Porsche Taycan recalled over sudden power loss problem

Porsche is recalling versions of the all-electric Taycan made before June of this year, to correct a software fault that can cut the vehicle’s power without warning.

A glitch in the software communications between the Taycan’s powertrain controller and the power electronics causes the car to bring up a dashboard warning urging the driver to find a safe place to stop. The vehicle cuts drive but can still be steered and braked to a halt; if travelling at around 120km/h, there would be around 90 seconds to do this before the Taycan would run out of momentum, Porsche estimates. Once the vehicle is safely stopped, turned off and restarted, it will operate normally again.

The fault has occurred on 0.3 per cent of the 43,000 vehicles affected by the recall. Porsche customers are being contacted by their dealership and the patch will take around an hour to complete. The fix is being carried out in a workshop, instead of over the air, because it requires calibration of the powertrain controller.

The Taycan’s project leader for drivetrain, Klaus Rechberger, told Automotive Daily that there are no defined parameters that force the issue to occur. “It’s entirely sporadic,” he said. “We first identified the problem in our own testing, and we have had intensive further tests with multiple sensors on vehicles to investigate the issue. There is no set of circumstances that automatically replicates the situation.”

Rechberger said that the software problem had already been fed into the “learning process” ahead of Porsche’s next EV launch, the forthcoming pure-electric Macan, and stated that the firm’s existing hybrid models are unaffected.

Audi has already issued a similar recall for the e-tron GT and RS e-tron GT, both sister vehicles to the Taycan. But since production of these cars started later than the Porsche, the number of vehicles involved is much smaller.

John Mcllroy