Serious Design Flaw - No easy access to vehicle if 12v battery is very low

[pdealessandrini1930]

I recently returned from a 2-½ week vacation to find I couldn't get into my Macan 4. The 12-volt battery had discharged during my absence, and so the car couldn't be unlocked. Access to the 12-volt battery is through the hood, but there is no mechanical way to open the hood. The only other way to open the hood is though a cumbersome process which requires an external 12-volt battery (see the manual on "emergency hood release"). In my case, I was advised to have the car towed to my dealer, who opened the hood and was able to jump-start the battery for me. The process took almost an hour for three experienced Porsche mechanics. I hate to imagine having to do this myself far from home. I do own a 12-volt portable jump starter, but having it in the car would do me no good since, with a low battery, the hood is not accessible. This seems to be a serious design flaw. It appears that the battery draws quite a bit of juice when just sitting, and even a new battery (my car was just 3 months old) may not be up the job.

From now on, when I go on vacation for a week or more, I'll connect a trickle charger. You might want to do the same.

Hi. Sorry to hear. My car was exactly 2 months old from factory ordered delivery. In my apartment building room temp garage. I drove it on a Saturday for errands. The next day (Sunday) it wouldn’t open. No connectivity to key emergency opening per instructions. Locked. 4 wheel in park = could not be flatbeded to dealership. Porsche Roadside at 11:30am Sunday until Monday 11:00am could not find a tow company in Westchester just outside NYC(!!!) with dollys to raise the car and tow by rolling it to dealer. Dealer sent his own techie and a flatbed to rescue me. The jump start with jumper cables didn’t fully work. They had to jimmy the drive side door via a flat blade through window frame. Damaged exterior and interior trim (since replaced free of charge) but able to open the car. Flatbeded to dealer. Main car battery had 85% charge but stupid design flaw results in 280 mile range under the seat is inaccessible to open the stupid doors!!!! Wow. What a f@$k-up in design. It was raining Sunday and Monday mid December. Thankfully all attempts which took 2 hours were inside and we were dry. I hate to imagine stopping at a 7/11 for a coffee at night and being stranded. I was able to sleep in my apartment between Sunday night and Mondays rescue. Not and in transit and stick. Porsche Roadside attempted 34 tow companies!!!! We had almost 80 phone calls and texts during the 24 hour timeline until I gave up and called my Dealer. I’ve owned 14 Porsches since 1987 including being one of 60 PCA Members awarded a 60th Anniversary 911 GTS-4 Club Blau fully loaded manual shift spec’d. I am dumbfounded. My car has lost 3 types of software between Dec and Jan. 1st week of commercial production in July 2024. It is a Lemon. Sooo sad!

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[pdealessandrini1930]

Hi to All. Saturday 15/Feb. must be leftover Valentines Day vibes.

Reconnecting herein to say that driving my Macan 4 EV is a pleasure. I really love this car.

The only bug is the mysterious 12V batt risk of unexpected no charge.

That would be ok if Porsche provided manual keys to unlock the door vs the rocket science external jump start to unlock front hood and second jump start to unlock doors to get in.

Would not be fun at night parked outside in winter or anytime at night and in the rain.

. Ironically Porsche provides Valet Keys for locking the glove box if we park in attended parking garages (work, nights out for dinner, etc.).

I don’t keep expensive jewelry or personal items in the car and never could imagine doing so if parking in public garages.

. I don’t need 2 (!!!!) OEM valley keys for my glove box

I would appreciate as a backup scenario to standard OEM “Auto Unlock” when 12V batt is dead, having the alternative backup of a real key to unlock the driver’s door. How novel or costly would that be!?!?!?

I love my car but the 12v batt unexpected death - which the dealership advised wiped out all my codes and has to be set from scratch while main batt had 85% charge - remains a true flaw which Porsche can easily rectify with EV 2.0 generation modification. Simple. Cheap. Effective.

otherwise the other little bugs that pop up are - like other owners have posted - “par for the course” with EVs of all brands. We are driving mobile devices with wheels not cars with iPhones plugged in for calls.

PS. There have been articles of some manufacturers designing planes and helicopters of the future powered by ecofriendly batteries.

Anyone wondering? I’m not signing up as a beta test passenger.

 

[fubar.droid]

Problem seems to be two fold here.

1. There appears to be a bug that is causing some 12V to prematurely die.

2. A poorly designed recovery mechanism for when the 12V goes flat that is exacerbating this issue unnecessarily.

 

[dgkhn]

Hi to All. Saturday 15/Feb. must be leftover Valentines Day vibes.

Reconnecting herein to say that driving my Macan 4 EV is a pleasure. I really love this car.

The only bug is the mysterious 12V batt risk of unexpected no charge.

That would be ok if Porsche provided manual keys to unlock the door vs the rocket science external jump start to unlock front hood and second jump start to unlock doors to get in.

Would not be fun at night parked outside in winter or anytime at night and in the rain.

. Ironically Porsche provides Valet Keys for locking the glove box if we park in attended parking garages (work, nights out for dinner, etc.).

I don’t keep expensive jewelry or personal items in the car and never could imagine doing so if parking in public garages.

. I don’t need 2 (!!!!) OEM valley keys for my glove box

I would appreciate as a backup scenario to standard OEM “Auto Unlock” when 12V batt is dead, having the alternative backup of a real key to unlock the driver’s door. How novel or costly would that be!?!?!?

I love my car but the 12v batt unexpected death - which the dealership advised wiped out all my codes and has to be set from scratch while main batt had 85% charge - remains a true flaw which Porsche can easily rectify with EV 2.0 generation modification. Simple. Cheap. Effective.

This is only an additional step worse than what (at least some) ICE Porsches already have/had. I can't speak for all Porsches, but my 2019 718 Boxster GTS, while it had a physical key to enter the passenger compartment, still required an intermediate application of 12 volts to studs located inside the passenger compartment to open the hood to get to the battery. And, if the battery was dead, the normal window lowering that would occur when you opened the door also was dead, so the door had to be more or less forced open past the seals (an unpleasant prospect at best on my $100k MSRP sports car). This happened to me once. After that, I always at least left the hood open whenever I left the car for more than a couple of days inside the garage (whether or not I also trickle charged it.)

In this case, the simple design change would have been to have what cars have had for 100 years: a mechanical linkage to open the hood. But nooooo......

So Porsche has been doing this in principle for a while. If I were in charge, I would never even remotely consider this type of design. It's really hard to understand. I guess the same bull-headedness that makes Porsches such great driving cars also takes place with these design decisions. Don't get me started on one-pedal driving....

 

[dgkhn]

BTW, the odd situation of having tens of kWH sitting under your car, but not maintaining the maybe half kWH 12 volt battery charge, is quite common. The 12-volt battery in my 2024 Volvo PHEV is also apparently not charged when off (even if connected to power and with a fully charged 15kWH battery on board) and can also easily go dead. There must be a reason for this (aside from the unacceptable acrobatics that have to be performed to jump a dead 12-volt).

 

[SteveInKirkland]

The stated reason to have the 12v battery separate is safety. Without going into all of the safety arguments, I will note that Hyundai sells electric cars with a button on the dash to jump start your 12V battery with the main traction battery.

Hyundai has an almost crazy solution: you unlock the door with a key and then you push the button on the dash to jumpstart the 12v battery. Of course, Hyundai is also well known for massive theft of its models that lacked an immobilizer.

 

[dgkhn]

Hyundai has an almost crazy solution: you unlock the door with a key and then you push the button on the dash to jumpstart the 12v battery.

I had no idea. Why is that crazy? It makes a lot of sense to me.

 

[SteveInKirkland]

I had no idea. Why is that crazy? It makes a lot of sense to me.

Just a joke.

 

[Mavshyn]

I did not see this discuss anywhere, or I may have miss it. Assuming the car is not plugged into any charger, if we use the app and turn on the climate control in the Macan, will the 12V gets charged by the HV batt in this case?

 

[wmras]

I did not see this discuss anywhere, or I may have miss it. Assuming the car is not plugged into any charger, if we use the app and turn on the climate control in the Macan, will the 12V gets charged by the HV batt in this case?

Yes. Have used it frequently to ensure the 12V battery is topped off but think it is unnecessary - have never had any sign the 12V battery is in trouble in 23,000 miles on our 2020 Taycan and 6,000 miles on our 2024 Macan Turbo Electric. Both have set disconnected for weeks without issues.

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