Porsche is recalling versions of the all-electric Taycan made before June of this year, to right a software fault that can cut the vehicle’s power without warning.
A glitch in the software communications between the Taycan’s powertrain controller and the power electronics causes the car to bring up a dashboard alerting urging the motorist to find a safe place to stop. The automobile cuts drive but can still be steered and braked to a halt; if travelling at around 75mph, there would be around 90 seconds to do this before the Taycan would run out of momentum, Porsche estimates. once the automobile is safely stopped, turned off and restarted, it will operate usually again.
More Porsche Taycan variants could be in the pipeline
The fault has occurred on 0.3 per cent of the 43,000 automobiles affected by the recall. Porsche customers are being contacted by their dealership and the patch will take around an hour to complete. The fix is being carried out in a workshop, instead of over the air, because it requires calibration of the powertrain controller. around 4,500 cars in the UK are expected to be included in the recall.
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The Taycan’s project leader for drivetrain, Klaus Rechberger, told automobile express that there are no defined parameters that force the issue to occur. “It’s entirely sporadic,” he said. “We first identified the problem in our own testing, and we have had intensive additionally tests with multiple sensors on automobiles to check out the issue. There is no set of scenarios that automatically replicates the situation.”
Rechberger said that the software problem had already been fed into the “learning process” ahead of Porsche’s next EV launch, the forthcoming pure-electric Macan, and stated that the firm’s existing hybrid models are unaffected.
Audi has already issued a similar recall for the e-tron GT and RS e-tron GT, both sister automobiles to the Taycan. but considering that production of these cars started later than the Porsche, the number of automobiles involved is much smaller. Audi has confirmed to automobile express that just 58 cars in the UK have been recalled, and 46 of them have already had the fix applied.
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