Re: Don't be so sure

Well I guess some of the sales numbers, or lack thereof, resulted in a change.
[www.caranddriver.com]

Paralizer 06 Boxster S Atlas Grey/Black/Black

But until they put the 4 cylinder out to pasture on the Boxster, and get rid of the 718 moniker few will be happy.

If they wanted a 4 cylinder, they should have made a clean sheet 718 instead of trying to degrade the Boxster.

The concept of selling "more power" is fine to a point. But if you are degrading the experience, what is the point of power?
These cars were always more of an aesthetic statement. I always said it was like comparing a cavalry sabre to a two handed axe. They were never about pure power. They were about the full experience.

For my part, I do not desire a car that sounds like a whoopie cushion. I don't want one that is like a golf cart either.

The Boxster hit all the right buttons. The 718 thing just doesn't.

Now if they can just do the right thing and put a flat 6 in the base and S models, all will be right with this platform.

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MikenOH
Now if they can just do the right thing and put a flat 6 in the base and S models, all will be right with this platform.

Sadly I don’t anticipate that mainly because of the new EU emissions regulations.

Paralizer 06 Boxster S Atlas Grey/Black/Black

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MikenOH
Now if they can just do the right thing and put a flat 6 in the base and S models, all will be right with this platform.

I totally agree - and get rid of the silly retro 718 moniker. That was used on a great car for its time. "Boxster" will always have a magical ring to the true enthusiasts.
Still one of the absolute best video ads for our favourite cars.
[www.youtube.com]

They seem to be meeting the EURO specs by using a particle filter on the European cars, but sounds like won't be needed / included on the North American spec cars.

The rationale behind the turbo 4 was to get increased power with improved fuel consumption numbers. Sadly, the better fuel consumption was realized by running the car at unrealistic acceleration.

before the Boxster is electric-powered

won't get a charge out of that.

Just the trip to BRBS alone will require an extra day for travel to give us enough time to "fill'er up" along the way..

There are chargers in Boone. I had last looked 3-4 years ago and there were none on the SC coast or in the NC mountains but now there are several.

There are no curmudgeons - just moldy figs...

Today the Taycan takes 22 minutes to charge to 80%. In a few years it will be faster to charge an electric car than to the equivalent gas fill time.

I think so too. And then it will become hard to find a gas station. We've had one gas station around here convert completely to charging, but that was in the People's Republic of Tacoma Park.

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Boxsterra
Today the Taycan takes 22 minutes to charge to 80%. In a few years it will be faster to charge an electric car than to the equivalent gas fill time.

And since you're not supposed to run the battery level below 20%, that leaves you a real driving range of 60%. According to EPA the Taycan has a 200 mi. range. So staying within the 20 and 80% marks, you'd have a 120 mi. range. You'd have to stop about every 2 hours for a 22 min recharge - provided there aren't 1 or 2 cars lined up in front of you tto get their 22 min charge first.

I think electric cars are great for around town or short commutes. You'd sure have to plan a long trip according to charging station locations and give yourself lots of extra time..

It will not be to long before CAN taxes you into becoming a believer

"A mile of highway will take you one mile. A mile of runway will take you anywhere."

... well, only if you have Porsche's 800 volt charging system.

Happy Charging,
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

---

Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna

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Pedro (Odessa, FL)
... well, only if you have Porsche's 800 volt charging system.

Happy Charging,
Pedro

True. I was talking to a Tesla owner at a charging station who said they had to charge there instead of home cause it took too long at his home. No thanks.

Current: 07 Carrera S Cab - Midnight Blue/Sand Beige
Previous: 01 Boxster - (formerly boxtaboy), 86 944, Instagram: @Carreralicious

was a 120v type.

Really, if your typical use is charge overnight, drive 20-150 miles during the day and then back home and charge overnight an EV is a great car. And would smoke any Boxster. But is that isn't your use pattern, if you live in cold cold country, if it is your only car or if it has to live nights out on the street...then not for you. Or if your electricity feed can't handle 50 amps for a 240v charger...then maybe not.

Porsche claims 15 minutes to 80% using their fast charger and 30 minutes to 80% using almost any other charger.

This is still their first modern electric car. It will get much better.

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Boxsterra
Porsche claims 15 minutes to 80% using their fast charger and 30 minutes to 80% using almost any other charger.

This is still their first modern electric car. It will get much better.

According to the Porsche website, at ideal conditions (86 - 95 F) it takes 22.5 minutes to charge from 5% to 80% with Porsche high speed charging. However, it is recommended you use on a regular (240V) charger which takes 93 minutes for a 5% - 80% charge.

"Porsche claims that the Taycan can add 60 miles in 4 minutes and 80% range in 15 minutes (most chargers offer 80% range in double the time)"
Source

and as I said, electric car tech is moving very fast and will be several times better within a few years.

I beg to disagree.

When I owned both of my Boxsters, I relied on them to get me there in any kind of weather. I took the S through the edge of a hurricane when my other car choice was a Honda CRV with the best rain tires you could buy. The Boxster had take-offs that were 4 years old.

I relied on the gas infrastructure to never delay my trip, to never not be available within the next 15 minutes on the interstate, to be available within a half mile of the interstate (and if not I was fussing) and to provide me a simultaneous and co-located pit stop.. It isn't the car itself and its fuel but the infrastructure that has built up over the last 100 years to support them.

My town has at least 20 gas stations each with as many as 20 pumps compared to perhaps 4 public charging stations each with a single hook up that will take at least as long as the ICE worst case of a family of 6 gassing up and using the facilities. If one pump looks busy, there is another within a few feet, another station with multiple pumps within a mile. Not so with charging stations.

Yes, I can refuel an EV in my garage (after paying thousands in my case to provide a dedicated 50 amp 240 to the garage). But on those road trips I make darn near every two weeks...that doesn't help me get much beyond the first pit stop. And speaking of pit stops, it isn't every charging station that has a set of bathrooms within 50 feel like gas stations do. Not everyone can charge where they live overnight maybe because they don't live in a house that provides those facilities. And more and more kids are opting for high density living and fewer are wanting to own cars. (See this week's Economist)

The impact of winter fuel costs and range was less on my ICE cars than cold weather's impact on the EVs.

My electricity provider just asked for a 17+% rise in prices. About the equivalent of a 50 cent gas hike.

So I don't think those ICE expectations applied to an EV are unreasonable. It is just how many compromises you are willing to make for what end.

I want one.

All valid points, Mike

The daily commute to work and the general local run around time I would be covered. If one used the car solely to commute - an electric would be better than fine.

But as a practicing litigator, I am required to be all over the state. It is very common for me to travel from Stamford CT to Hartford CT multiple times per week. it is not uncommon for me to go - Stamford, New London, Hartford, Stamford in one day or Stamford to Hartford, to New Haven to Waterbury to Stamford in a day. Some of those trips are well over 200 miles. I know of no electric car that can make those trips.

I also travel semi regularly from CT to Maryland and Virginia and those trips are closer to 500 miles. I have friends in the mid-west who travel over an hour an a half in the car every day.

Depending upon what I am doing and the weather etc. I take either the Boxster or the 3-Series. I generally get at least 350 miles per tankful on long haul trips and I can refill in less than 10 minutes - including a "rest" stop.
electric cars need to increase their range to around 350 miles. They need to recharge from close to flat to 100% in less than 10 minutes. The cannot do that now.

Electric is fine. There are limitations and compromises, but as a city car, they work well. For a rural driver or a business driver, they do not work at all.

I wonder whether the winner of "what's next" might not be hydrogen or some other portable fuel that can use existing infrastructure.

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JMstamford,ct
I wonder whether the winner of "what's next" might not be hydrogen or some other portable fuel that can use existing infrastructure.

I have been extremely surprised that the future seems to be electric.
When I started analyzing what I though the future for automobiles would be I would have bet the farm that it would be hydrogen.
Hydrogen makes so much more sense than electric.
Hydrogen could be dispensed in modified gas stations, but the infrastructure would exist.
Car manufacturers could have mad a much easier transition in to hydrogen powered drivetrains.
But, the whole thing about self-driving and AI just makes it a computer-industry business.
Exactly what happened with photography. It's now all computer driven.
I won't give up on my hydrogen dreams, they still may happen one day.
And I would buy a Hydrogen Boxster, not an Electron one.
Happy Electrification,
Pedro

Pedro Bonilla
1998 Boxster 986 - 311,000+ miles: [www.PedrosGarage.com]
PCA National Club Racing Scrutineer - PCA National HPDE Instructor - PCA Technical Committee (Boxster/Cayman)

---

Racecar spelled backwards is Racecar

"Racing is life. Anything before or after is just waiting" ... Steve McQueen as Michael Delaney in "LeMans"

"If you wait, all that happens is that you get older"... Mario Andretti

"Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose" ... Ayrton Senna




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2020 12:25PM by Pedro (Odessa, FL). (view changes)

There's nothing stopping anyone with an electrical outlet from selling electricity to electric car owners.

2019 Tesla Model S range is 373 miles. And it will get better.

You only have to fill to 100% quickly if you're driving twice (or more) the car's range in one sitting. If you need to go 400 miles and your car only goes 350 then you drive 300 miles, then charge 100 miles in 12 minutes (currently, again going to get much better soon) and get where you're going with plenty of buffer.

Let's also acknowledge that the vast majority of Porsche owners have more than one car. If you use the electric car for 90% of your driving and the other car for the drives where the electric car isn't good enough then you get the benefits of both.

Most if not all of these concerns will be resolved by the time the electric (gasp!) Boxster is released.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/24/2020 11:45AM by Boxsterra. (view changes)

All your points are great and will (likely) be coming in the future.

Those numbers are all under ideal conditions.

A lot of what I'm reading, EV manufacturers seem to recommend that the car normally should only be charged to 80% for optimal battery life. Bringing the above range down to 298 mi.

Some of us don't live in Florida or SoCal. So, come Winter, battery capacity drops and there's an extra toll on the battery for lights, heater, defroster etc. That's when it seems the car's range can drop to as low as 60% of ideal summer driving range. That drops the range to around 180 mi. (Aside from reading this in forums, I've personally heard this complaint from EV owners) So to avoid running the battery flat, I'd be starting to look for a charge station after about 120 mi. of driving on longer trips.

Your GPS handles all that and directs you to possible/optimal charging stations along your route based on the battery state of charge, the wait time at any charge point, etc. These things are smarter than we are.....

The Porsche dealer network is a huge advantage when compared to Tesla. One report I saw brought up the fact that dealer service out of warranty is essentially non-existent for Tesla.

I have figured 90-95% of my trips are local. But 80% of my miles are 60 miles to 300.

Now having said that, there are electric cars that will go those 250 mile trips just fine providing they aren't in the snow and rain (both MPG reducers) and/or cold. Your CT location argues against that. Still the recharge time for a Taycan or a Model 3 to give you most of the 300 mile back is somewhere like 15 minutes. Just read a Taycan review today citing its quick charging time.

OTOH, there are Rav4 hybrid owners who are asking that Toyota buy back their cars because they are unable to get 600 miles per tank.

I could have filled up locally today for $2.129 for regular. Makes the economic argument for EVs not make any sense.

Still wouldn't you like to have a 2.7 seconds to 60 car. Until you had to replace the tires you wore out enjoying that spurt.

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mikefocke, '01S Sanford, NC
I have figured 90-95% of my trips are local. But 80% of my miles are 60 miles to 300.

Now having said that, there are electric cars that will go those 250 mile trips just fine providing they aren't in the snow and rain (both MPG reducers) and/or cold. Your CT location argues against that. Still the recharge time for a Taycan or a Model 3 to give you most of the 300 mile back is somewhere like 15 minutes. Just read a Taycan review today citing its quick charging time.
......

I also just read a Taycan review today. Organized by Porsche. It's a trip from Atlanta to Miami. Doesn't sound like it's the same review that you read. The first leg (charge), they drove 134 mi. On that stage, they went from 98% down to 39% charge. They stopped to recharge back to 96%. That recharge took 31 minutes. The second stop took them more than an hour, but that was due to a problem at the Electrify America equipment. At the end of the last leg, Porsche took the cars and recharged them, so no time info for that recharge.

So going by the one segment, one of our trips to / from Florida would become a pretty long trip (at least in my time frame) 134 miles on the Interstate is about 2 hours of driving. Provided the charging or gas station are located right at an interchange, it still takes 5 minutes to come off, connect the charger / hose and another 5 minutes to disconnect, pay, get in and up to speed on the Interstate again. So that would mean roughly every two hours, it would be a 40 minute stop to charge up. My 1,500 mi. trip would require 10 charge stops or about 6 hours and 40 of charge time.

By comparison, our A5 has a 500 mi. cruising range. But for pit stops, we usually stop about every 300 mi. to remove personal beverage content and refuel the car. That requires about 5 stops. Normally, that takes a total of 15 minutes per stop for a total of 1 hour and 15 minutes. So the Taycan would be adding 5 hours and 35 minutes to my current drive.

Even on a 300 mile trip, you'd have to make 2 recharge stops, where with the A5, no refueling stops are required.

It all depends on what you use your car for. Mainly around town and short trips, I think an electric is OK. It just doesn't fit our life style.

The other thing to consider is depreciation. As EV's approach that 8 year limit, their going to start to really drop in value, I would imagine. One the battery packs have to be replaced. it will be an REAL expense.

Then there's the environment. What happens to those old lithium batteries?

[insideevs.com]

The Wall Street Journal had a long video on its website today regarding the issue of EVs and their utility in various settings and countries.
The example of China seemed to be the friendliest place to own an EV with regards to access to charging equipment. Otherwise depending on where you live and if it was in a rural or Urban setting your circumstances could be very different.
Add to that depending on the ambient temperature where you're driving as Gunther mentioned, your range could be halved by just running the air conditioning or heater. In the examples in the article, the various drivers of these cars would either fries or and up sweating to extend the range of the vehicle.
My takeaway was unless you have a gasoline-powered vehicle as a backup, the EV's at this point are strictly for day trips in urban or Suburban areas where you can count on getting back to your public or personal private charging station at the end of the day.
Last, EV vehicles are taking a significant portion of the car market in China as the government and private manufacturers are involved on a large scale to make this happen. Interesting, in the Chinese video smog problems especially in some of the large cities that were shown remain to be very bad, a result of all the coal they burn to electrify their country.
Not sure how much cleaning of the air they're going to get from driving EVs if there are power plants nearby that continue to spew the byproducts of burning coal on a daily basis.

have a Porsche as our only car? So why does an EV have to be a car for 100% of the trips for 100% of us?

We have 2 cars for 3 people. On any trip I make where the EV range would be a significant factor in my arrival time, I can take my 40MPG hybrid SUV. Or I can stop and smell the roses along the way. The days of DC to Houston in a single gulp road trips are long gone.

Charging station numbers matter. Tesla is rumored to be coming out with a refreshed S and perhaps X model with near 400 mile range.

As for depreciation, look at the depreciation of any luxury car over 10 years. (A 2009 7 series BMW at $10k today as an example.) Not many hold significant value over that period. A few cars that turn out to be collector cars, sure. But every time I go shopping for my dream but used car, I am shocked at how quickly it has lost $50k off its purchase price. I can't see a this year's car holding its value given the changes that will be made in electronics and programming in future cars. I buy a new car for the changes far before I really need to for reliability reasons and I lose money doing it. But I don't lose $50k chunks.

(All #s are current averages for the USA)

Gas car fuel economy: 25 mpg
Gas cost: $2.50 / gallon

Electric car efficiency: 26 kWh / 100 miles
Electricity cost: $0.12 per kWh

Miles driven per year (US): 13,476

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Energy cost (gas): $0.10 / mile
Energy cost (electric): $0.03 / mile
Energy cost savings (electric versus gas): $927 / year

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Notes:
- Maintenance on electric cars is also much lower than gas, especially for older cars. The idea that the batteries have to be replaced after 8 years is a complete myth.
- Electric cars are more expensive to buy than gas cars. That is due to volume and gov't subsidies, both of which will change.


YMMV

The customer will be more interested in the cost of ownership than the cost of energy. The major factor in the cost of ownership is depreciation. The game changer is this regard is the Taycan. We have no data on this cost today, but I am willing to bet that the cost of depreciation will favor electric with the introduction of the Taycan. The existence of a reliable national service network is a new factor. The cost of ownership with a car under warranty will favor electric now, but my guess is that we will see the real difference reflected in depreciation cost when looking at the numbers for a 5 year old car driven 10,000 miles per year. In this scenario I would guess that the Taycan will have a major advantage due to the network of Porsche dealers.

[www.shopyourway.com]

Up here in the Great Whit North we have an issue. Heat or lack thereof. Water cooled ICEs have always had plenty of waste heat to feed the passenger compartment. Electric vehicles rely on the same electricity that drives the wheels to also heat the interior. This severely compromises the range these vehicles get. Same applies to areas in the south that get +100F temps on a regular basis that tax the A/C systems. There is only so much electricity available. If the temperature stays at a moderate 75F I imagine theses vehicles can actually achieve their reported range. Outside that I doubt it.