im lucky enough where i live close enough to work where can drive back and forth on per battery and thats anywhere between 60mph and 80 ( e-power turns off at 85) the problem i ran into are idiot college kids parking in ev slots but thats a small thing by comparison .. I am curious about the Cayenne e hybrid as they come with bigger battery's i wonder if they are interchangeable .. i would like to think that given enough time someone might make an after market battery with extended range .. but will have to wait and see

re: charging time im getting 2 hours on public 220v chargers and 12 on home 110v. My house isnt finished being built yet so i dont have a means to charge at home

i'm trying to get ahold of the guy at http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml because if i can get that installed for my drive way i can charge for free at home but so far they dont appear to be returning calls or emails

 

I don't see that happening. There are issues of volume, weight, and cooling. Lithium-ion is the best battery technology we have right now, so an aftermarket battery would have to be significantly larger and heavier to get longer range. It's also worth noting that the car turns on the radiator fan periodically when it's charging, since charging generates waste heat.

There are denser battery technologies in development, but they're not commercial products yet. It's likely that it won't be possible to retrofit such a battery, since its charging requirements will probably be different.

 

That very well could be the case. I suspect all these curiosities will become less curious over time.

But, if we are really swinging for the fences in terms of programming these cars to maximize efficiency, I would have the car monitor distance and direction of travel, and attempt to learn normal/regular routes of travel that lead to stops where I normally charge the car. Ie home or office, etc. That way it could drain the battery to zero upon reaching the presumed charging location.

One thing I've noticed, is that popping it out of E Power when heading up some of the larger hills (highways with several % grade) will preserve the battery energy available. That distance gauge drops fast on high speed inclines.

 

I took another drive today, this time sticking strictly to electric. Not only is this kind of slow, it has a problem with hills. I've got a fairly steep grade near my house. The car was at 20 MPH when I hit the hill, and stayed there until I reached the top. I'm sure Ace is right, that hill cut into the range, but switching to gas for this would have compromised the test.

On the other hand, I had no trouble keeping up with traffic if I was behind other cars. So "slow" by my standards is fairly normal for most traffic. It was when I was first off the line at a stoplight that it felt slow.

I made it 13.6 miles in city driving until the battery reached 20% and the gas engine kicked in. The indicated range with a full charge was 14 miles, so that's entirely consistent, at least for start-stop city driving. The question is, how much energy was that, really? I've read that the usable capacity of the battery is 7.5 kWh. Was it 80% of 9.4 kWh, or 80% of 7.5 kWh? There was definitely some usable energy left, the car just wanted to use the gas engine as well.

I'm going to assume it's 80% of 9.4 kWh, or 7.5 kWh. Which means I used 550 watt-hours per mile, or 62 MPGe for city driving. That's believable, since the MPGe rating of the Tesla S is 88 MPGe City, and the cars weigh about the same. The official EPA rating is 50 MPGe, but I'm pretty sure they botched the test since the official rating includes gasoline usage. You don't have to use gasoline while the battery's charged, but it's very easy to do so inadvertently.

After hitting 13.6 miles, I turned the air conditioning back on and switched into Sports+. I wanted to see the polar opposite, again in city driving. I got 20 MPG over the next 10.5 miles with the battery effectively depleted. Not completely depleted, obviously, but as low as the car really wants it to go. It's worth noting that sometimes when I was cruising, the power meter said power was going from the gas engine to the wheels and the battery. So even though I wasn't in e-Charge mode, coasting, or braking, it was still making an effort to charge the battery.

This is understandable. If there's no power reserve in the battery, the car doesn't have its full 416 HP available. The car wants a power reserve for acceleration. Ace mentions that his wife depletes the car regularly, no reserve. I'm beginning to think maybe that is anomaly.

20 MPG city is less than the EPA rating of 23, but I was driving the way I want to drive, rather than puttering along at electric-only speeds. Traffic was a limit, of course, but I still got a few chances to accelerate. Again, comparing it to my wife's Cayman S, I'd get at most 15 MPG doing the same kind of driving, despite less weight and less total power, so the hybrid system does help once it's reduced to recycling energy from braking instead of using power stored from the grid.

For a 24 mile trip, I used 0.53 gallons of gas and 7.5 kWh of electricity. Combining both legs, that was about 32 MPGe overall considering electricity use. If you only count gas, the way the car displays it, it was 45 MPG. Again, entirely city driving. About half driving in a relatively restrained way, about half not.

Tomorrow, time allowing, I'll try similar tests at highway speeds.

I did notice the Lane Change Assist warning lights several times on this trip, so I have a better feel for this. I don't think they're entirely necessary on the driver's side, since I always spotted the car with a head check. It is a time saver, since a fast glance at the LCA lights tells me I'm blocked before the head check, and it's also safer because a head check means taking my eyes off the road ahead. I'd never rely on the LCA alone, a head check is always necessary, but it's helpful. I think it's significantly more helpful on the right side, where getting a clear view can be difficult.

 

what ive noticed is that then the radio is on and the ac is on it will suck from the charge even when switched to gas. also when 1st pulling off from a light it uses the electric engine before the gas switches on which might explain why is only uses 80% of the battery ive forgotten to charge once or twice and killed the battery before ive gotten to work.

i think the thing that only slightly bugs me ( aside from a dealer issue) is that i appear to be the only panamera in the area (SC) so people tend to stare and brake a little to late ( i swear im going to get rear ended one day) and if your sitting at a light when the battery dies its very noticeable when the gas engine switchs on.

that aside running in e-charge mode i was getting 13-15 mpg ( which is got in a v10 ) so i didnt feel all too bad about it.

 

Yeah E charge is brutal on the mpg. I messed around with during the interstate drive back from picking up the car in KY. Not once since.

 

I got to take the car out for a 100 mile highway trip. Speeds were low 60's since it was a ring road. I got 16.7 electric-only miles this time, and again the car dropped out of pure electric mode when the battery hit 20%. This works out to 450 watt-hours per mile, or 76 MPGe.

Once I was past this, I reset the trip meter, and continued at highway speeds with the battery generally not contributing. I got 35 MPG. I don't particularly understand how that works, since all the hybrid advantages are out the window when I'm cruising at a fixed speed. The lighter weight, similar power Panamera S doesn't get that kind of highway gas mileage.

I very much wanted to test the efficiency of the charge mode, but my test got aborted when I ran into stop-and-go traffic. Over the 11 miles of the test, I regained about 30% charge, and ran 24 MPG. Assuming the 35 MPG baseline, I burned 0.14 gallons of gasoline to store 2.8 kWh, which is about 60% of the energy capacity of the gasoline. That seems very high, I was expecting 35% or so. It really needs another test with a longer baseline.

I let the trip calculation continue to run, and for the remaining trip, including a lot of stop-and-go, I had 31 MPG over 27 miles, including both the charging segment and then battery use at low speeds. Since the battery started at 20% and ended at 20%, that's a real gas mileage figure that isn't cheating by not counting electrical energy.

 

Thanks for posting all these observations!

 

I had a hybrid as a loaner for the day last week. I could certainly tell the difference in weight and the overall drive ability just wasn't as rewarding as the S. Nice packaging but not sure other than fuel mileage what the decision tree would be to make it the one to drive home in.....now if it had the performance benefit of the 918.......sign me up:-)

 

It's a virtual guarantee that the car didn't have a full battery charge. They never do. Not even when you have a scheduled test drive and ask for the battery to be charged. (Assuming you drove a PSeH, not a PSH, as some dealer are still using the older non plug ins for loaners)

Not only do you lose ~100hp, you also lose any chance of experiencing most of the gee wiz engineering that went into the car.

For the record, the decision for us went something like this:

A) Is it eligible for HOV plates? Yes
B) Is it eligible for HOV plates? Yes
C) Is it eligible for HOV plates? Yes



No chance in heck I would have bought this $120K car otherwise. The 5-10 minutes two times per day that it saves my wife on her commute is virtually priceless, though.

 

Even if it's adequately charged, you need to put the car into Sports or Sports+ or the throttle response is kind of slow. If the battery is charged, it defaults to e-Power mode, which emphasizes the electric motor. It's a great mode if you want to stay silent and keep the engine off, but acceleration is weak above 10 MPH if you're not using gas, and in e-Power mode you need to put the throttle down some before the car will turn the gasoline engine.

I find I prefer Sports+ if I'm not on residential side streets. It does not over-rev the engine, which I've heard is an issue with PDK in Sports+.

Besides, it's kind of funky when the car lowers itself when you enter Sports+.

 

Does this jive with your experiences?

http://www.topspeed.com/cars/porsche...-ar164645.html

 

His biggest complaints, other than price, were:


1) Juddering at or near full stops: No, not experienced anything of the sort. Ever. No issues with brake hold sticking. No issues with ICE kickover. No issues with drivetrain or brake system smoothness. At all. None reported from the Boss, either. Approaching 3000 miles driven. Smoothness is a strong trait of this car. Without question.


2) Limp-ish mode while flogging the car: Haven't flogged the car. Have no intention on flogging the car. Can't see the point in flogging a car such as this. I'd no more take the PSeH to the Tail of the Dragon, than I'd take my tricked out Goped to the dragstrip.


The guy in the video was impressive in the first few minutes. He was very knowledgeable on the product. Much more so than the drones that sell them at the dealerships.

Finally, I'd can't help but wonder who would shop a Panny against a 7'er and an S class? The Porsche is a small-ish sporty four seater, and the other two are cruiseships.

 

The interior is definitely very nice. My wife feels it's the most luxurious car she's ever ridden in. It's more focused on that than her Cayman S.

It does have a lot of buttons, but I haven't found that at all daunting. In practice, I tend to use the drive mode buttons (e-Power / e-Charge / Sports / Sports+), and the PCM display buttons (media / navigation / map). The button-happy approach does make it easier to find a function you don't use so often. There are some car functions that require paging through the PCM, and those are harder to find, since it's not always obvious which page will have the function you want.

Pure electric range has been 14 miles for city driving, and nearly 17 for highway, as I mentioned earlier in the thread.

He's right about how different turning the car on is. Turning it on is like flipping a switch, not starting a car. It's just silently on, and you never crank the engine. When the engine starts, it's an instant and silent transition. If you're accelerating of course you'll get the usual engine sounds, but never an engine-start sound.

The electric motor is very good at accelerating from a standing stop. It really needs the gas + electric to get respectable acceleration past that point, but the transition is invisible. Push the throttle down hard and VROOM.

I haven't noticed the hesitation he mentions when changing gears and turning on the engine. However, I can see why he'd say something about the 1-2 shift, based on my experience trying to shift manually. 1st gear is really low, you hit top RPM almost immediately, and the automatic gearbox isn't particularly fast. This isn't PDK, I can definitely shift a manual faster than the transmission shifts. It didn't bother me when I was letting the transmission run full auto, but it did in Manual mode.

Braking has been incredibly smooth. I've read various complaints about "hybrid brake feel," and I'm not seeing it. I'm completely unable to tell the difference between braking using the electric motor and braking using the brake pads. If the Power Meter didn't have a clear indicator of the transition, I'd never know, and I have been looking for it.

His characterization of car going into "limp mode" is misguided, I think. He says he couldn't reproduce it, and engaging traction control isn't "limp mode" anyway. It sounds like he encountered some sort of software bug where the car forgot which shift profile it was supposed to be using, not any kind of actual mechanical problem.

I would like to hear more from people who have taken the PSeH to the track. I'm never going to do it myself, of course. Generally speaking, the only serious track reports you see are for the Panamera Turbo, though I've seen one where someone was talking about his experiences with the Panamera S on the track.

I agree that the Benz S class and the BMW 7-series are not good comparisons. Big as the Panameras are, they are far more able on the track than the typical luxury sedan, which has power but not the handling. Check Motor Trend's comparison of the to get an idea of how flat the cars are in curves.

People who think the 4600 pound weight of the car is a cornering penalty don't really understand physics or what's possible. The PTT in that video is 4300 pounds. The issue with weight is primarily acceleration - and the PSeH is not going to turn in the sort of numbers the PTT does with 25% more HP and 300 pounds more weight.

That doesn't mean it's slow in straight line acceleration. The electric motor gives you a lot of low-end torque, but it doesn't feel quite as powerful as my wife's Cayman S. It's a bit better than my Supra Turbo was, in casual driving where I'm not trying to really floor it, it pulls harder than the Supra did.

Finally, I think his conclusion comes out of left field. "Needlessly complicated?" If I pop the car in Sports or Sports+ and just drive, I'm never really aware of the hybrid system at all. It delivers power just as seamlessly as a gasoline engine. He also puts a lot of emphasis on the fact the car's transmission logic glitched on him once and never again.

 

The above was in response to the text. I've watched the video now, and I've not experienced any of the things he's complaining about, like the car stopping on a hill, or "juddering" when shifting gears. He claims it "stumbles" due to hybrid mode, and I'm not experiencing that. He repeats the "limp mode" canard, where he's making assumptions about what happened that don't actually match what he described. And he's talking like it will always do it, when it happened to him once and he couldn't repeat it.

It's true that the parking sensor reads grass as a solid obstacle. That's not specific to the PSeH, that's Porsche's parking sensors. I've never had the car do an emergency stop as a result, but I'm not trying to drive over grass, either.