Father's day test drives

[robg]

Warning: this is mostly EV related though I didn't originally intend it to be. Wrote this after 2 glasses of wine so apologies for any incoherence.

So my wife asked me what I wanted for father's day. I told her that I'd just like to spend time going on some test drives by myself. In truth, I wasn't fully committed to this plan since I didn't even bother setting up time with any dealer. As I mentioned in the 911 thread, I had found a CPO manual 991.1 convertible for sale at a local dealer that I was kind of curious about. Didn't mention this to my wife since I didn't want to start "that conversation".

Anyway, I stopped by the Porsche dealer and walked around the lot. Didnt' see any blue 991 convertibles but did see plenty of base Macans and Cayennes. I also happened to notice a coffee colored RWD 2022 Taycan (CPO weirdly). Went inside and it was like a ghost town. No receptionist and only 2 sales people. Only 2 cars on the floor (a GT4 and a base Macan).

Spoke to one of the sales people and he said that they had the 991 but it was still in the shop having some work done. He then pointed it out through the shop door (it was in 1 of the service bays). We were chatting about Porsches for a few minutes and he told me that their dealership doesn't charge over MSRP* (sort of) and was telling me about the wait lists for various models. Anyway, he then said "well i'm not really supposed to let you in the shop but if you want I guess I can let you look at the car". Took a quick look...not my favorite combo (sapphire blue over grey), and the lighting was pretty dark. Told me that he could get in touch with me once it had been gone over/prepped to see if I wanted to test drive it.

On a whim I asked about test driving the Taycan. I'd never driven the RWD version and was kind of curious. He said sure. After what seemed to take about 20 minutes of futzing around, he finally got the temp plate and took me out to the car. This one had to be one of the ugliest combos in existence (coffee beige over a beige interior). Somehow the price was 118k which also seemed insane for a used RWD taycan. Took it out and was impressed by the power. Its been a while since I drove the 4S version but the RWD felt very strong. Was reminded of how much I love the ride quality of this car. Seats felt better than i'd remembered as well. Build quality seemed much more solid than the last one i'd driven as well. Got to take it by myself and just kind of forgot about time. Ended up just driving this thing for like 30 minutes and just really enjoying it...lost track of time. Put me in kind of a "zen" state.

Pulled back in and was reminded of all the stuff about the Taycan that drives me nuts. For such a big car, the interior and trunk space is pathetic. The whole infotaintment system is very clunky and kind of laggy in some cases. The interior door handles just feel weird. The backup camera is ridiculously bad. And it is annoying that there is no setting for 1 pedal driving. The pricing is absurd and keeps getting worse.The sales guy told me there is no waitlist for the RWD taycan but they dont have any allocations yet either. Would probably be about 10 months to a year if i ordered one. So crazy.

The Audi dealer was right across the street so I decided that maybe I'd finally test drive an E-tron (i'd flirted with the idea a few weeks ago). They were sold out of 22s and someone else was test driving their demo car, so the sales guy found a used 2021 for me. While I was waiting I checked out an RS5 sportback they had in the showroom. Despite being smaller on the outside than the Taycan, it has so much more interior and cargo room. Better intrior in many ways as well (nice Audi climate controls and MMI system). Kind of rubbed salt into my impressions about the taycan. I dont know how Porsche managed to package it so poorly. Maybe at some point I should try and test drive one of these.

The etron that I drove was navarra blue with a black interior (one of my favorite audi colors) but was the base trim (premium). This thing would, in many ways, make a perfect daily driver. Such comfortable seats, great ride quality, instant torque. But then I experienced one of the things I'd read about: no creep. If you are on the slightest incline and dont completely come to a stop to engage auto-hold the car will start rolling backwards. My heart stopped when I realized this. The car has paddles to control regen but none of the settings is aggressive enough for one-pedal driving.

The other deal breaker about this car is that the interior storage is laughably bad for such a large SUV. Tiny (taycan sized) storage under the center armrest and then this weird deep well with cupholders on the bottom (meaning that you can't really effectively use that space). There's a decent sized compartment to the left of the steering wheel but it was very hard to open and felt extremely cheap (as did the glovebox door). A few other trim pieces were decidedly non Audi like. Anyway, this seems like car that could've been great but Audi just shot it in the foot for some reason. Confirmed my decision to skip this car a few weeks ago.

On the way home, I passed by a Hyundai dealer and decided to see if they had any Ioniq 5s available to test drive. I love the Guigaro/80s hatch design of this car. Salesguy was surprisingly chill and told me that they had 1 AWD based model available to test drive. Unlike at he Audi dealer, there was no need to fill out any forms. He just took a pic of my drivers license and gave me the keys. Suggested a route to me but told me there was "no hurry". Happened to notice that there was a sticker on the windshield listing a 10k ADM charge! (Probably why they actually had 1 in stock).

Some of the reviews of this car make it seem like it has a nicer interior than it actually does. I really liked the cloth seats and the overall design but there was plenty of cheap plastic all over. Didnt like the silver painted switchgear. They seem to have taken a page from the original Tesla Model S and just left a wide open space between the front seats. Not very usable. And no wireless carplay seems like a miss in an EV that is meant to be so "tech forward". Infotainment system was kind of confusing and the nav system doesn't allow you to use it while the car is in D (so stupid). Back seats are amazingly spacious- you'd be very happy to get one of these as an Uber. Base model is missing some features that I'd really want...but higher trims force you to get fake leather (ugh).

THey did a great job on the suspenion of this car. Great balance of ride/handling. Pretty good steering too-- good on-center feel and natural weighting (although sport mode is ridiculously heavy). Although the doors close with a nice thunk, overall, the car just has a bit of a plasticky hollow feel to it. Granted, I'd just come from a Porsche and an Audi so my impressions were probably skewed. Being an AWD EV, the acceleration was very strong. Would definitley be a fun daily driver to whip around town. I might still consider one of these...but certainly not with any dealer ADM. Also got my wheels turning again about my "100k garage" question. After tax credits, a base Ioniq 5 would be around 40k. That would leave 60k for a Porsche...let's round that up to 70k (would still be less than that 118k used taycan!) My wife has commented favorably on the styling of the Ioniq as well. hmm.

Overall, not the test drives I had envisoned for the day but informative nonetheless.

[JST]

Nice write up. I agree that the Taycan packaging is perplexing, though I think this must be intentional, to emphasize its sportiness.

The no creep thing is honestly not a big deal. The Teslas have all done that and you get used to it very quickly.

I’m curious about the Ioniq and the EV6 (which I prefer from a styling standpoint). Would like to try those.

I’ll just harp on one other thing, though—charging networks. Tesla’s lead here is huge and seemingly getting bigger. This weekend I took a trip to southern NJ, which involved a trip to the Reading Market in Philly, a stop at the Philly Airport, and then a drive home.

There were superchargers within a mile or two of each of those destinations. Lots of stalls, too, all of which were 250 kw. This was the first trip I didn’t charge in DE because I frankly didn’t need to.

The non-Tesla charging situation was…not as favorable.

I’m not pushing you to buy a Tesla because I don’t think I would at this point. Too much baggage, too many credible competitors. But the difference in charging convenience on the road between Tesla and everyone else is just mind boggling.

[robg]

Originally Posted by JST

The no creep thing is honestly not a big deal. The Teslas have all done that and you get used to it very quickly.

The non-Tesla charging situation was…not as favorable.

What about parallel parking on inclines? Unlike a manual, you can't balance the car w/ the clutch and throttle so I guess you have to do some sort of awkward left foot braking? Just seems like a silly thing for them to omit especially since they are trying to market the car to existing Aud/ICE customers.

Totally agree on having to rely on charging networks like EA. I've watched and read enough reviews now to know all the various ways those chargers can fail. If I regularly took road trips, there's probably no way I'd consider a non Tesla EV at this point. That being said, I think it helps to go in knowing what to expect...and I've also amassed a bunch of tips and tricks that could help. Long term, it's hard to see how we have reliable DC fast charging in the US (for all EVs) without more government regulation and subsidies...I dont think its a sustainable business model by itself. EA only exists due to being part of VW's dieselgate settlement so it's unclear how much effort gets put into its ongoing operations.

One point these test drives drove home is how good EVs are at being daily drivers w/ the smoothness, instant torque and convenience of home charging. Makes it harder to seriously consider a gas car for that job in the future.

[JST]

It’s actually super easy to balance the car with the throttle; because the application of power is very precise, you can feed in just enough to keep the car from moving. It’s a little like riding the clutch except it’s not bad for the car and it’s less physical effort.

[Alan]

Great write up Rob, very interesting points for all 3 vehicles. I also agree that I really do not get Porsche making the Taycan (as well as the Panamera) so big on the outside and so small on the inside.

I wish Porsche would come out with a sedan similar to the size of the 3 series on both the inside and outside.

[robg]

Originally Posted by Alan

Great write up Rob, very interesting points for all 3 vehicles. I also agree that I really do not get Porsche making the Taycan (as well as the Panamera) so big on the outside and so small on the inside.

I wish Porsche would come out with a sedan similar to the size of the 3 series on both the inside and outside.

Indeed. I was curious and found this VERY detailed article about the Taycan:
https://jalopnik.com/an-extremely-de...gin-1837802533

As best I can tell, the lack of interior and cargo room could, in part, be due to the following reasons:
-The battery management system unit is pretty big and sits roughly where a transmission would normally go. This means that there isn't lots of room in the center console as in most EVs. If I had to guess, they had to put it there since the Taycan has stuff like rear steering and a transmission that most other EVs dont, which meant there wasn't room elsewhere.
-The "foot garages" for the rear seat passengers aren't big enough. Although there's enough knee room, these indentations in the floor are just big enough for your foot meaning that you can't really stretch out and put your legs under the front seat (unless you really jam them in there).
-The wide rear hips give the car additional width but without added usable trunk space or interior room.
-The low roofline along with having a battery in the floor probably meant that the rear seats had to be further forward than they otherwise would be for such a long car. Similarly, the trunk lacks the height that it would in a conventional car.
-The area under the rear trunk floor is jam packed with stuff like the transmission, rear steering unit (or space for it to go), etc which means there's limited underfloor capacity.

My guess is that Porsche took the traditional automotive approach of asembling components from various suppliers and attempting to package them all. To really make it work, I think they'd need to take a more wholistic approach and combine more things together (kind of like what Tesla does). As an example, I read that the Ioniq5 doesn't need a separate box to do DC to DC conversion (for 800 to 400v); they just use the rear motor and inverter to do that (whereas Porsche has a separate box for that). And I'm not sure why their battery management unit is so damn big. Maybe the EV Macan will solve some of this.

[Alan]

But Rob what is their excuse in regards to the Panamera ? I think they are trying too hard to keep the cars sports car like.

[robg]

Originally Posted by Alan

But Rob what is their excuse in regards to the Panamera ? I think they are trying too hard to keep the cars sports car like.

Good question - not sure why the panamera feels more cramped than something like an Audi A7 or even a 5 series . Hopefully it’s not intentional to make it “feel sporty”. The original 911 was a miracle of packaging to get usable cargo room and even a rear seat in a small sports car!


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[robg]

Stopped by the VW dealer today to check out the id4 and GTI. ID4 initially seemed to have a nicer interior than the ioniq but it creaked and rattled over bumps. Ride seemed choppier and the brake pedal isn’t as well calibrated. Better seats though with 4 way lumbar and massage!

The GTI was on the showroom floor so they wouldn’t allow a test drive. Also didn’t like the color combo of red over black wheels. The interior felt much higher quality than the id4 and better than many reviews suggested. I could easily deal with the capacitive steering wheel buttons and climate controls. Not a big deal. I might have to try and drive one at some point. Nice seats with heating and cooling. Air vent direction levers had great feel - these woukd feel at home in an Audi. After sitting in it I don’t get all the hate for the interior . Dealer is selling them at msrp with no markup but only a few to pick from (all in colors I don’t like with black wheels)


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[Alan]

Keep in mind you can always have the wheels powdered coated any color you want and it cost around $600-$800 for the whole set. Don’t let wheel color deter you from buying the GTI if that is what you want.

Do you think you want another gas powered car, I am getting the feeling you are leaning more towards electric.