since then though (that was probably 2009 or so).

Agreed. Daily driving in my 958 GTS is great. Long highway stretches are fantastic. But it's not until weekend autocrossing that I really get to feel how well tuned a 2-ton SUV can be. Turning in times in the middle of the same pack as the coupes is fun.

People that haven't driven a modern Porsche just do not grasp how precise the driving experience can be. It's astounding how well-tuned their vehicles are.

Mazda dumped a bunch of R&D and complexity into their transmission for "only" a 4-7% (AT)¹ and 1% (MT)² efficiency improvement. I guess in the automotive world, you're fighting for every last %.

¹ https://www.mazda.com/en/innovation/technology/skyactiv/skya...

² https://www.mazda.com/en/innovation/technology/skyactiv/skya...

Tesla tried to use a two speed transmission back in its Roadster days. They scraped it due to reliability issues. So even Tesla thinks (or thought) that two speed transmissions had technical advantages.

Comparing Porsche and Tesla shows that the perception of performance applies to EVs too: European performance is more about the handling, while American performance is more about straightline acceleration. The reason for this difference becomes obvious if you compare what the roads are typically like between the two regions.

Live in Germany, and I care about handling, breaking power, and acceleration at rarely >50km/h, and often at >100-130km/h. Acceleration at 0-100km/h makes no sense for any meaningful use of a car here.

When I'm driving at >250km/h on the highway and one truck tries to overtake another at 80-90km/h, people driving 130 on the middle lane end up switching to the fast lane, so I have to break down to 100-130 km/h, and re-accelerate back up to >250km/h afterwards. The faster that happens, the less my average speed falls.

In Germany at least, one never lands into the highway merging lane at lestt than 60-70km/h, and the normal thing is to be at 50km/h and slowly move towards 80km/h for merging once you are on the merging lane and merge carefully. By the time you finish merging you are already at 120km/h in the slow lane.

If you are driving curvy roads, you want good handling so that you don't have to break down to less than 50-60km/h most of the time, and then you want good acceleration from 50-60 up to 100 km/h, and good breaking. You can't drive curvy roads here faster than 100km/h anyways.

Nurburgring is a mixture between highway and track-curvy roads (realistic curvy roads in germany are not like that), where a skilled driver with a car with good handling rarely drops below 130km/h in the curves, and is at about 250 km/h on all straight segments except for the very last one. Being able to reach 300km/h in the last segment is nice, but it only makes a dent in the overall lap time and doesn't really help if your car has bad handling. Also, its the last segment of the lap, so if your EV is overheating you'll fail miserably there.

The only situation I can imagine in which 0-60 matters is if you are drag racing, and for that, I have a 9.000 EUR BMW S1000R that beats pretty much every single car. Why would anyone pay >80.000 EUR for a drag racing car escapes my comprehension. Why would anyone care about Nurburgring times escapes my comprehension as well. I was once there with the bike, and I almost shit my pants. There is a huge difference between smoothly cruising at 250 km/h in a Germany highway, and driving at 250km/h on Nurburgring. People driving there are insane.

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