Lwith the electric car: the charging station near the destination absolutely does not get along with the Porsche Taycan. So we slowly drive home without refueling and head for a DC fast charging station along the route. Go for a walk while charging or rather wait in the car? The gut feeling says wait – and was spot on. Because initially the display shows a quick refueling with almost 100 kilowatts. But after a few minutes, the process ends with an error message.
We decouple the car and charging cable, start from the beginning, this time it works. Thanks to the efficient 800-volt technology, the battery is charged to more than 80 percent in half an hour. In the Taycan GTS Sport Turismo with the Performance Battery Plus (93 kilowatt hours), we achieved average consumption of less than 30 kilowatt hours for 100 kilometers. Mind you, with a cautious driving style, and the range was then up to 320 kilometers.
Infotainment, which Porsche calls PCM (Porsche Communication Management), helps to reduce both the search for charging points and the charging time. This is the system we are talking about here. For the first time, Porsche is consistently and consistently using touch operation, and the number of physical buttons has been drastically reduced. Those for adjusting the light and air conditioning have also disappeared. Not only that: Even the mechanical slats of the ventilation nozzles are a thing of the past, the air flow is adjusted digitally. To do this, you have to select the desired air vent on the display and then use a slider button to do what used to be done intuitively in a tenth of the time with a single movement.
Digital cockpit: Porsche Taycan with nimble speech recognition
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Image: manufacturer
So it’s hardly surprising that the Taycan has a total of one square meter of screen space. The digital cockpit in front of the steering wheel measures 16.8 inches, is slightly curved and has touch sensors on the edges to control the light and chassis functions. The display can be configured in many ways, so it shows either the classic round instruments, the navigation map or a reduced display.
The on-board infotainment monitor is embedded in the middle with a diagonal of just 10.9 inches. There is also an optional display for the front passenger at the level of the glove compartment, both of which are combined to form a glass strip with a black-panel look. The fourth display with a diagonal of 8.4 inches is located in front of the center armrest and below the onboard monitor. Here you can set the air conditioning or use handwriting recognition to record the navigation destination. Pressing the virtual buttons leads to tactile and acoustic feedback, as in the Audi luxury class.
Catchy operation without overloaded menus
The high quality of all four ads is immediately apparent. The razor-sharp display with strong colors and a rich background black is convincing. However, it remains incomprehensible why the on-board monitor is so small. On the other hand, the rapid start-up time of the entire system is commendable. Once you buckle up, the systems are ready to go, including voice recognition. This is anything but a matter of course.
With the new PCM 6, colored icons lead to the corresponding function departments. The operation is intuitive and leaves hardly any questions unanswered. Porsche focuses on the essentials, the menus are not overloaded. For electric driving, charging planning is added to the route calculation. If the route is determined quickly by the PCM, charging planning for long distances takes several minutes, but that doesn’t bother you because you can already start driving. High-power charging stations are prioritized along the route, and the duration of the charging sessions is included in the calculation of the total travel time.
The suggested charging stations are listed individually, you can see what percentage of the battery level you will arrive with, how long you should charge and what level you should continue with. Usually 80 percent is suggested, so PCM takes into account that charging the remaining 20 percent takes a very long time. In comparison with other manufacturers, some detailed information on power consumption, charging speed and more is missing.
But an important option is the possibility of being able to specify a minimum charge when reaching a destination or intermediate destination. This ensures, for example, that you still have at least 15 percent battery power at home far away from any charging point. What we didn’t like: If you’re looking for the next electric charging station along the route by hand beyond the charging planning, you have to do a lot of work. The displayed list is not optimized for route proximity. After all, there is a filter function for the charging power of the stations in question.
All in all, there is no way around the finger on the display in the Taycan. One may criticize the fact that some paths take longer because of this. In the Taycan GTS Sport Turismo that we drive, PCM is standard equipment. Since Porsche no longer issues price lists, you have to check the equipment and prices of other model variants in the online configurator on a daily basis.