I decided I wanted a Panamera S e Hybrid in April, but wanted an interesting color like Ruby Red or Sapphire Blue. Neither was available in stock, so I ended up ordering. I took delivery yesterday, drove it a bit today.

Attachment 1

The dealer delivered it to me with the battery completely empty. This didn't really surprise me - I don't think they understand the car at all. When I test drove one, they didn't have that one charged either. I charged it before taking it anywhere.

One thing I thought was a bit weird and silly is that the car doesn't have an analog speedometer. There's a digital one below the central tachometer, but in the #2 place, where you'd normally see a speedometer, is a power meter. It seemed frivolous to lose a significant instrument for this.



After driving the car today, I realized this is the electric power's equivalent of the tach, and thus it is important, if you're trying at all to maximize efficiency. In e-Power mode the car is pure electric until the power meter gets over 25%, the green zone, and then the gas engine turns on. It's very easy to do this in ordinary driving. The EPA includes some gas usage in the PSeH's electric-mode MPGe, and I now understand why - if you're not keeping an eye on the power meter, you're going to use gas.

Similarly, if you're braking, the meter tells you how hard you can press the brakes and recapture energy. Go beyond the bottom of the "charge" zone, and you're using the real brake pads, not the electric engine braking to generate power.

I had envisioned staying in completely electric mode for routine driving, only reserving the full engine power for times when I really wanted acceleration. I don't think that's going to happen. The electric is very nice for 0-5 MPH, giving real authority from a standing stop in a way that usually requires a lot of gas. It's not so nice above about 15-20 MPH. I experimented with pegging the power meter at 25%, getting maximum acceleration from pure electric, and getting up to 35-40 MPH is definitely slower than I find acceptable. This is a heavy car (4600 lbs), and the 95 HP of the electric motor isn't enough for my taste.

This isn't to say the car is slow. If you're using gas and electric, it's seriously fast. If I'm not going for efficiency, 50 MPH arrives so effortlessly I'm not even sure how I got there. Nor it it particularly inefficient even if you're messing about with high acceleration. Today's city-driving trip reported 36.8 MPG according to the car, but that doesn't include the electricity used. By my estimate, I used 0.24 gallons and 4 kWh to travel 8.7 miles, which works out to about 25 MPG. Which isn't nearly Prius numbers, but this isn't a Prius. My wife's Cayman S gets maybe 14 MPG on the same trip, it's 65% of the weight of the Panamera. The acceleration feels similar as long as they're both in Sports or Sports+.

I'm still trying to get a feel for the car. Unlike the other Panameras, it doesn't have PDK, because PDK can't deal with the hybrid powertrain. Instead it has an 8-speed automatic transmission, though the controls are the same. I started out in full manual, because I've been driving a 6-speed stick for 16 years, and I wanted to retain that part of the sports car feel.

It didn't work out at all. The issue is that the engine revs up to 6000 RPM insanely fast in first gear. I apply the throttle and BAM, it's instantly time to shift. Further, shifting isn't instant, and I found myself double-tapping the shift paddle, going from 1st to 3rd in my urgency to drop the RPMs. I so blew the "don't rev above 4000 RPM" break-in advice, but that doesn't worry me because I'm on the "it's not that important" side of the break-in debate. Since full manual control seems so problematic, I'm reluctantly letting the transmission do its own thing.

I've read a lot of negativity about Sports+ with PDK when in auto, mainly that it revs way too high. This wasn't my experience with the ZF 8 speed automatic at all. It'll rev to about 4000 if I'm not flooring it, but once I start cruising, the engine often goes off entirely as the electric power takes over. I thought that was only going to be true in e-Power mode, but it apparently applies to Sports+ as well.

The police were out in force today. I saw an officer on foot ambush the car in front of me, stepping out from cover, tagging them with a radar gun, and then wave them over. I noticed an unmarked car tailing me, and shortly afterward he blipped his siren at me. I thought I'd gotten nailed even though I was being careful, but it turned out he just wanted to tell me that my gas cap was open. Of course it wasn't actually a gas cap, it was the cap for the electric charging port. I'd forgotten to close it this morning.

My main complaint about the car is that is suffers from serious tunnel vision to the rear. The rear hatch looks like an expanse of glass, but it's pretty far away from the driver, and visibility through the rear passenger windows is poor. I'm quite grateful it has a reverse camera. I also sprung for a Lane Change Assist, but I haven't noticed it doing anything yet.

 

Congrats on finally taking delivery Gus. Is it a 2015?

Ours has about 2500 miles and has a list of things for the dealer to work on. The Boss doesn't love it due to the laggard acceleration. But at least she's plugging it in at night. We did run a 50Amp circuit out the garage. No more 14 hour charging cycles. She even wants a portable charger for her office garage.

I've found the manual shifting in the car to be pretty awful. I totally gave up on it.

When I drive the car, I putter around like it's an econobox. Trying to keep the ICE off. We've been getting 18+ miles on the electric drive, But a few times it won't let the range drop to zero. It fires up the engine and hovers around 4-6 miles range.

The last tank returned 40.X mpg. Her commute is ~70 miles daily.

Enjoy the car.

 

If you were in traffic you would notice the LCA on your side view mirrors. You have to activate it with a button on the door panel just in front and to the left of the driver window button.

 

Yes, it's a 2015. Interestingly enough, they dropped the base price from $99,000 to $96,000 for 2015, and they knocked down my negotiated price by the same amount. Final sales price ended up being $99,100 including options, $105,721 including sales tax and fees.

I think the price reduction reinforces the idea that most dealerships don't know how to sell it.

I think you really need to be in Sports or Sports+ to feel like it's a sports car. e-Power doesn't do it. e-Power is fine for me in city traffic when I'm limited by the car in front of me, or if there's a cop behind me. Even if you stick to speed limits they don't appreciate high acceleration.

I suspect that if your wife was driving around in Sports routinely she'd be happier with the car, but she wouldn't be getting 40 MPG. Or maybe I'm just assuming she's using the default e-Power mode. Regardless, it's cool that she's into charging the car, and wants a charger at her office.

Sorry to hear you've got mechanical issues at just 2500 miles.

I plan on doing more testing, but I think to keep myself happy I'm going to end up driving it more for speed than efficiency.

I was in traffic, and I had it turned on. It may be that I'm just not paying enough attention to the side mirrors where the indicators are if I'm not planning a lane change. My situational awareness isn't all that great.

 

Utterly rediculous that your dealer delivered an uncharged car to you.

She's actually running the first half of the AM drive in regular hybrid mode. Less traffic, more high speed driving. Then she switches it to E Power when the traffic gets thick and slow. I think she returns 60+ mpg in that manner, rather than defaulting to E Power which returns mid 50's for that trip.

I Just put the HOV plates on the car, so we'll begin to reap that benefit. Finally.

I've used Sport. It's okay. You get a bit of thrust. The engine behaves more like a normal car. The tachometer actually shows some signs of life. But it's not 577hp, so it feels like a bit like I'm driving a Corolla . If not for the pretty interior and the novelty of silent running, I'd probably not even bother with it.

The alarm problem has really got me sour on the whole Porsche experience. Especially after the ordeal that was the purchase and delivery process.

 

Yeah, I have to remember that your standards for "fast" are a bit higher than mine, given your daily driver. It's definitely not knock-my-socks-off, but I felt I got decent thrust in Sports+ with the battery charged and a stretch where I was allowed to get it up to 50. I need to try some expressway onramps or something.

 

So I have this bizarre fascination with RL... how many views will your thread receive over there before someone can be bothered to reply with a congrats or nice car or anything?

 

I know what you mean 👍. I adjusted the indicator lights on high in the PCM and do notice it mch better.

 

Thanks for the review -

Curious how many electric miles are you getting per charge on highway only and city only? I am hoping the Cayenne plug-in will be similar.

Also - does it do fast charging at 6.6kW/h or is it limited to 3.3? Any remote access via a phone app for the charging etc?

 

This first day, I've only done impressions, rather than a proper metered test. I do intend to get solid figures on the real electric-only range. Doing a real test is going to take some restraint to avoid kicking in the gas engine. The car reports I had 13 miles of engine-off distance today, but I was doing a lot of mixed driving, so I don't know what pure electric will be.

I went out again today to take some photos with a less cluttered background, and just to get more experience driving. I experienced the same thing Ace did - once the power drops to 20%, the car wants to reserve the battery power for special situations rather than general driving. Cruising is on gas instead of electric, but the car still starts from a stop on electric.

Max charge rate is 3.6 kw on a 220 volt circuit, which is pretty standard. Since the battery isn't that big, that means a couple of hours to charge. At least in theory, I haven't charged on 220 yet.

It comes with 5 years of car connect, with features specific to controlling charging. I don't know how that works yet because the dealer didn't activate car connect. I've got a call in to the dealer about this, but I haven't heard anything other than "I'll get back to you."

 

Dealers are clueless with respect to PCC (Car connect) on the PSeH.

They don't realize that it's standard on the model, consequently they don't activate it. If it had an option code on the build sheet, they would know.

You need to register for PCC. After going through the online process, the system will generate an Installation Code. Print the Form and bring it with you to the dealer.

www.porsche.com/connect

Full FAQs are here: http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j...73231344,d.aWw

PCC has some very nice features for the e Hybrids.


Regarding the drain-to-zero-charge condition. It appears to be entirely related to factors beyond one's control. It hasn't happened to my wife, and only about 1/3 the time for me. It is really annoying to park the car in the driveway with four miles of battery charge, though.

If you can get the car to 100% draw down the battery, we're seeing 17-18 miles. I think once it was only 15 miles. I coaxed 19 out of it this weekend.

Now that we have the big circuit going to the charger, it's quite practical to top it off if it's not full.

 

I strongly suspect it has to do with how you've been driving. Or rather, how the car's software thinks you've been driving. I was doing a lot of erratic start-stop driving today, and your wife does a long cruise commute. If I were writing the software, I'd be tempted to keep more battery reserve if I thought I'd be doing a lot more standing starts, since that's the most cost effective use of the remaining power.

 

Great posts.

Thanks for all the info... I am waiting on a Dec delivery of my Cayenne SEH.

 

Congratulations on the new vehicle! Good looking color.

 

Congratulations on the new ride, Gus. That was a great write up. The color is worth the wait, and I dig the green brake calipers.