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I like my Panamera but honestly - the hybrid systems seems kind of more for an eco warrior than for actual use on the road.
I just drove 1,300 miles up the California coast to Washington/ - battery was helpful for the first 25 miles. Then the battery is at zero miles. I kept the car in the auto hybrid mode and the battery recharges a little- from braking it seems but not the engine.
if I put it in sport plus the engine rpm jumps way up to over 3,000 rpm and is of course sucking up that old fashion mode of energy- gasoline. So I am burning a lot more gasoline than I would burn on just the normal or even sport - but on these latter modes it does not seem to push much of a charge into the battery.
my take is that the hybrid system is good if you plug in charge each night and then drive the car around town on errands on all electric this saves you from buying fuel but your still buying electricity of course.
California is about to pass a mileage road tax since electric cars avoid their fuel road taxes - and of course I got zero refund on this 2023 Panamera that cost on an msrp of $167,400.
It seems pointless to charge the car when on a long road trip to get another 25 miles of electric range and now at my destination I don’t have a convenient overnight charge location not having a garage setup with a charger. So the three weeks I stayed in Washington the mileage on electric stayed at from 0-4 miles - all the time on hybrid auto mode.
in Europe a non- electric car comes with a huge penalty tax -like 10% or more I was told - and the hybrid function helps avoid this Union tax. But here our govt decided to essentially only let you take a refund of $7,500 if you buy a Tesla made from parts in the states. Which a Panamera definitely is not a state side built car.
I am amazed at how seamlessly it switches from electric to ice and the electric motor adds acceleration power but I could have gotten the same from the v8 version of the Panamera. And in eight years this battery will be spent and the cost to replace will almost surely be tens of thousands of dollars making it economically impossible to justify that investment.
My six months experience with the hybrid Panamera is that it is fun to play with, the logos with the green background and the green calipers are cool looking and for just my wife going to the grocery store or the bank or shopping and if she will remember to plug it in when she comes back to the garage - it saves buying gasoline but is sucking up a lot of electricity instead of gas.
Better than the Taycon as you don’t have any range anxiety of course - which is nice.
next time I would buy an all electric or an all gas car - but this in between propulsion system is more for making an eco warrior person feel good about having a battery - and for fun - somewhat more engaging than a PDK all gas Porsche sedan.
Just my personal experience.
Targa32, so much to unpack here.
I think maybe you're not enjoying your EH as much as you could because of a few misunderstandings.
Well I have had my 2023 Panamera hybrid executive for six months now and I honestly don’t see the big advantage of the hybrid system with only 30 miles range. I can plug it in at night and use this range which is more like actual 25 miles , to cruise around town on short distance errands but it cost me money to charge it up - which I have not figured out yet specifically.
My battery is 17 kW and it doesn't fully discharge so a full charge is about 15 kWh. I have solar so it's "free" for me. If you pay 33 cents overnight like here in California then that's about $5. If you pay the national average of 11 cents then it's under $2 for a full charge
Longer drives the battery exhausts rapidly and end up on gasoline of course. But the car is much heavier than a gas engine only car so now Getting worse mileage.
The whole concept of a hybrid is there are efficiencies to be gained from a battery. Like regenerative braking and increased efficiency off the line (stop and go). The EH is 700 lbs heavier which I'm sure is easily made up for in its increased efficiency even after the battery is empty.
on sport the batteries charge a small amount at a higher rpm- so using up gas to put a charge into the battery. On sport plus the rpm’s jump way way up so eating up lots of gasoline to charge the battery so that charge in the battery is paid for by burning more gas than necessary.
This is still a Porsche. Sport Plus charges the battery to 80% so that the car can perform to the MAXIMUM. The car does not care about gas when you're in sport plus, only PERFORMANCE. The battery does not charge during engine revs, quite the opposite. The battery charges when the engine isn't being used (by increasing the idle speed, sure).
on a weekend long drive the battery is exhausted in the first 25 miles of a drive of 400 miles - and now I am using up gas to haul this heavy battery.
On a long trip you should use Hybrid the whole time to maximize efficiency. My batter will go about 200 miles in hybrid before running out. If you know you're going somewhere without charging, you can consider Hybrid-Hold and save some battery for your destination, where at low speeds you'll get better efficiency.
The only time to use Full Electric on the freeway is if you're on your way home in traffic and know you're not going out again that day. Then use up the battery.
min Europe a hybrid is taxed at a much lower rate - and in many city centers the rules only allow electric vehicles at certain times of the day to keep the city noise down,
There is a Hybrid-Charge option for those cities so you can make sure to have battery when you get there. I don't use that feature in California.
But here in the states/ it is kind of pointless other than the green brakes and green emblem look fun and useful if your wife uses it 90% of the time to visit bank or market and out to dinner locally.
if I put the mode in electric or hybrid - the battery runs down fast and is useless in just 20 odd miles - not impressed so far with the hybrid system personally.
there is no free lunch/ either you are paying at home to charge the car or your burning a lot more gasoline to charge the battery in sport plus mode where the engine rpm run way up on the rpm gauge.
There's no free lunch (except with paid for solar). But there is a real increase in efficiency.
a Taycon battery size where you get say 200 plus miles on electric and with a gas engine to provide increased range on longer drives would be ideal.
If science were to triple or quadruple the Energy Capacity per Kilogram of batteries then yea, you could have a 200 mile battery on a hybrid. But at that point you could just have a 1000 Miles all electric car. And we will get there... and that's when I'll buy all electric.
Tell me what the heck so-called hybrid auto does for me? I run the car mostly in sport mode until the charge from the night before is used up. I see no reason to charge the car at a charge location while on a trip of 400 miles a day - can’t stop to recharge every 20 some miles. I can run in sport plus/ chew up a lot more gasoline at higher rpm so the battery will charge back up to maximum and then I get 20 miles on e only? Why bother? The regeneration back into the battery from slowing down seems trivial in terms of pushing much of a charge into the battery seems trivial as well.
so much to discuss on this one, wow.
Hybrid-Auto is pretty amazing. If you use the maps it will maximize the efficiency of the battery for the given destination. I think it may even use the maps to know when to turn the engine on. My car always seems to know when I'm about to get on a freeway. I could be wrong about that level of sophistication.
Don't pay to charge your car on trips, not worth the bother. But free charging is fine.
I don't understand this charge every 20 miles thing, put the car in hybrid auto and chill out.
Sport plus is not for charging the battery, it's for MAXIMUM PERFORMANCE. I'm not yelling, just saying they really try to maximize it.
Hybrid-Charge is for charging but again, only for European cities where that is necessary. Don't blame Germans for building German cars and putting features in them specifically for German cities.
Regenerative Braking accounts for about 15-25% of your electricity used. It's just not trivial.
fun hobby design for those who want to save the world from global warming as this hybrid model sounds great to all your eco warrior friends but rather pointless. And most states are going to shortly impose a mileage tax on electric vehicles which would be insult to injury in that ai paid more in sales taxes on the higher cost of a hybrid and then ai will have to pay a tax on miles driven even though I don’t see much difference in energy uses and with a mileage tax to make up for the lost road taxes on an all electric vehicle yet I am still buying lots of gas to fuel my hybrid with a 20 mile electric mostly pointless range. The electric motor gives me better off the line than a six cylinder Panamera would have but likely not better than an eight cylinder only Panamera.
As of now the proposed tax would be based on vehicle size and mileage, not whether it's an EV or not. It would replace the gas tax (HA! like that'll ever happen).
my car is gorgeous and was fantastic on a 1,000 mile three day trip - this last week but the hybrid system was pointless and exhausted after the first 20 odd miles and the car ran on gasoline only the entire drive.
Again, Hybrid-Auto.
if there was a setting that only used the battery on hard acceleration ax a booster but once at a constant speed would isolate the battery and run the car on the gas engine only that would be nice to provide a burst of speed greater than the base six cylinder could provide on its own. And I would likely burn less gas on a 409 mile trip only because a six cylinder engine just burns less gas than an eight cylinder and costs less originally of course. But an eight cylinder engine that on the highway drops four cylinders would likely do better as you don’t have a battery of 1,000 pounds to haul everywhere as on a six cylinder with an electric engine for sudden acceleration.
Sport Plus provides maximum performance like you're asking for. Hybrid-auto provides maximum efficiency.
I would like to see a Sport-Hybrid feature kinda like you're saying. Something that keeps the engine sporty but using more battery.
Anyway, not trying to troll you. I just hope this info helps you enjoy your car more.
I'm not some super rich dude with a garage of fancy cars. I drive this every day, everywhere. And I think it's absolute perfection. (Until they make an even better one next year).
I like the car a lot and I even enjoy watching the cute graphs of power moving around the system-- but in the end-- when the battery needs replacing for $25,000 or more -- when the car is worth $15,000 and you amortize that back as part of the cost each year and or every mile-- my suspicion is that I would have been just as well off with the v8 engine Panamera or just the six cylinder base Panamera in terms of costs over my use of the car. And I do like the green emblems and the green calipers as well-- and I will keep the car -- with Biden' eliminating the $7,500 tax credit that makes the hybrid less attractive also.
When I talked to the sales manager of the Porsche dealer, I buy cars from about my skepticism in regard to the Hybrid Panamera he told me that he tries to talk customers into either the Taycon or the gas engine models -- for the reasons I have come to about this system.
Also--in Europe the city centers only allow electric cars on the streets, so the hybrid again also makes sense for European owners-- I have fun playing with it and it is training my wife to plug the car in every time she comes home so that when we have to buy an all-electric, she won't get stranded all the time by herself.
In my case - with two heart attacks in the last several years, a quadruple bypass, and being 71- I won't have to worry about replacing the battery so that saves some money!
LAst comment-- my Panamera 4, executive Hybrid -cost me $167,000 before state fees -- so worrying about saving some money on gas when driving around town seems silly doesn't it? If I was serious, I would buy a Prius -- light small car with a small engine and not any performance -- not this large Porsche sedan that weights nearly twice what my last sedan weighted. If you are a global warming fan there is the intangible righteous feeling of helping to save the planet as you drive around in a 6,000 plus pound car with a battery that has lots of toxic chemicals and materials in it with huge tires that are polluting the roads with rubber.
Until the battery dies; the road taxes eat up any savings over gas usage on short trips, and a crazy expensive repair bill from fixing this very complicated hybrid system--or I croak -- I will keep this car and leave it on Auto hybrid and drive it.
Forgot to mention that I have a GT3 on a ship in the Panama canal today-- that gets horrible gas mileage, and which even requires a gas guzzler tax of $1500 -- and I don't really need a 200 mph semi-race car that is uncomfortable either-- and this car eats up any fuel saving on the Panamera. SO I am back to a four door Buick Regal it seems in reality.
Yea I totally get you. I wouldn't stress on the battery replacement.
My quick calculations put the gas saving over 8 years at about the cost of replacing the battery, so that's a wash.
Remember, the Porsche hybrid technology is based around performance not gas savings.
If I put my 4S EH in Sport mode all the time it would still have better performance and better gas mileage than a 4S ICE.
Getting the Turbos was out of my price range.
I will say, one of my favorite benefits is when you hit heavy traffic and put the car in Electric and put on the self driving thing. Man that is a way less stressful way to be in traffic.
Electric is a nice feature, you don't have to use it all the time. (I'm really trying to tell myself to use it less and have more fun)
I love the car overall and the hybrid system is definitely interesting and “engaging” as manual trans fans like to say. And it is a nice step into electric vehicles.
I would not be surprised that the crazy prices Porsche likes to throw out on parts that a hybrid battery replacement on a Panamera will be absurdly and impossible on an economic basis as compared to a Prius that I have heard a battery replacement is in the low thousands of dollars. In ten years the cost will be double what seems rational - double it again and then add half again! Not including labor of course at $300 an hour by 2033. And try to get Porsche to replace the battery in year 7-8 before the battery warranty dies. Good luck on that.
They need to make the battery replacement a plug and play 20 minute job. But if Porsche made it too easy - you won’t buy a new car!
I do leave the mode in auto hybrid - and forget about it.
the annoying issue is when you turn the “key” it makes hardly any noise and the rpm gauge does not move at all!
plus I paid $12,500 for the pts color sapphire blue - it is staying now - even has the useless screens in the back that it turns out only displays content from Netflix- nothing else… no other apps can be added. Really a dumb system. Porsche removed a lot of abilities from the previous system and the screens now have almost no value for rear seat passengers.
As background, my handle speaks to my previous car and my wife’s daily driver for the past 6 years has been a Tesla Model S. When I, very reluctantly, decided to replace my 911 I did a ton of research and really wanted to like the Taycan. But, to me, the lack of charging infrastructure, the cost reductions factored into the interior items, the poor range, and my reading of some technology gremlins, were three plus one strikes against it! The Mercedes EQS had even more strikes.
I wasn’t even considering the Panamera hybrid. But when a friend who had had one and switched to the Taycan spoke with me about how much he had loved his prior car and regretted the change, I checked the Panamera out. I was absolutely floored by all that I read and when a car with almost all the options I wanted was available in NYC, I jumped on it last year.
My feelings after almost a year of ownership – this car is amazing! It of course isn’t anything like my beloved 911, but in comparison to the Tesla, I way prefer its refinement as well as interior. The Panny and the Tesla are both amazing cars in their own way but if I were to buy a new car today, it would again be the Panamera hybrid. It’s an electric car for all my local driving, a remarkable tourer in hybrid mode, and is almost Tesla-like in acceleration on the highways in sport mode. My overall gas usage since purchase is highly efficient, with a figure close to 60 miles/gallon to date! I truly think I have the best of all worlds with this car. Maybe the battery replacement issue (if any?) could crop up in a few years but I don’t spend a minute even thinking about it. Honestly, I’m not even sure what is being referred to re the battery in a couple of the posts above.
Other benefits of e-hybrid mode are that:
- The PDK changes so that you get access to the 8th gear at highway speeds so you cruise at lower RPM - at 60MPH, you will be in 8th gear with e-hybrid mode, and 7th gear in Sport, and sometimes 6th in Sport Plus.
- The steady state RPM is lower in all gears so your MPG increases.
- If you are going down hill on the highway, the ICE stops and you coast (especially helpful when you are coming down a mountain, like going home to San Francisco after a weekend in Lake Tahoe (6,000 feet elevation).
- Stop and go traffic in this mode is great, b/c the ICE is off while you are stopped and as you inch forward, as mentioned elsewhere
By the way, there is no need to cruise in Sport mode while on the highway, because if you need to pass someone in an aggressive manner you just press the Sport Response button and the entire car changes to 'go fast' mode, starting with the engine revving to 4500 RPM so when you stomp on the accelerator, the car jumps. I think the Sport Response 20 second burst is the same regardless of whether you started in Sport or e-hybrid.
If you haven't been using Sport Reponse, try it. The only problem is you need a lot of open road ahead of you as this car accelerates like a rocket.
Well my experience is with my $168,000 hybrid executive - that saving a few bucks on fuel for a much more complicated system with a battery that will be so expensive to make the car worthless seems rather pointless. And Joe took away the $7,500 tax credit while an all electric Tesla still has some tax credits. The rules are so confusing you would think an 83 year old with dementia designed them.
I like the car-drives nice on the road and all and quality inside is fantastic/ but if I was ordering my car again I would order the least powerful v8 model and skip the hybrid thing- an all electric Panamera executive would be a good alternative. But for a heavy large car I don’t see that much benefit unless you live in Europe where they have quiet zones in downtown areas and the hybrid stuff eliminates a huge amount of penalty tax for buying an ice car.
the new 2025 is supposedly going to have from 60 to 100 mile electrics range - that would make a lot more sense and make the hybrid system more usable.
When I bought my 4 E-Hybrid in 2017, a replacement battery was £8000, according to my Porsche dealer, which is a long way from the $25,000 quoted above. I believe that Lithium traction batteries have become slightly cheaper since 2017 but as the latest battery is somewhat larger capacity, the price is probably about the same.
I purchased a new Panamera about 2 months ago, and after the first car was (literally 2 days after buying it), I noticed that water was pooling up in the charging port, and while there is a little drain there it seemed like it was clogged or obstructed somehow. So, I took the car to the Porsche service center about 3-4 weeks after buying it and they claimed that this was a wear and tear item which is not covered by the warranty, but that they would fix it as a courtesy. I found this incredibly annoying as the car had the issue from day 1 and I can not imagine how I could have managed to "wear" out the drain in the first 48 hours I owned the car (during which I drove if for maybe a total of 100 miles). Plus I keep the car garaged and meticulously clean so there is no way any dirt, dust or debris could have gotten in there.
But fine, whatever. They fixed it which apparently involved removing the whole panel and replacing the little drainage hose. So I went home tested the drainage hole by pouring some water and it seemed to work fine. However the very next week, I had the car washed and sure enough, the same issue occurred again; water is pooling up in the charging port and not draining. I have another service appointment scheduled, however I am wondering has anyone else experienced this issue? Am I doing something wrong? I can sponge the water fairly easily, should I just accept this and move on (although water and electrical components do not seem like a good combo and for the money I paid I should not have to settle)?
I can not imagine that I caused any wear or clogged it somehow, this feels like a defect, and I'm getting worried I will be going back and forth to the service center trying to get this fixed and arguing that it should be covered by the warranty....
I live on a Farm when I am in the UK over the winter and during the summer in the south of France the Panamera is surrounded by Hollyoak and very large Mediterranean Pine trees in my grounds, so in both locations there is quite a lot of leaf, pine straw and other debris that seems magnetically attracted to the drain hole on the charge port. I occasionally use a compressed air blower with the regulator turned down to around 20 psi/1.4 bar to clear it. In the absence of a compressed air supply nearby, you can use a camera dust blower to clear the drain. About once a month I find is enough. I don't know what your winter temperatures are where the car is stored and if it is garaged or like mine, outside connected to the 7.2 kWH charger. Snow is the main enemy as if the charge door is open, it will fill up the latch hole and freeze solid in there, after which no amount of defrosting solution will free it off, you just have to wait until it warms up. I made a flap out of aluminium aircraft tape (3M 425 used to repair surface damage on Boeing 787 wings), which when the door is open, flops down to cover the latch pin hole. Since doing this, I have never had a frozen latch problem. If you break the latch by trying to force the door shut when it is frozen, it means a whole new charge port at around £1,000 - be warned. Really rotten bit of design.
Wilson
Last edited by Wilson Laidlaw; 09-22-2023 at 05:09 AM.
Hi! Thank you for the feedback! The compressed air is a good idea. However, in my situation, the car is garaged 100% of the time when charging, so there is no debris issue and I am in Southern California, where if the temperatures rarely drop below light jacket weather, so snow & ice would not be an issue either.
My real concern is that the car came with a clogged drain from day 1 after being purchased brand new, and within 1 week of the drain being replaced by Porsche service it was clogged again.
Just for fun, I went to my car just now and poured some water into the drain hole and it drains as you would expect, leaving a puddle on the pavement just behind the back, inside edge of the back tire. I suggest you find a piece of flexible plastic (think of stiff fishing line) and just push it into the drain hole and after about 3 feet, it should stick out of the bottom of your car. If there is any minor blockage, this will push it out of the drainage tube. You can probable find that at a hardware store (or you could use wire and put a cap on the end of it so it slides inside the drainage tube).
If that doesn't work (which means the tube is blocked), I suggest you take your car to a different dealer to see what their service dept says. Good luck!
09-11-2023, 04:07 PM
Water Not Draining from Charging Port
