Porsche’s first all-electric car came out. This may be the toughest competition the Tesla Model S has faced so far, depending on who you ask. It is called the Porsche Taycan. It is an all-electric sports car that can provide up to 750 horsepower, accelerates from zero to 60 mph in 2.6 seconds, and a fast-charging 800-volt battery based on the European WLTP cycle. The cruising range is 280 miles.
I discussed this electric engine in detail with the Porsche engineers, and I learned that it is a crazy technology different from any previous Porsche. Here is everything you want to know, and there may be some things you don't know you want to know.
(Full disclosure: Porsche took me to Atlanta, placed me in a nice hotel, fed me, and asked me to talk to some nerd engineers about the new Taycan).
The Stuttgart-based company invited me to visit the Porsche Experience Center in Atlanta, where Taycan’s chief engineer gathered to discuss the impressive performance of the two Taycan interiors Taycan Turbo and Taycan Turbo S that will be launched later this year Specifications.
Both cars can produce up to 616 horsepower in 10 seconds, and both provide "super boost" function. Turbo can continuously output 670 horsepower and 626 lb-ft of torque in 2.5 seconds, while Turbo S can Produces up to 750 horsepower and 774 lb-ft in a short time.
This allows Turbo and Turbo S to achieve zero to 60 mph times of 3.0 seconds and 2.6 seconds, and quarter mile times of 11.1 and 10.8 seconds, respectively.
In his speech, Porsche emphasized that the key to these numbers is that performance is repeatable. It is said that two cars can manage the aforementioned acceleration performance even after 10 runs without any significant "derating" or performance loss. To bring this home, Porsche pointed us to the video above, where the Taycan accelerates from zero to 124 mph (if you are curious, the car has a top speed of 160 mph). Porsche stated that the car did this 26 consecutive times in 10 seconds, "the difference between the first and last acceleration is less than one second."
The company also pointed out that although the temperature is as high as 108 degrees Fahrenheit and the car must be charged during more than 2,100 miles of running, the Taycan's average speed reached 89 mph.
Porsche wants these examples, and the Nurburgring time-which is obviously the fastest in the electric car-to emphasize that the Porsche Taycan must not only be fast, but always be fast.
This may help the car stand out from the Tesla Model S, which seems to be better than Taycan on paper; I look forward to seeing independent track tests to find out. (It turns out that Model S may also go to "Ring", so we will see how it goes.)
In order to break down the way Taycan manages its performance data, which also includes the claimed fast charging time, Porsche divided the technical seminar into five parts: powertrain, chassis, body, charging and interior.
Let's start with the fun.
Porsche Taycan is powered by two permanent magnet synchronous motors or PMSM. Unlike the AC induction motors used in other electric vehicles such as the Tesla Model S (although it and Model 3 also use permanent magnet motors), PMSM uses rare earth magnets embedded in the rotor (the output shaft is connected to the rotor) to generate a permanent magnetic field. This is synchronized with the rotating magnetic field of the stator (as our observation of the disassembled Model 3 shows, the stator is just a "tube"-shaped fixed bit of a motor composed of a pile of copper windings) rotating magnetic field, which is generated by the sinusoidal alternating current of the inverter The input is generated, and the inverter is a device that converts the DC power of the battery into the AC power of the motor.
In contrast, the rotor of an AC induction motor does not include rare earth magnets, but is composed of windings. When the inverter sends an alternating current to the stator and generates a rotating magnetic field, the magnetic field induces current in the rotor windings, thereby generating a magnetic field. The magnetic field of the rotor interacts with the magnetic field of the stator, and the rotor rotates to generate mechanical torque. It is called "asynchronous" because the rotor lags behind the rotating magnetic field in the stator-a phenomenon called "slip".
Porsche mentioned in the slide below that the advantages of the permanent magnet design include high efficiency—especially in the low and medium speed range—smaller size and better cooling capacity, albeit at a slightly higher price.
Even Elon Musk talked about the cooling limitation of AC induction motors. Dr. Boykricht, manager of Porsche Powertrain Systems, said that this is the result of the rotor requiring current, which generates heat that is difficult to remove.
"This limits the repeatability of the motor," he said. He also continued to mention the importance of size, saying: "Under the same power and torque levels, asynchronous motors are always bigger."
Porsche also mentioned the rectangular hairpin windings that make up the stator-we have seen this setting on the Chevrolet Bolt before-as an advantage, it obviously can fill the slots of the stator with less gaps than traditional lead-in windings. design.
The concept of installing more copper in a given space is quantified by an indicator called the "copper fill factor". Porsche stated that the hairpin setting is about 70 instead of the traditional "pull-in winding" stator setting of 45.
"By increasing the copper fill factor, you can improve performance," Richter told us. Not to mention that this setting obviously cools the windings better. Richter said it provides “better direct contact between the copper and the stator assembly, which means you can better flow the current through the copper The heat is radiated to the machine, again...better cooling possibilities and more repeatable performance."
Of the two motors in the all-wheel drive Porsche Taycan, the rear-mounted motor is more powerful. It produces 449 horsepower and 406 lb-ft of torque (or 450 lb-ft when launching with Turbo S), and is parallel to the axle centerline and at the rear of the axle centerline, through a two-speed transmission designed and manufactured by Porsche The box sends power forward. The gearbox has a first gear ratio of about 16:1 and a second gear ratio of about 8.05:1.
Porsche calls it the "rear axle module", which consists of a motor, a gearbox and a power inverter. The latter, as mentioned earlier, obtains direct current from the battery and converts it into an alternating current power supply for use. The housing of the entire module seems to be mainly made of cast aluminum (update: Porsche said: "We will not disclose the exact material, but cast aluminum is present in the power system."), Porsche claims to weigh about 375 pounds.
The gearbox is also equipped with a clutch-based electronic limited slip differential (I think you can call this gearbox a transaxle), which is a fascinating unit. As far as I know, no other mainstream electric car in the United States currently offers Two-speed gearboxes.
Porsche said that this is done to improve efficiency, but also to optimize low-speed acceleration and high-end speed-which is almost exactly the benefits of the new two-speed electric vehicle transmission claimed by auto supplier ZF.
This is another angle of the rear axle module:
The gearbox has a torque capacity of 406 lb-ft, which is strangely lower than the maximum output of the rear motor at launch (I tried to clarify this with Porsche). It and the entire rear module are designed to be as compact as possible and can be laid flat to provide plenty of luggage space. It is set up so that the motor is located at the rear, and its output shaft enters the gearbox, which extends forward to the differential, and its output is in line with the rear axle. The 600 amp power inverter box is installed directly in front of the motor and above the passenger side of the differential.
This is the internal appearance of the transaxle housing:
"We only integrate one actuator in this transmission for all the different stages-first gear, second gear, neutral, reverse and parking," Dr. Boyk Richter told reporters.
Speaking of the main shaft of the two-speed transmission, Boyk explained the internal structure. "On the upper part, you can see the actuator, which drives two levers connected to the dog clutch and the multi-plate clutch. Inside the multi-plate clutch there is a planetary gear set that ensures a first gear ratio," he told us .
He explained that in the first gear, the multi-plate clutch is opened and the dog clutch is closed, and the planetary gear set produces a ratio of 16 to 1. "When shifting to the second gear, the dog clutch is opened and the multi-disc clutch is closed, blocking the planetary gear set. Through this blocking, we avoid the loss of this gear set and we can improve efficiency... [in] Second gear," he continued.
"On the output shaft, we have the differential itself," an electronically controlled limited slip differential, which "is the same components you already know from other vehicles [Porsche's]," he continued.
We have seen other manufacturers like BMW (in development cars, admittedly) use two electric motors in the rear, completely avoiding differentials to achieve more instant torque vectoring capabilities, but-for packaging reasons and The possible cost, I doubt — Porsche decided to use a single motor and a traditional limited-slip differential.
The single-speed front drive module is also fascinating, just like on the Jaguar I-Pace, it uses a coaxial transmission design. The drive bolt is directly connected to the end of the motor, which is located on the centerline of the axle between the front wheels. In fact, one of the front CV axles actually passes through the center of the motor rotor to hook into the transmission.
The picture above shows the output position on the passenger side, and the picture below shows the output shaft on the driver side:
The inverter is also shown. For the front motor, it has two styles: 300 ampere peak output (190 ampere continuous) and 600 ampere (380 ampere continuous). The latter is used for Turbo S and achieves a maximum output of 255 horsepower and 325 The lb-ft of torque fires the event in a short time (and the longer duration of 295 lb-ft). The front motor of the standard Turbo model is equipped with a 300 ampere inverter, which can output 238 horsepower and a maximum of 221 lb-ft.
Porsche said that the total weight of the front axle modules of the two inverters is 168 pounds and 157 pounds, respectively, which saves costs by sharing a considerable number of components. It is not clear whether the 600 amp rear inverter is the same as the 600 amp optional front inverter, but I bet. (Update: Porsche says this is different).
The weight of the coaxial transmission has two planetary gear sets and provides a reduction of 8.05 (the same as the second gear of the rear motor), which is much lower than this weight, and the dry weight is only 35 pounds. It has a torque capacity of 332 lb-ft when accelerating and 221 lb-ft when sending torque in the other direction when recovering. Porsche said that this kind of regenerative braking mainly occurs on the front motor, but also on the rear motor. The maximum power recovery measured at the battery is 265 kW, and the maximum longitudinal deceleration is 0.39 G.
Porsche says that the gearbox is passively cooled, using a water jacket around the motor.
The most interesting thing about all of this is how Porsche sets up the shifting of the rear two-speed transmission. In order to demonstrate the advantages of the two speeds, Porsche showed a curve of wheel torque (directly related to vehicle acceleration) and vehicle speed for each motor/gear ratio combination-see below. (These look like typical EV torque curves).
As shown in the figure, at a speed of about 100 km/h or 62 mph, the first gear loses power and the motor cannot send too much torque to the rear wheels (at 81 mph, the motor reaches a maximum speed of 16,000 RPM) , Which will affect the acceleration of the vehicle.
At approximately 62 mph, the Taycan upshifts, producing the solid green curve you see below, allowing more torque on the wheels and accelerating to higher top speeds faster.
The gear shift strategy varies according to the driving mode, and different gears remain different. Porsche tells us that the range and normal mode give priority to the second gear to optimize efficiency. It is worth noting that, in some cases, Taycan can actually be driven completely with front-wheel drive and decoupled from the rear transmission to reduce losses.
Although Porsche takes this into consideration, the front transmission does not have a clutch to disengage, so the electric motor is always mechanically connected to the wheels. If I understand correctly, this is done for packaging and reasons related to vehicle control, and I understand that small motors and planetary gearboxes will not produce too high losses.
Back to mode: Porsche says that "range" is only entered first during the reverse function (this is due to mechanical limitations, as far as I know) and the "normal" downshift during heavy pedal input. On the other hand, the "Sports" mode will maintain one gear for as long as possible to maximize acceleration. Porsche even provides some shift diagrams below:
The map here does not look much different from that of a traditional transmission. The blue and purple lines represent when the vehicle is upshifting or downshifting, respectively. If I’m not mistaken, looking at the “Range” graph, you can see that only at low vehicle speeds and extremely high torque requests (in other words, the driver stepped on the accelerator when driving slowly), you would cross the purple line and descend File to the first one.
Then, even if you bury the pedals, the car will shift gears at a speed of about 75 km/h. Otherwise, in the "Scope" mode, you will always be in second place. (In the above slide, Porsche said that "Range" only stays in second gear, so maybe I misread the shift map. (Update: Porsche confirmed that even "Range" mode will downshift to first gear).
The "Sports" map shows that even at low vehicle speeds and low torque requests (your feet are barely on the pedals), you are still in first gear and will not upshift until you reach approximately 75 km/h. If you are wondering, the speed of this shift is roughly the same as that of a dual-clutch gearbox.
"We are not faster than dual clutches," Richter said, "because we have a large transmission ratio between first and second gears," so the transmission needs time to synchronize. Nonetheless, the good news is that, according to him, "there is no traction interruption during the gear change."
The Taycan battery pack consists of 33 battery modules, each of which contains 12 independent 64.6 amp-hour LG soft pack batteries. They are arranged so that half of the battery, 198, is parallel to the other half. The big number that has been thrown out for many years is "800" because it is a fairly high system voltage for electric vehicles.
In the case of Taycan, the actual voltage is between 610 (depleted) and 835 volts (when fully charged), and the nominal voltage is 723 volts. The maximum energy content is 93.4 kWh, slightly lower than the 100 kWh of the Tesla Model S.
You can see the complete battery pack above; please note that the central transmission tunnel on a typical car may have a prominent part that is the battery management system. You can also see two rectangular voids at the stern; these are the "foot garages" for the rear passengers. Although the legroom of the rear passengers requires Porsche to remove the battery module, the company compensated by placing the module horizontally under the rear seats.
Porsche said it uses an 800-volt architecture to meet efficiency, vehicle performance and battery charging time goals. The latter is the key, because the company doesn't want the battery pack to become too large and heavy (Taycan weighs more than 5,100 pounds and still exceeds Model S).
Speaking of charging, Porsche’s head of electronics, Joachim Kramer, said: "Using double voltage [traditional electric vehicles]...you can simply [use] the existing current to double the power."
However, Taycan's 800-volt system does not provide twice the charging power of a 400-volt electric car. The maximum continuous charging power it provides is less than 270 kilowatts because of the limitations of the battery. "In theory you could be taller, but then you would sacrifice battery life-this is... something no one wants to do," Kramer said.
Nevertheless, it is said that the construction of the architecture is future-oriented. "Once the battery gets better... the next generation is coming... the architecture of this 800-volt high-voltage system can actually increase the charging power through the existing connector system-this combined charging system So far on the market-up to 400 kilowatts, or more, peak charging power."
In addition to the charging time, Porsche said that the 800-volt system can theoretically produce more efficient power transmission and allow for finer wiring, because for a given power output, a higher voltage system sends less current, and the current will be in the wiring A large amount of heat is generated in the medium (the loss increases with the square of the current). "This is just an increase in efficiency in a complete high-voltage system," said Porsche's electronics expert.
Porsche said that more efficient power transmission and fewer wiring means lighter weight and higher continuous power transmission without derating, but the 800-volt system does have disadvantages.
"We have to develop brand new power electronics, battery electronics, and rechargeable electronics — none on the market," Kramer told us, adding that although this will cost the company time and money, it should not be in the long run. Will be more expensive because these components are largely similar to low-voltage systems.
In fact, Porsche’s advertised minimum charging time is 22.5 minutes, from 5% to 80%. The above figure shows that since the battery can only withstand a peak current of 334 amperes, the peak charging power (power is volts times amperes) at low voltage is less than the maximum value of 270 kW, which approximately occurs at higher voltages and corresponds to 40% The state of charge.
When the voltage increases above about 40% to 45%, the above battery limits come into play. "At that time you need to reduce the power to really protect the battery... so that there is no overvoltage in the battery," Porsche told reporters.
Of course, it is not only the state of charge of the battery that affects the charging capacity, but also the temperature. As shown in the figure above, the battery usually likes to be between 25 and 35 degrees Celsius. As the state of charge increases, the charging power will decrease.
According to the above slide, Porsche determined about 30 degrees Celsius as the "sweet point" of the battery temperature to generate 270 kW of charging power and charge a minimum of 5% to 80% in 22.5 minutes. Below this, a "thermal pretreatment system" starts to work. If the car knows that the driver wants to charge as soon as possible (for example, if the high-performance charger is input to GPS), the "charge planner" will get the battery to the appropriate temperature, So that they can be charged at the maximum rate even at ambient temperatures of 0 degrees and 10 degrees.
Porsche mentions that if the driver builds up heat in the battery by driving hard, or if the car is charged at a lower performance charging station (for example, 50 kW maximum charging does not require any preprocessing), less preprocessing is required.
As for the charging port on the car, there are two. The American model has one on the driver's side to accommodate a type 1 AC plug, and on the passenger side there is a CCS type 1 plug (which can be used for AC and DC charging).
Porsche even provides an optional icebreaking function for the charging port door, which can vibrate the door back and forth and increase the torque of the door motor. These doors are opened by gestures or buttons on the center console.
When any Taycan is connected to an 800-volt high-performance charger, it can directly provide up to 270 kilowatts of charging power to the battery. This will allow the vehicle to charge from 5% to 80% in 22.5 minutes and add 62 miles to a dead battery in 6 minutes.
However, when using a typical 400 volt DC charger, Taycan’s standard 50 kW unit DC on-board charger (raising 400 volts to 800 volts for battery charging) can increase the vehicle’s battery power from 5% to within 93 minutes 80%, and an increase of 62 in about half an hour to reach a few miles of cruising range. Porsche said that the optional 150 kW on-board charger can increase the charging speed, keeping it in line with the charging speed of other 400-volt electric vehicles. (Update: Specifically, with the optional 150 kW charger, Porsche stated that it takes 36 minutes to charge from 5% to 80%).
In order to adapt to home charging or 240-volt "level 2" charging stations, there is also an AC car charger that converts AC to DC, providing up to 9.6 kilowatts of charging power for the battery. This produces a percentage of charging time from zero to 100 at least 10.5 hours. (Please note that the above figure represents 11 kW; I think this is the difference between US/EU charging).
The figure above shows the charging port settings on Taycans available in different markets.
When discussing a new EV, the body and battery pack are important elements of the overall structure, so Porsche engineers told me that the battery pack bolted to the body structure with 28 bolts accounts for about 10% of the overall structure. The overall stiffness of the vehicle. The company claims that the Taycan's chassis is the hardest of all Porsches.
Speaking of the battery pack, to reduce its 1,389 pounds of weight, not only need to loosen 28 screws and disconnect the high-voltage connector, but also need to remove about 10 screws that secure the front and rear subframe components. After unscrewing the screws, the sub-frame must move a bit before the battery will fall.
"It's really easy," said Steffen König, who led the Taycan body design. To access the module, the top cover that is glued and bolted in place needs to be removed.
The battery tray itself weighs 331 pounds and is an important structural element for front, side and back collisions, as shown in the following figure, which shows the load path of the above collision scenario.
"Without batteries, cars cannot be collision-proof," König told us.
Porsche described the structure of the battery tray, saying:
The waterproof shell is a sandwich structure consisting of a cover on the top and a partition on the bottom. A truss design battery frame with multiple subdivisions is installed between the two. The cooling element is glued under the partition. The battery casing is fixed by a steel protective plate. For the battery frame, the developers chose a lightweight aluminum design.
One of the most obvious collision mitigation components is the 0.6-inch extruded aluminum honeycomb structure, which extends along the length of the sill panel (shown in blue below), helping to protect the battery and occupants in a side collision:
When it comes to body parts, the material composition of the Taycan body is basically traditional for Porsche. There is nothing particularly exotic, just a bunch of steel and aluminum, not much different from what we saw on the Porsche Cayenne. Porsche itself refers to the body as "a very normal body for us; it is a mixture of many materials."
However, although it may be "normal", I will not deny that you have the opportunity to see some beautiful CAD images, such as the image above, which shows the steel used in the pillars, floors and firewalls, and the aluminum used in the doors , Wheel arches, front longitudinal beams and pillar towers, and sheet metal parts.
Porsche claims that for acoustics (probably road noise), it uses steel in the floor and main structure instead of aluminum as much as in the Panamera. "The body frame is usually made of aluminum. In our case, it is cold steel plate due to the sound of the car; we have...there is no engine in the car, so we must be very easy to drive, so we must do this To achieve this acoustic [improvement]."
I’m not a body engineer, so it’s hard to convince me that price is not the main factor, but hey, that’s exactly what Porsche is claiming here.
If you are a body engineer and want to know how the company combines all these different metals into a structure, the answer is: a lot of welding, riveting, hemming, riveting and screws.
In the case of Turbo, Taycan has the lowest drag coefficient or Cd at 0.22 (Turbo S is 0.25). The front surface area, like the contribution of drag coefficient, air density and vehicle speed to the overall resistance, is 25.1 square feet. Although I can’t find the exact corresponding figure for the Tesla Model S, I did find the 2014 car And the driver article lists 25.2 square feet of frontal area and 0.24 Cd of Tesla. (The newer Model S has 0.23 Cd. Although I bet the frontal area is close to the same, I'm not entirely sure).
I learned from Porsche that there are two openings on the front of the Taycan. Each of the two heat exchangers includes a condenser on the passenger side (it is just a heat exchanger similar to a radiator, except that the refrigerant passes through it) and a radiator on the driver's side. I think that each of these openings also power the pipe on that side to cool the 16.5-inch (ish) 10-piston front brake rotor.
In the center of the car, there appears to be a grille opening for the radar and camera. The high opening under the headlights is to form an "air curtain" around the wheel opening to guide air instead of entering the wheel cover, which is equipped with 245 or 265 section tires (285 or 305 for the rear wheels).
Other aerodynamic treatments include a completely flat floor, including a pan under uniform suspension components (such as the rear control arm), a wide rear diffuser, and an active spoiler in three positions.
Three positions are fully down (used when the vehicle is parked, for "design reasons", Porsche tells us), Eco, the spoiler is slightly upward, and Performance, the wings are fully upward to reduce rear lift. These modes also determine the state of the "air door" in front of the heat exchanger. As far as I know, it functions like the active grille shutters on traditional ICE cars.
As far as I know, the rectangular brake duct (shown above) shares flaps with the heat exchanger, which is closed in Eco mode to deliver air around the car to improve aerodynamics. At the top of the wings and front flap position, the Taycan's air suspension also provides aerodynamic advantages, reducing the height of the car when cruising on the highway.
But you can't talk about aerodynamics without discussing cooling, because they are intrinsically connected. Unfortunately, Porsche has not studied in depth how Taycan's cooling system works, especially how the valves are connected to heating, medium temperature and low temperature circuits.
What I know is that there is a condenser and a radiator in the front, a heating element to help heat the battery and the cabin, a cooler uses an A/C system to extract heat from the coolant, and then the coolant runs under the false floor of the battery pack , And Porsche has adopted appropriate cooling methods for on-board chargers, DC/DC converters (located under the hood, which converts high voltage to 12 volts to provide power compartment accessories), inverters, motors and transmissions.
Porsche described the hardware a bit in its press release, writing:
In terms of hardware, the thermal management system consists of a networked circuit system with a coolant radiator (front and left driving directions), three coolant pumps, six coolant valves, two fans and ten coolant temperature sensors. This is complemented by the link components of the air-conditioning system, which include a climate condenser (front, driving direction on the right), a separate evaporator (cooler) and a heat exchanger (iCond) for air conditioning/cooling.
You can see some of the components below, including the heat exchanger located under the false floor under the battery modules in the battery pack. It looks like a stack of long and flat "tubes" arranged in pairs, from a long longitudinal "can" to one on the other side of the package:
It’s hard to tell how it works based on this circuit diagram alone, but it seems that the front axle and rear axle modules-including their inverters, motors and transmissions-are flowing directly from the front driver's radiator. Liquid coolant cools the side of the car. Once the cold coolant (dark blue in the picture above) passes and absorbs heat from each drive module, it turns red in the picture and returns to the radiator to dissipate heat, and then circulates back to the motor/power electronics .
As for the battery, according to the picture above, the cold refrigerant (light blue) comes out of the condenser on the front passenger side of the vehicle, enters the compressor, passes through the evaporator, is used for air conditioning, and then puts into the cooler. In the cooler (just a refrigerant-to-coolant heat exchanger), the refrigerant absorbs heat from the liquid refrigerant flowing through the battery pack, producing colder and hotter refrigerant. The colder coolant (dark blue) leaves the cooler and returns to the battery pack to cool the battery, while the warmer refrigerant eventually returns to the condenser, releasing heat into the oncoming air.
Again, these are just guesses based on the picture above, and I definitely want to learn more-especially because the picture above does not show all the pumps and valves in the system.
If you want to know whether Porsche used parts of its other four-door sedan Panamera in the design of the Taycan, then the answer is yes. At least in some ways.
First, let's look at the size. The picture above shows the outline of the Taycan compared to the 911 and Panamera. The EV's nose is lower than the Panamera. Overall, its length and height are slightly shorter, but the seat position is slightly higher. Despite this, Porsche said that the Taycan's center of gravity is lower than that of the 911 GT3. Considering the weight of the battery pack on this matter, I think this is not surprising.
Dr. Ingo Albers of the Porsche Chassis Team immediately stated that Taycan’s suspension is indeed “from Panamera”, and the team hopes to use a lot of Panamera’s suspension components because “it will be very efficient to use them”. "However, although the new Taycan shares the control arms, bushings, bearings and wheel frames with its internal combustion engine-powered sibling models, Albers said "[Porsche engineers] cannot'use a complete subframe. "
Looking at the overlapping outlines and images of the front and rear subframes above, it is clear why this is the case. Although the rear axle module is not large, the electric motor, inverter and two-speed transmission dwarf the Panamera's differential.
Although this is the main reason why Porsche had to design a new subframe, Albers also talked about safety. "We don't allow any intrusion into the battery module," he pointed out, then pointed out a ramp-like part in the subframe that can push the drive module assembly up above the battery pack in the event of a rear collision.
He also mentioned the importance of rear axle steering for safety. "Rear axle steering is an obstacle, if it involves a rear collision...components," he told us, adding that if the vehicle does not have rear axle steering, there is a member there that can act as a protection.
As for the front suspension, the team not only has to ensure that the subframe keeps the battery safe during a collision, but even if this is not important, it is impossible to use Panamera's suspension due to the low vehicle height. The hood of a five-seater electric car is achieved due to the lack of a large internal combustion engine in the space.
"Panamera components, they will stick out. They are too long," Albers told us. As a result, he said, "[Engineer] removed the upper control arm and the complete air suspension."
As you imagine the new electric sports car, there is still a lot to say, but I have written more than 5,000 words. Therefore, in order to avoid my editor yelling at me, I will have to end without describing how the goal of the interesting HVAC ventilation system (shown above) is adjusted via the touch screen.
I will not repeat Porsche’s discussion about charging infrastructure, I will not show the center console screen, it will light up when the remote control is detected nearby and tell you the battery charging status, I will not talk about the infotainment screen on the passenger side When someone is sitting in the front seat, I will feel this way. I will not talk about how Porsche uses the car's front camera to change its regenerative braking strategy.
I will not talk about the new three-chamber air suspension, the 82-liter frunk, the electronically adjustable rocker that is said to keep the body roll at zero when blasting in the corner, the three-valve air suspension, tungsten carbide-coated Brake discs (the latter three variants are used in other Porsches), or special low rolling resistance tires.
No, instead, I would say this: I think some people may be disappointed that the Taycan’s maximum range is lower than the Tesla Model S, or its claimed 0 to 60 mph is not fast, or it’s not coming Using Tesla's supercharger network, the starting price (at least for now) is $150,000, which is even $70 higher than the base price of the Model S.
But looking at this car from an engineering point of view, in my opinion it is a well thought out package. This is not just a Panamera with a full battery.
It may not be as revolutionary as the Tesla Model S when it debuted (the two actually share a lot of design elements), and it may not match the S on paper, but this just illustrates the attraction of the car Force Tesla has been built.
In other words, Tesla has encountered some problems in long-term track driving in the past, and sports car manufacturer Porsche said that it has invested a lot of energy in this area. In theory, it is more like a rail car than a Tesla.
Elon Musk said on Twitter that a Model S will head to the Nurburgring next week. As a result, if they are truly objective, they can provide much-needed insight to understand whether the Taycan is truly impressive or not.
Update, September 6, 2019, 5pm EST: This story has been updated to include Porsche's answers to follow-up questions.
Update, September 7, 2019, 6:45 AM EST: This story originally stated that the thermal limitation of induction motors was caused by the fact that the stator requires current. I mean to write "rotor".