2020 Porsche Taycan 4S Suspension Walkaround - Examining An Epic-Handling Electric Vehicle
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- Опубликовано: 8 фев 2025
- The 2020 Porsche Taycan 4S is an incredibly well-crafted high-performance electric vehicle that may actually handle better than a Porsche 911. There, I said it. Why? It's underfloor batter gives it a lower center of gravity than a 911, and it's weight distribution isn't nearly as tail-heavy. It rides on Panamera-based suspension, but it works even better here because the Taycan is shorter, lower and ... wider than the Porsche Panamera. The 4S isn't the most powerful Taycan in the lineup - the Taycan Turbo and Turbo S have more power. But the 4S is plenty fast, and it's got all the steering, handling, brakes, and tires it needs to be a serious sports car. It's insane. And though I didn't put that footage in this video, I did conduct a range test. This car is rated at 203 miles, by my test loop result was 300.5 miles. I hope to edit that footage together soon.
Want to see more? There's a written version on Autoblog with big pictures and more detail you can read at your leisure. That one looks at the 2020 Taycan Turbo, and it is slightly different. Hint: OMG brakes! See it at:
www.autoblog.c...
Why am I doing this? I love this stuff. I'm a former suspension development engineer that got into auto journalism, and for several years I created a popular photo feature called a Suspension Walkaround for Inside Line, a now-defunct offshoot of Edmunds.com (no relation). Today I have resumed writing these features under the name Suspension Deep Dive for Autoblog. Between the two, I have written at least 90 of them. Throughout, numerous fans have asked me to make video versions.
I never seemed to have the time, the equipment, or the confidence to get in front of the camera, but I got over that by hosting at least 80 professionally-produced videos over the last three years on the Edmunds You Tube channel. If you like it, tell your friends, click subscribe, share links, give it a like and check out the other videos on my channel, which is simply called Dan Edmunds. And I take requests. I can't promise that I can get my hands on any car or truck, but the odds are good. And the more views I get, the more horsepower I'll have when requesting cars to examine.
That was actually interesting and first of its kind on YT, as far as I know...
Thank you. I'm still figuring out how to best adapt these to video. When I do photo versions I can stare at the pictures for days and figure out what I want to say and maybe get some questions answered. I'm also a one-man band as far as shooting and editing are concerned. And I'm crawling under the car trying to frame shots and hold the camera (my iPhone 11, and I'm still using the internal mic) reasonably still while I talk and attempt to use my free hand to point. Not every shot works with a tripod in those tight confines. I'm still trying to work out best practices.
this is absolutely terrific way how to make videos on YT, fantastic, waiting for more contents. thank you.
As someone who did the exact kind of work and with appreciation that you have shown, it is easy to spot a journeyman at their work. Thank you for your labor and and video production.
That is impressive! Congrats for the hard work and video.
Thank you very much! I enjoy doing it. Oftentimes I have no idea what I'm in for until I pull off the first wheel.
Finally, someone who knows suspension. You need to do a video on the Newest Lexus LS suspension, multilink upper and lower front and rear.
Yes. I'd like to see that one, too.
Wow. This is what I wanted to see. And it's a lot more refined than I expected. Thanks for going to the trouble just for us. I want one.
I want one, too. It's an amazing piece of engineering.
This is the Taycan content I am here for
A great video!
Informative and at a leisurely tempo.
This was so cool! I really loved the walk through and your knowledge. I also like how your described things for people like me who are not experts in suspension.
Thank you. That has always been the goal. Share the cool bits of vehicles that are usually hidden, and give just enough explanation so people can appreciate the attention to detail and clever thinking.
That was a nice walk-around.
What I did miss is your opinion about it, as kind of an expert on these bits.
Maybe something for your next vids.
Thx for taking the time to do these kinds of vids, appreciated!
Thanks, Dee. Great feedback. I'm still trying to work out the format, and I'm still preoccupied with the technical realities of doing this single handed. That will certainly come out in future videos.
Would be really interested to see your take on the Model 3, as I suspect a lot of others would be too.
Yes. Getting one is half the battle. They don't do press loans.
See SANDY MUNRO chanel
I had watched your review of the Turbo suspension a while back. Now with this you got my subscription. Great work Dan.
So with the wheel upgrade bad 19" is base they are 61lb and 69.5lb but with 9" and 11" Pro Contact tires.
225/55R19 front and 275/45R19 rear tires are standard on the 4S. Wheels are 9" wide in front, 10" wide in back. I have not tried them.
245/45R20 front and 285/40R20 rear are optional on the 4S and are standard on the Turbo. Wheels are 9" wide in front and 11" wide in back. You can choose between all-season and "summer" (more like 3-season) tires from the factory. This car had the optional Turbo wheels and tires with Continental ProContact RX all-season tires, the Taycan Turbo I used two months ago for the written Suspension Deep Dive I wrote for Autoblog had the same wheels but with Michelin Pilot Sport 4 summer tires. I weighed them, too. So we have a great comparison. These all-season Continental wheel/tire assemblies weighed 61 lb front and 69.5 lb rear; the summer Michelin wheel/tire assemblies were lighter at 60 lb front and 66 lb rear.
@@DanEdmunds yes and fyi one can also option for 21" Turbo S wheels that are 265/35 front and 305/30 rear. And there are several hub styles available for 20" and 21".
enjoyed the walkthrough - subbed
Hello! Dan I am Dorian. Do you remember me. wow nice to see you here. Haha
This is awesome info
Very informative! Appreciate it!!!
Always loved reading the suspension deep dives you write and I am happy to have stumbled on these video walk throughs. As both an auto enthusiast and engineer it is fascinating to peel back the skin and see the development and engineering which goes into different vehicles. Keep the videos coming!
As an aside, I am looking at an Audi Q7 and I am interested in the rear wheel steering option which is almost identical in design to that of this Taycan. In your opinion do you foresee issues with the durability of the rear suspension as the vehicle ages (5+ years) and the bushings begin to deteriorate
With respect to rear-wheel steering specifically? I don't imagine so, no. The amount of movement is small enough that it shouldn't really stress anything much-and of course they would have taken that into account anyway. The Taycan (and Cayenne, Panamera, 911 Turbo) rear steer works very well. Pretty amazing in all cases. This question brought back fond memories of the 911 Turbo with rear steer I drove around the fantastic Bilsterburg circuit a few years ago. Just, wow. But, lets get real. It's probably best in parking lots and when making u-turns. The high-speed stability benefits the system provides are more crucial at the extreme high speeds of Germany's Autobahn than they are at 75 or 80 on our highways.
Great job Dan. You seem very knowledgeable, what's your background? How did you get a 4S that fast.
For 16 years I worked for two carmakers tuning suspensions - which means choosing the spring rates, tuning the shock absorber internals to produce the right ride, picking stabilizer bar diameters, bushing stiffnesses, steering assist curve programming and working with tire suppliers to develop the internal construction of the tires. I did this work after a different engineering team designed the suspension concept and fixed the points where everything pivots. What I did was like racetrack car setup, but you have to work slowly as the entire car is undergoing overall development and refinement over a period of months. And the goal wasn't necessarily speed, it was customer satisfaction. And that can mean different things to different brands.
After that, I ran the vehicle testing department at Edmunds.com (no relation), which handled 250 cars per year. Now I'm a COVID freelancer working in my driveway, but I can still get cars from the press fleets, which every manufacturer (except Tesla) maintains so that car reviewers can have access to things to review. I got lucky on the timing, but I'm known for this content in written form - Autoblog publishes my written versions now. The video editions are new. I resurrected a dormant channel I made 11 years ago for the sole purpose of getting URLs for short clips I wanted to paste into blog posts.
@@DanEdmunds Thanks!
Sir. Great video. I read the blog and very interesting. I was wondering if you had an opinion on PTV+ and pros/cons of getting it on a 2022 4S. Thanks much -- car will be a daily driver and won't be for track. Thanks
Suspension is an incredible bit of engineering - my leaf spring YJ only takes gorilla levels of intelligence to comprehend 😅
Ceasar from Planet of the apes would want a word with you after the inevitable uprising.
Would love to see your take on BMW i4. Thanks.
Nice video! Do u close ur Air suspension at the beginning
Hi Dan, thanks for such a great VDO. By the way your VDO makes me want to lower my Taycan because it seems pretty easy to get it done and I always wanted to lower all my cars anyway. In the VDO I saw the front height sensors but I cannot find the rear ones. Could you kindly show me where they are please? Thank you so much. Wish you have 100,000 subs soon though.
Thanks for the kind words. Check out the still photo version I wrote for Autoblog.
www.autoblog.com/2020/02/05/porsche-taycan-suspension-deep-dive/
They're not obvious, but I *think* they're behind the air springs, as seen from behind. Look in the shadows of the rear brake photo that's two before the scale image.
Would be great to please have arrows pointing at the parts when talk about them, these are super interesting videos.
Yeah. My written pieces (on Autoblog) are littered with arrows. Trying to figure out the best way to do this in live video form.
Dan Edmunds Maybe chat with the makers of the Savage Geese channel, uses arrows when he has cars on the lift.
Thank you for a great video! Question: based on your expertise, how would you make a Tesla model 3 handing feel more "Porsche" in terms of steering? I had an old 911 and loved the handling.. but i don't quite love the model 3 steering.. so I'm wondering if a possible option would be to change the suspension system... advice would be awesome!
Suspension "tuning" has a big effect, but there are so many factors involved in steering feel I would have to live with a Model 3 to get to a point where I could propose effective changes. Like all modern cars, the Model 3 has electric power steering, not hydraulic. And tuning the feel of that is an art. But internal tire construction, suspension geometry, bushing stiffness, etc. also play big roles. I'd have to be a Tesla engineer on the inside to be able to advise.
@@DanEdmunds Thats a great response! Thanks My Guy !
Can you do a similar analysis on the new cayennes ?9YA/B
Hi Dan! Awesome video. I have a quick question about the Taycan’s on-board 150kW/400V add on. If your opinion do you feel there is a future for 400V systems? Since VW group isn’t supporting it on standard equipment. If you had a chance to charge at any 800V stations can you share your insights?
The add-on is only necessary if you'll use a particular DC Fast network that's not very big. I forget the name, but I'm told they are mainly in the Bay Area and near Boston. Most of the new ones have been anticipating vehicles like the Taycan and are able to deliver 800V even if the island is rated at 150 kW or less. So EA should be fine, also Chargepoint, and most of the other big ones. Electrify America is the only one that has 350 kW stations that can deliver the full 270kW to a Taycan, and I have used several of them. It still feels like a work in progress, and many of the pump card readers don't work. Use the phone app to pay instead.
Still, I'm not 100% sure of the above because I have not personally interviewed representatives from all of the major networks.
Subbiah I too was interested in this and scanned PlugShare for chargers over 50kw in the USA, there are so few and pretty much only in areas where Electrify America is plentiful it would be pointless to get the option IMHO. I am removing it from my configuration.
For more information check out TaycanForum.com
Would you think the Taycan without aur suspension would handle similarly? Also, does lowering the height may have improved your range?
I used Range mode, which does lower the vehicle, among other things. But I doubt aerodynamics plays much of a role in a suburban city test that netted a range of 300.5 miles in the Taycan sedan 4S and 284.4 in the Taycan 4 Cross-Turismo.
Nice video. Is the front control arm setup similar for the new 911/992, especially the front pivot? If we could see the front pivot of the Taycan it would probably have a vertical/up down bolt attachment versus the inline control arm pivot: horizontal. Why is that?
I really wish I could have removed a couple of parts, but it wasn't in the cards. The forward bushing should be like the Panamera, which is round but laying on edge with the bolt going fore-aft. Laying flat with the bolt going up works, too, if the bushing is round. The idea, in either case, is roughly the same. A pothole or other sharp-edged strike impact will have a significant rearward component, in addition to the vertical one. The rear bushing - the one that's square to the tire contact patch, shouldn't move aft much -- you want the suspension to be stable in other situations. So if that doesn't move (much), yet the ball joint out at the end gets slammed backward, the whole L-shaped arm pivots slightly and generates an outward pulse at the front bushing. The round bushing, which typically has a large volume, is set up to absorb that kind of sharp pulse.
Now some cars have L-shaped lower arms that go toward the back, with the forward bushing roughly square to the contact patch of the tire. In that case all of the above still applies, except that it is the rear bushing that takes the hit, and it'll be an inward pulse, not an outward one.
What are the jacks and jack stands and what is the tool you used to remove the lug nuts?
The lug wrench is a weird Snap-On 1/2"-drive speed handle/breaking bar that's discontinued. It's amazing. They should bring it back. The jack is an OTC Tools aluminum race jack. They're not the Harbor Freight cheap stuff. They specialize in dealer-grade tools that last a long time. Jack stands are pretty standard Torin 3-ton stands I've had for several years. I have two other sets (on shorter, another taller) for vehicles of different size. These are actually the shorter 2-ton ones, because the Taycan is pretty low.
I dont understand Porsche. Why mount the front brake calipers at the front of the wheel not at the back towards the center of the car. Should be all the biggest weights in the car point to the center of the car?
stick to your day job lol
Generally the brake calipers and the steering rack are mounted on opposite sides of the axle -- both can't coexist on the same side. (As always, there are rare exceptions, but doubling up has its own problems)
I tend to prefer so-called "front steer" which puts the steering tie-rods and steering rack ahead and the calipers behind. It's not done so much to centralize the caliper mass, it's more about the accuracy benefits you get by steering from the front. But packaging concerns often make rear-mounted steering and front-mounted calipers necessary. Transverse FWD cars, for example - the sideways-mounted engine and transaxle makes it impossible to locate the steering rack in front. The engine and transmission occupy that space. The steering must go in the back, which means the calipers have to go up front. I think the same thing is happening here because of the transverse-mounted front e-motor, power electronics, drive reduction gear and drive axles. The steering has no place to be except behind all that, so the brake calipers must go up front.
It's good you mentioned this because I used to point the steering rank/brake caliper position out regularly in earlier written iterations of these I did a few years ago. The exceptions, when those rare examples crop up, are interesting unto themselves. I think I need to add the steering/brake orientation back onto the standard shot list.
The 911, on the other hand, does this, too. In that case it may be because of the need to maintain an open space for a front trunk. Simple packaging drives more basic layout decisions that you might expect. If the steering was up front, that would screw up that space and make the 911 a much less livable car. And we can't forget that Porsche has managed to make this an outstanding car despite its having the engine in the "wrong" place all these years. They obviously can get a lot of performance out of rear-placed steering, too.
I used to read every single walk around on Edmunds when I was a chassis supplier. At one point I can already guess what is going to be shown, but I learn something new usually
Thanks. I'm still trying to get the video quality up, but I'll get there.
👍👍👍👍
Over engineered