Porsche has issued a recall for all 43,000 Taycan electric vehicles (EVs) due to a software issue that results in a total loss of power to the vehicle.
In an announcement on Friday, the German automaker said “that in certain instances a shutdown of the power train, resulting in loss of motive power may be triggered incorrectly and sporadically.”
There is apparently an easy fix – an over-the-air (OTA) software update. Unfortunately, owners are still required to visit a dealership so the update can be performed by Porsche technicians.
“A software update will be installed in the workshop. A workshop appointment that will be free of charge should take place as soon as possible and the software update will take about an hour.”
The recall impacts all Taycan vehicles built up to June 2021. Drive Tesla was first to report on the issue in May, when the NHTSA launched an investigation after several owners complained about about a total loss of power while driving.
This recall perfectly illustrates Tesla’s huge advantage over legacy automakers, even those like Porsche who have the capability to perform OTA updates.
Tesla recently faced a similar predicament in China, but on a much larger scale. Although the issue wasn’t as serious, Tesla had to update 300,000 vehicles to add a new chime for when Traffic-Aware Cruise Control (TACC) was activated.
Tesla was able to fix this “issue” by deploying a software update with the click of a button. A similar issue for legacy automakers would have cost them millions in service visits and related costs.
