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The level of hubris here is pretty high. "No reason"? "No performance benefit"? Porsche is spending billions of dollars to bring a very high performance track-

The level of hubris here is pretty high. "No reason"? "No performance benefit"? Porsche is spending billions of dollars to bring a very high performance track-focused sports-sedan to the market. Hundreds of extremely good engineers are getting paid millions of dollars to figure this problem out. I'm sure the transmission is a giant set of engineering tradeoffs (what project isn't), and maybe it won't work out and will end up being the wrong solution. But it can't be so obvious that random Joe-and-Jane HackerNews know the answer off the top of their heads and Porsche doesn't after all the resources it has spent to figure out the problem.

navigatesol 7y ago
There are people on this site and others that truly believe Elon Musk is the smartest engineer on the planet, and by definition his technology is always the best.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- erikpukinskis 7y ago
  Please keep your conversations with imaginary people to yourself. There are actual comments here from actual people you can respond to if you’re interested in participating.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Well certainly. But behind that guy is a lot of compentent and professional engineers and techs doing the actual work.
gleenn 7y ago
I understand your sentiment. I'd like to add the fact that the original Tesla was a two-speed, or perhaps it was the original design for the Model S, but they scrapped it for simplicity IIRC.
- ztjio 7y ago
  It was in the roadster, it was dropped due to poor reliability for all future designs.
ztjio 7y ago
So, I'll just hop in here and lay out the spoiler. There is a major performance difference in the Taycan, it's endurance, and it's highly likely this transmission is a key element to achieving it. For those that don't know, Tesla's cars can not keep their maximum performance up for a very long time. The battery gets hot and lowers power output until it cools back down. The Taycan, while not having as impressive max specs or range (and some serious questionability about the charging claims) CAN keep its maximum performance indefinitely. At least through a full discharge of the battery pack, but, also after a recharge it can keep going and they demonstrated this recently with a 24 hour marathon test drive stopping only to charge it. So, without really getting into all the weird perception based arguments, there is clearly a difference in performance and the transmission may be critical to it.
- solotronics 7y ago
  Another reason the Taycan can output near maximum power for a much extended time period is it operates at 800v vs 650v as compared to the Tesla.
  - eigenloss 7y ago
    Higher voltage alone does not magically give you longer sustained maximum power.
    - adrianN 7y ago
      It's also unclear to me why a gearbox alone would give you longer sustained maximum power.
      - elihu 7y ago
        Most electric motors are most efficient and can generate the most power within a certain RPM range. (It's a lot wider than gas engines, but beyond a certain speed the torque falls off.) If you can drive at high speeds at a more efficient motor RPM, then that's less excess heat for the motor and inverter to deal with, and less current draw from the batteries.
gwbas1c 7y ago
> Porsche is spending billions of dollars to bring a very high performance track-focused sports-sedan to the market. Hundreds of extremely good engineers are getting paid millions of dollars to figure this problem out. I honestly don't understand this. Almost all of us drive at safe speeds on public roads and sit in traffic. Focusing so much on racing just comes across as a distraction. I love my Model 3, But my older Leaf was fast enough for me.
- enragedcacti 7y ago
  Then you are absolutely not the target market for any Porsche, let alone this one. Not a dig, I'm not the target market either.
NullPrefix 7y ago
> But it can't be so obvious that random Joe-and-Jane HackerNews know the answer off the top of their heads and Porsche doesn't after all the resources it has spent to figure out the problem. Does this same discussion-closer apply when we talk about software? Plenty of software companies with the same hundred engineers millions of dollars thing. Yet we are allowed to talk about their fuckups. What makes you think cars are different?
lazyjones 7y ago
> Porsche is spending billions of dollars to bring a very high performance track-focused sports-sedan to the market. Hundreds of extremely good engineers are getting paid millions of dollars to figure this problem out. And yet their car is only about as fast as a FWD 300HP Renault Megane RS on the Nurburgring.

navigatesol 7y ago

There are people on this site and others that truly believe Elon Musk is the smartest engineer on the planet, and by definition his technology is always the best.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
erikpukinskis 7y ago
Please keep your conversations with imaginary people to yourself. There are actual comments here from actual people you can respond to if you’re interested in participating.
Gibbon1 7y ago
Well certainly. But behind that guy is a lot of compentent and professional engineers and techs doing the actual work.

gleenn 7y ago

I understand your sentiment. I'd like to add the fact that the original Tesla was a two-speed, or perhaps it was the original design for the Model S, but they scrapped it for simplicity IIRC.

ztjio 7y ago
It was in the roadster, it was dropped due to poor reliability for all future designs.

ztjio 7y ago

So, I'll just hop in here and lay out the spoiler. There is a major performance difference in the Taycan, it's endurance, and it's highly likely this transmission is a key element to achieving it. For those that don't know, Tesla's cars can not keep their maximum performance up for a very long time. The battery gets hot and lowers power output until it cools back down. The Taycan, while not having as impressive max specs or range (and some serious questionability about the charging claims) CAN keep its maximum performance indefinitely. At least through a full discharge of the battery pack, but, also after a recharge it can keep going and they demonstrated this recently with a 24 hour marathon test drive stopping only to charge it. So, without really getting into all the weird perception based arguments, there is clearly a difference in performance and the transmission may be critical to it.

solotronics 7y ago
Another reason the Taycan can output near maximum power for a much extended time period is it operates at 800v vs 650v as compared to the Tesla.
- eigenloss 7y ago
  Higher voltage alone does not magically give you longer sustained maximum power.
  - adrianN 7y ago
    It's also unclear to me why a gearbox alone would give you longer sustained maximum power.
    - elihu 7y ago
      Most electric motors are most efficient and can generate the most power within a certain RPM range. (It's a lot wider than gas engines, but beyond a certain speed the torque falls off.) If you can drive at high speeds at a more efficient motor RPM, then that's less excess heat for the motor and inverter to deal with, and less current draw from the batteries.

gwbas1c 7y ago

> Porsche is spending billions of dollars to bring a very high performance track-focused sports-sedan to the market. Hundreds of extremely good engineers are getting paid millions of dollars to figure this problem out. I honestly don't understand this. Almost all of us drive at safe speeds on public roads and sit in traffic. Focusing so much on racing just comes across as a distraction. I love my Model 3, But my older Leaf was fast enough for me.

enragedcacti 7y ago
Then you are absolutely not the target market for any Porsche, let alone this one. Not a dig, I'm not the target market either.

NullPrefix 7y ago

> But it can't be so obvious that random Joe-and-Jane HackerNews know the answer off the top of their heads and Porsche doesn't after all the resources it has spent to figure out the problem. Does this same discussion-closer apply when we talk about software? Plenty of software companies with the same hundred engineers millions of dollars thing. Yet we are allowed to talk about their fuckups. What makes you think cars are different?

lazyjones 7y ago