Mr.RS4

Consider to buy a Porsche Panamera e-hybrid 2017/2018

Any issue / error I should be aware of? Or look after?

cometguy

Read the "Panamera 4 E-hybrid Owners Thread" here at Rennlist...

mafpolo

My concern is whether dealers have enough experience when problems occur. My wife has a 2014 e-hybrid, and it has had the same problem numerous times....still not fixed after four or five visits.

donutcritic

Curious, what's the issue?

mafpolo

Car will not go into e-power. The default setting is turn the car on, and it is in electric power. You can override it, and have it in hybrid mode. The problem we have had over and over is that she will tun on the car, and the engine starts....and the car will not go into electric mode. Press the button and you get a message on the dash that says "E power not available." I am about sick and tired of it. A fellow Rennlister said his partner had the same problem. They finally replaced his battery, because one cell was slightly off, and he has never had the problem again. I spoke to my dealer today, and he told me that couldn't be the problem. How would he know....the car isn't even there yet. They once kept it for two weeks. Dealers don't know how to fix e-hybrids.

nvarga

Maybe it is the hybrid control unit that is making problems. Mine was replaced under guarantee and I had no problems since.

K777

@mafpolo - The dealer couldn't know. With my partners JCT Leeds didn't know, it took Porsche Germany weeks to decide what it was, they changed the module, that didn't resolve his issue, then they changed the battery, that did. Yours could be either, or something else.
It took 52 days to sort. Once the car was in the dealership they wouldn't allow it to be released, so he was without his car for 52 days, he had only had it about a month.

If they change the module, make sure they order the special tool to get it out, again JCT got the module, then said will be two weeks to get the tool.
Useless.
That was 3 years ago, we had 2015 S E-Hybrids, so the issue was (we were told) never been seen before, worldwide. These days they have a couple more hybrid engineers, so things aren't as bad.( barring my GPS/antenna issue)

Give him the reg I gave you just to check the history, there's no harm him checking what it was exactly.

wiggi

I recently took delivery of a 2016 Panamera Hybrid with 37K miles, so far very disappointed with the 9 miles e-charge and that's more like 6 before the engine kicks in with a/c off, I'm in Florida so good temperatures all year round. My warranty is good until Oct 2022 so I will probably be pushing Porsche for a battery replacement before the time is up. Previously owned a 2014 Porsche Panamera 3.6L

Subbed

cometguy

That's the two-wheel-drive S E-Hybrid you have, right? It has the small 10-kWh battery pack, which doesn't give much range. Brand new, it probably didn't get better than 12-14 miles of all-electric range -- which is why I took a pass on getting a sub-14-kWh-battery-pack Porsche PHEV, even though I looked at Cayenne and Panamera S E-Hybrids seriously before I got my 14-kWh Pan 4 E-Hybrid (which routinely gets 20 miles, and as much as 24-25 miles with low-speed local driving in summer temps). Now Porsche sells 18-kWh E-Hybrids, which routinely get 25 miles of all-electric range (and up to 30 miles). I doubt that Porsche will consider 9 miles of all-electric range a reason for replacing battery pack under warranty. When I test-drove all those (pre-2018-MY) S E-Hybrids, I made great efforts to have the dealerships have them fully charged beforehand, so that I could see what kind of range they got (and they had pathetic ranges). Apparently you didn't do this in your test drives?

Schn3ll

I'm interested in this topic as well as it relates to the 971 e-hybrids.

My wife is considering a 2018-2019, and they are trending around $80k right now. She loves the Panamera and loves plug-in hybrids and it seems like a great solution, I just worry about out of warranty issues related to the complex hybrid system, air suspension, electronics, etc. Does anyone have feedback on the newer generation e-hybrids?

Personally I am hoping she goes for something a bit newer for that kind of spend (i.e. CT5-V Blackwing or the IS500) mainly because the depreciation on those should be no more than $2,000 a year based on their predecessors. Or even a full EV - she drives a Volt now (which is why she loves the EV hybrids and loves not using gas for 99% of the trips she makes).

amphicar770

My 2014 hybrid had battery replaced under warranty in June.

Pure e-range is about 12 miles. Our Pacifica hybrid does 30-35..

Unless in traffic, I drive mostly in hybrid mode. That gives a nice balance between performance and overall mpg.

the biggest concern I have is that the Porsche batteries seem to have far less longevity than what you see in something like a Prius. While a Prius battery will last 150k+ miles and can be replaced for about $2,000, the Porsche battery lasts half that and is an astonishingly absurd $20,000 which is inexcusable.

Cobraownr

In November 2020 I purchased a 2018 Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Sport Turismo with 2,900 miles on the odo. In the 10 months since I have put another 2,212 miles on it and fueled it just twice. Almost all of my driving has been in full EV mode on around town errands. I consistently get 25-26 miles EV range and am able to fully recharge overnight from a 120 volt supply. Cumulative mileage over this period has been 52.4 mpg. The car has been utterly reliable and enjoyable.

SS22

Last time I checked, the Porsche hybrid battery warranty is just as long as the Toyota one (8 years/100k). And I doubt the lithium-ion batteries in Porsche is somehow inferior than other carmakers’ li-ion batteries.

@Cobraownr , that’s awesome. I’d imagine that the technology, performance, and durability of the newer batteries have improved.

The better one maintains their car, the more range they’ll get out of their battery… two of the biggest factors are: (1) minimizing exposure to extreme temperatures (largely unavoidable for people living in certain climates) and (2) minimizing keeping the car at 100% state of charge or letting it totally deplete (although I believe Porsche has built in buffers to make the battery stay within 5-95% regardless of what you do).

amphicar770

Warranty is same but I have seen a much higher percentage of Panamera owners replace their batteries than Prius. It is not just about the battery, but also how well it is cooled, how system uses it.

Does not change fact that essentially the same battery is 10x the cost for the part itself. I get the Porsche tax, but that's an obscene difference.

Schn3ll

I am hoping the battery issues are relatively rare (although risk is a bit mitigated by the extended hybrid drive warranty). The batteries are just about the only thing giving me pause on the Panamera vs. the 2020+ S7 for my wife.

Could anyone venture a guess on % of e-hybrid batteries that go bad? Just trying to calculate my risk here.