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MY ROAD TRIP FROM HELLI bought my Panamera 4S e-hybrid ST so I could take road trips on the west coast of the US, so I was excited to take a trip last week from Northern California to Los Angeles (about 400 miles each way).
The car performed very well and I loved driving it on this trip, but I learned a few lessons about the risks of long trips and venturing into big cities.
The main source of stress was that I had a tough time protecting my still-new 2022 car from harm. I saw that the decent hotels in Santa Monica all had Valet parking, and I didn’t want to let a 20 year attendant park my large car in a tight parking garage, so I booked a hotel that offered self-parking in their garage. But the ‘self-parking’ was in a cramped garage with tight spaces, and a steep, poorly designed ramp. I was lucky to escape with one ding to my paint and a scrape on my undercarriage (damage level TBD, but hopefully just some scratches).
Then driving home on HWY 5, there was a strong wind blowing tumbleweed across the road at 20 MPH - some of these spheres of thorny tumbleweed were 4 feet in diameter. If you search Youtube, you’ll find videos of attacking tumbleweed up and down the West Coast. I managed to avoid most of the tumbleweed, but one hit my driver side door. I can’t see any damage yet through the road dirt, but after I wash the car, I’ll do a final check.
So it was fun to drive the car on this trip, but I’ve come to realize that I have a choice of protecting my car and driving only around town, or driving it, and adding a little ‘patina’ on every trip. I am choosing the latter. I saw a video in which Jerry Seinfeld drove Jay Leno in his original condition 1958 Porsche 356, and he was proud of every dent and rust spot as a sign of what a good survivor that car has been, over its 99,000 miles, and I am trying to embrace the patina I am collecting on my car. As I get more and more scratches, when someone asks me what color my car is, I’ll say ‘it’s mostly Night Blue’.
Mileage (for those who care about such things): Driving south (always in e-Hybrid mode) on Hwy 101, the first leg to Santa Barbara was 289 miles, at 64 MPH avg speed, and I got 30.5 MPG (with the e-Hybrid system consuming about 18 electric miles). On the northbound return trip, driving from Van Nuys over the mountain pass to a pit stop in Bakersfield (104 miles at an average of 60MPH), I got 32.4 mpg, but this time the battery was fully depleted before I started. I found a Charge Point level 2 charger, but it only added about 12 miles in the hour we took to have lunch, and I decided that it wasn’t worth waiting to charge it more. I don’t think the electric motor will contribute much improvement in MPG on these long trips, but 32 MPG on the ICE is pretty good, thanks to the retune of the ICE in e-Hybrid mode.
The car always felt secure, and sure-footed, even in severe thunderstorms. It really is a great GT car.
My Panamera hybrid is at Emden and hopefully I will be behind the steering wheel heading home to San Diego from a delivery at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles before the end of January.
I have installed a 50 amp 14-50 receptacle in my garage and now I need to buy an actual charger unit to be able to charge the car as fast as possible.
so my questions are:
1) will this Panamera accept a 14 Kw charge? Looks like this level of charge could restore the entire 25 or so range to the car in around an hour. But the company that makes a charger with 14 kw output at 50 amps noted that only some hybrids can charge at 14 Kw.
2) why did I spend an extra $800 for an onboard charger? Seems unnecessary if you have a 14kw charger on the wall of your garage.
3) does the Porsche wall charger output 14 KW
as well- or more or less?
MY ROAD TRIP FROM HELLI bought my Panamera 4S e-hybrid ST so I could take road trips on the west coast of the US, so I was excited to take a trip last week from Northern California to Los Angeles (about 400 miles each way).
The car performed very well and I loved driving it on this trip, but I learned a few lessons about the risks of long trips and venturing into big cities.
The main source of stress was that I had a tough time protecting my still-new 2022 car from harm. I saw that the decent hotels in Santa Monica all had Valet parking, and I didn’t want to let a 20 year attendant park my large car in a tight parking garage, so I booked a hotel that offered self-parking in their garage. But the ‘self-parking’ was in a cramped garage with tight spaces, and a steep, poorly designed ramp. I was lucky to escape with one ding to my paint and a scrape on my undercarriage (damage level TBD, but hopefully just some scratches).
At least in the USA you have decent sized roads and generally parking spaces in the USA. In the UK parking spaces are usually sized for an old style BMC Mini and are just too tight for the Panamera. When I am at my French house, one of the roads up to the mountain village where I live, is barely two Citroen 2CV cars wide and used by huge 40 ton articulated trucks carrying road stone from the quarry near the village, down this very narrow and twisty mountain road, as the wider road has a weight limited bridge. The drivers are on piecework rates and as a consequence drive their trucks like their pants are on fire. When you spot one of these monsters coming, I just pull as far as I can to the side of the narrow road, with my wheels half way off and leave the truck to find his way past, so if he hits me, it is on his insurance. I normally leave the Panamera sitting at my house and use my far smaller Three Wheel Morgan for local journeys, unless it is raining very heavily. The Morgan has no roof at all and not even a windscreen, just two small aero/wind deflector screens.
MY ROAD TRIP FROM HELLI bought my Panamera 4S e-hybrid ST so I could take road trips on the west coast of the US, so I was excited to take a trip last week from Northern California to Los Angeles (about 400 miles each way).
The car performed very well and I loved driving it on this trip, but I learned a few lessons about the risks of long trips and venturing into big cities.
The main source of stress was that I had a tough time protecting my still-new 2022 car from harm. I saw that the decent hotels in Santa Monica all had Valet parking, and I didn’t want to let a 20 year attendant park my large car in a tight parking garage, so I booked a hotel that offered self-parking in their garage. But the ‘self-parking’ was in a cramped garage with tight spaces, and a steep, poorly designed ramp. I was lucky to escape with one ding to my paint and a scrape on my undercarriage (damage level TBD, but hopefully just some scratches).
Then driving home on HWY 5, there was a strong wind blowing tumbleweed across the road at 20 MPH - some of these spheres of thorny tumbleweed were 4 feet in diameter. If you search Youtube, you’ll find videos of attacking tumbleweed up and down the West Coast. I managed to avoid most of the tumbleweed, but one hit my driver side door. I can’t see any damage yet through the road dirt, but after I wash the car, I’ll do a final check.
So it was fun to drive the car on this trip, but I’ve come to realize that I have a choice of protecting my car and driving only around town, or driving it, and adding a little ‘patina’ on every trip. I am choosing the latter. I saw a video in which Jerry Seinfeld drove Jay Leno in his original condition 1958 Porsche 356, and he was proud of every dent and rust spot as a sign of what a good survivor that car has been, over its 99,000 miles, and I am trying to embrace the patina I am collecting on my car. As I get more and more scratches, when someone asks me what color my car is, I’ll say ‘it’s mostly Night Blue’.
Mileage (for those who care about such things): Driving south (always in e-Hybrid mode) on Hwy 101, the first leg to Santa Barbara was 289 miles, at 64 MPH avg speed, and I got 30.5 MPG (with the e-Hybrid system consuming about 18 electric miles). On the northbound return trip, driving from Van Nuys over the mountain pass to a pit stop in Bakersfield (104 miles at an average of 60MPH), I got 32.4 mpg, but this time the battery was fully depleted before I started. I found a Charge Point level 2 charger, but it only added about 12 miles in the hour we took to have lunch, and I decided that it wasn’t worth waiting to charge it more. I don’t think the electric motor will contribute much improvement in MPG on these long trips, but 32 MPG on the ICE is pretty good, thanks to the retune of the ICE in e-Hybrid mode.
The car always felt secure, and sure-footed, even in severe thunderstorms. It really is a great GT car.
Did you lift your car while going into the garage and yet it still scraped the bottom?
Anyhow, I like your attitude to enjoy the car despite the bruises it may get along the way. We pay too much to not enjoy such an awesome car.
Originally Posted by Targa32
My Panamera hybrid is at Emden and hopefully I will be behind the steering wheel heading home to San Diego from a delivery at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles before the end of January.
I have installed a 50 amp 14-50 receptacle in my garage and now I need to buy an actual charger unit to be able to charge the car as fast as possible.
so my questions are:
1) will this Panamera accept a 14 Kw charge? Looks like this level of charge could restore the entire 25 or so range to the car in around an hour. But the company that makes a charger with 14 kw output at 50 amps noted that only some hybrids can charge at 14 Kw.
2) why did I spend an extra $800 for an onboard charger? Seems unnecessary if you have a 14kw charger on the wall of your garage.
3) does the Porsche wall charger output 14 KW
as well- or more or less?
Very confusing for a newbie EV car owner -
Don’t worry, I was also confused at first and had to research a lot to wrap my mind around everything. Think of it this way. There’s an amount of charge that you can put into your car and there is an amount of charge that your car can take. By upgrading your car to the larger on-board charger, it means that now your Panamera can take in up to 7.2 kw/hr. It simply cannot be charged at a higher rate. So if you have a 14-50 outlet that can theoretically give more charge, it becomes irrelevant past the 7.2 rate because that’s all the Panamera can take. On my 22 P4SEH, it takes about 2 hours and 20 minutes to go from “zero” to a full charge (I put “zero” in quotes because the Panamera is designed to never fully drain its battery even when it tells you there’s no more e-power left — there’s still some left to boost acceleration if needed).
My Panamera hybrid is at Emden and hopefully I will be behind the steering wheel heading home to San Diego from a delivery at the Porsche Experience Center in Los Angeles before the end of January.
I have installed a 50 amp 14-50 receptacle in my garage and now I need to buy an actual charger unit to be able to charge the car as fast as possible.
so my questions are:
1) will this Panamera accept a 14 Kw charge? Looks like this level of charge could restore the entire 25 or so range to the car in around an hour. But the company that makes a charger with 14 kw output at 50 amps noted that only some hybrids can charge at 14 Kw.
2) why did I spend an extra $800 for an onboard charger? Seems unnecessary if you have a 14kw charger on the wall of your garage.
3) does the Porsche wall charger output 14 KW
as well- or more or less?
Very confusing for a newbie EV car owner -
[preface] the thing that comes with the car in a suitcase and looks like the world's biggest laptop charger is what I am going to call a "wall charger or EVSE" here, meaning the thing that plugs in the wall and your car at the same time. The thing inside the car I am calling a car charger.
The thing on your wall is not a "charger" per se, it is a EV supply equipment or EVSE. It provides a clean, managed current to your car. The actual "charger" is in the car and takes the 110 or 220 AC from the EVSE and turns it into DC to charge the battery. It also tells the EVSE when to send and when to stop sending power.
The charge rate AT THE BATTERY is the lowest of available wall power (limited by Circuit breaker, type of wire inside the wall, and plug), EVSE rated power, and the car's max charger power, which (since you paid the extra $800) is the 7,2kW charger on your car.
Wall: 220W x 50A = 11kW
EVSE (mine) 220V x 40A = 8.8kW
Car charger 7.2kW
Thus the car charger is the limit and you will charge at 7.2kw. To add 15kWh, it will take about 2 hours. Had you not paid the extra, your charge power would have been limited to 3.6kW.
Thus the answers are 1) No, only the 7.2, and BTW, you get one of these with the car but it is pretty basic. 2) See above, 3) The EVSE that comes with the car maxes out at around the 7.2kW that your car can take (on a 220V plug) but if you use the 110V standard home plug it becomes the limiting factor. It takes more than overnight to charge on the 110V plug.
Note- there is a recall out for the Porsche EVSE that will further limit it to half-rate, or 3.6. Either don't get the recall done or buy a third party EVSE. I have a permanently mounted JuiceBox40 with a 20' cable and it works well and got me a discount from the power company since they can turn it off if needed.
Note 2 - You may see in the news that the Taycans can get upgraded to a 14kW internal charger for like $5K. This is for when they get plugged into a charger like the one you are looking at. When they are plugged into a supercharger, the internal charger is bypassed since the supercharger provides straight DC.
The main source of stress was that I had a tough time protecting my still-new 2022 car from harm. ...
The car always felt secure, and sure-footed, even in severe thunderstorms. It really is a great GT car.
Yes, I frequently have had to think about where to take my Panamera and where not to take it. It can be a pain.
I agree about the car being extremely "sure-footed", but it's a heavy car, and as such it does wear the rubber off tires quickly (especially summer tires).
Buying expensive tires frequently is part of the price of ownership, I learned.
As far as driving on long road trips: I have never charged except at home. With my 2018 Pan4 E-Hybrid, 24 local miles is the maximum I have been able to muster in non-highway driving (< 40 mph). That's pretty sad. The 2024 E-Hybrids are supposedly going to have increased battery packs with 50+ miles of range claimed by Oliver Blume last year. But even then, I only ever drive in Hybrid "Hold" mode at speeds > 45 mph in the three PHEVs that I have owned on long road trips without charging; the "proper" roadtrip PHEV strategy is to use all-electric (E-Power in our Porsches) only at speeds < 40 mph or so, in stop-and-go traffic, and shift to Hybrid Hold mode above that to reserve that traction-battery charge for the slow driving. Of course, I'll drive 70 mph in E-Power when close to home when I know I have enough charge to get home.
Here is my latest version of the rain/snow prevention system for the Panamera charge port latch. I am using 3M aircraft grade 47011548 aluminium tape (Amazon). I will do it again more (much!) neatly, when my very arthritic hands are not as cold and shaking as much, after a lot of cleaning with naphtha to get the old hardened adhesive off from the previous duct tape. Still this will work until I do it better and will keep water and snow out of the latch hole, which can then freeze and prevent the charge port door from latching shut or in fact, can even break the latch due to the expansion of the ice. Just what one expects, to have to use a few pennyworth of tape, to cure a design fault on a £100,000+ car. The aluminium tape bends up and stays up far better than the previous duct tape version did when shutting the door. A few weeks ago I shut the door in the dark, with the latch prong going through the old duct tape and had to use a plastic spudger to open the charge door again, as the latch was all gummed up with bits of torn tape, which I then had to pick out with a pair of micro needle nose pliers.
Wilson
also like you discovered the idiotic placement and non-heating of the charge door latch a few months ago as it started getting into freezing temps. Drove around the first week with the flap open, and the second week with it frozen shut. Finally had to park in a heated garage in town for a full day to unfreeze. Filled the darn hole with WD-40 as a first step. Then I constructed from a piece of plastic the first version of a cover, see the pic and attached with a hose camp to the handle. Works to keep the water out. Next version will cover the whole area, as it fills up with snow which then thaws and freezes and makes a big ball of ice that I sometimes need to chip away at. It is not a perfect fit, but it works well enough to keep the water out of the little latch hole.
In other news I found out the windscreen washer nozzles are not heated and froze up the other day and still I am frustrated at the low peak effect of heating while under e-power. I have given up and resorted to using the ICE, but there is no "petrol only" mode. I don't want to charge the battery, and don't want to run in Sport - just a regular petrol only mode please that does not stop it consistnely like Auto or Hold as I'm using it as an expensive cabin heater... the woes of having a €150k car...
I was saying to my wife the week of the "frozen latch incident" (it will go down in family history how "dad was so angry those weeks") that I was not aware that I had to build a second heated garage as part of Panamera ownership.
Last edited by Black_on_black; 01-06-2023 at 08:07 AM.
Thanks Ss20! Best explanation yet of what all this charging design can do and can’t do.
so it seems then one would want to get an adapter to plug the wall charger provided by Porsche into a 220 volt socket on the garage wall. Then with having wisely spent $800 on the 7.2 kw charger built into the car the fastest the car can charge is 7.2 Kw.
therefore when buying an after market wall charger paying extra for a 50 amp wall charger that outputs say 12 or even 14 kw is pointless unless planning to upgrade to a Taycon someday in the future.
Buying the $2,000 plus wall charger that Porsche sells is a waste of money than for a Panamera hybrid owner or buying any 50 amp wall charger that outputs 11kw or 14 kw.
all a Panamera should buy - with the $800 upgraded onboard charger - is a unit that outputs 7.2 kw?
but plugging into a charging port at an Electrify America location that outputs a lot more than 7.2 kw does not damage the cars onboard charger.
kind of like Congress - I decided I needed to just buy an electric plug in hybrid so I could find out how all this charging stuff works.
pumping gas into your car does seem a lot simpler, faster in comparison to dealing with all this charger stuff.
Thanks Ss20! Best explanation yet of what all this charging design can do and can’t do.
so it seems then one would want to get an adapter to plug the wall charger provided by Porsche into a 220 volt socket on the garage wall. Then with having wisely spent $800 on the 7.2 kw charger built into the car the fastest the car can charge is 7.2 Kw.
therefore when buying an after market wall charger paying extra for a 50 amp wall charger that outputs say 12 or even 14 kw is pointless unless planning to upgrade to a Taycon someday in the future.
Buying the $2,000 plus wall charger that Porsche sells is a waste of money than for a Panamera hybrid owner or buying any 50 amp wall charger that outputs 11kw or 14 kw.
all a Panamera should buy - with the $800 upgraded onboard charger - is a unit that outputs 7.2 kw?
but plugging into a charging port at an Electrify America location that outputs a lot more than 7.2 kw does not damage the cars onboard charger.
kind of like Congress - I decided I needed to just buy an electric plug in hybrid so I could find out how all this charging stuff works.
pumping gas into your car does seem a lot simpler, faster in comparison to dealing with all this charger stuff.
That is all correct, with the caveat that charging at places (like Electrify America) will not damage your Panamera — the system automatically adjusts and takes in the max 7.2kw. You just need to find a charging station with the J1772 plug that will go into your Panamera (pretty standard and tons of charging stations have it). Frankly though, I’ve never paid at a charging station to charge my Panamera. Only do home charging. The only place I’ve charged at were at the dealership or some place where it just happens to be available for free and I park there.
so it seems then one would want to get an adapter to plug the wall charger provided by Porsche into a 220 volt socket on the garage wall.
Also- the wall charger provided with the car comes with a plug that should fit your 14-50 socket, unless you specified something else in the configurator. At least mine did. It actually comes with 2 plugs, the 14-50 and a normal 110, and the ends can be swapped out with the help of a screwdriver. The brick then automatically knows which voltage it is getting. And I thought my explanation was way better than @SS22 (we have a contest)
Your explanation was definitely better (and more impressive) for sharing all the tech details! I’m just simple, non-tech folk over here but some people speak my simple language
Porsche certainly know how to charge for the additional country leads for the universal charger. Mine being a UK purchased vehicle came with two power cables for the charger, a standard UK socket one which is a 13A fused plug with 3 rectangular pins and a cable with what is called in the UK, a Commando plug, a blue coloured three pin unfused 32A plug. These are part of the industrial plug series for the UK, which are colour coded. Yellow for worksite use and 110V (less dangerous in the case of electric shock), blue for our regular 230/240V circuits and red for three phase 415V Wye supply. For use at my French house, I wanted a 16A cable with a standard European Schuko plug. Porsche wanted over £300 for this cable. Instead I made up an extension cable with a Schuko plug at one end, which plugs into one of the exterior sockets at my house and at the other end an IP66 waterproof 13A socket. I think the whole thing cost me around £30, including 25 metres of 2.5mm² exterior grade UV resistant cable. I just then use the low current 13A UK charger supply cable. For those who don't know what a Schuko plug is, I post an image below.
I too could not believe that Porsche omitted heating for the Panamera windscreen washer nozzles (and the headlight washer nozzles). On my previous 911 TTS, if you attempted to use the headlight washers, when they were frozen, they would break and have to be replaced. Don't they get frosts in Stuttgart or Leipzig?
Wilson
Last edited by Wilson Laidlaw; 01-07-2023 at 05:30 AM.
I agree. The windshield washer nozzles are very poorly designed. @ Wilson Laidlaw, going back to your charging port hack, would you consider something like this?
I think I will have to get one of those covers. Your link did not work but I found one on Amazon UK. I tried to post the Amazon UK link but for some reason, links to Amazon pages from this forum are not working at present. With the current cold snap in the UK, although with my current device to keep water out of the charge port latch, I can shut the charge port, it will not latch. It was very wet last week and I am guessing that just condensation in the port latch, has left enough water in there so that when frozen, it stops the tongue of the latch moving to lock the pin in. I am amazed that Porsche still use this totally inadequate piece of design on current cars.
Wilson
Last edited by Wilson Laidlaw; 01-18-2023 at 04:21 AM.
An embargo was recently lifted on journalists (two weeks ago) regarding their being allowed to test-drive the forthcoming Cayenne "facelift" for MY 2024. There are significant changes that will surely also apply to 2024 Panameras, including the change to Taycan-style displays, gear-shifter, and on/off button. For us E-Hybrid enthusiasts, the larger traction battery is being rolled out and now known to be 25.9 kWh in size; Porsche says that this will allow up to 80 km (50 miles) of all-electric range, which sounds like double what my 14-kWh 2018 Panamera can accomplish, and that's a game-changer for me. I like to drive locally in all-electric as much as possible, and my 2018 Panamera just can't do my daily work commute roundtrip (26 miles) of mostly slow, urban driving. I really hate having the ICE on when driving slowly.
Has anybody else here heard about what appears to be a very changed Panamera for MY 2024? The new Cayenne will be formally announced at the April auto show in Shanghai, according to the journalists' postings... I'm guess that the changed Panamera will be announced around the same time -- so just a couple of months from now.
01-04-2023, 08:33 PM
