The car suffered a critical electrical failure which resulted in the car abruptly losing power when driving at a speed of about 30 mph. The speed at which the car became unresponsive was so rapid that the car could not even be maneuvered from the middle lane into the right most lane for safety. The cars digital display system indicated nothing except that the hazards were on (after I had attempted to turn them on) and a red box with two cog wheels inside of it. In reality, the hazard lights were NOT on externally as was evidenced by a number of vehicles stopping to tell me to turn on my hazards. Additionally the car would not respond to any commands whatsoever. The car would not go in to park or drive and could not be powered on/off. The brake pedal was able to be pushed to the floor. The doors which have an electronic assist system were difficult to open because the whole electrical system was in a failure state. The car had to be towed to a Porsche dealership. Upon arrival to the dealership, the car indicated an engine control error on the digital dash and showed a turtle icon. This was not the case during the original failure (prior to tow) and only showed that state after a multi-hour tow trip. There were absolutely no indications of this problem prior to it happening. The car was at around 40% state-of-charge. Porsche performed a software update on the car and drove it 120 miles but could not recreate it. The very same day I took the car back from Porsche, the same issue occurred but in a less critical way and in a parking lot. This time, the car suffered an engine control error but after walking away from the car for 10 minutes or so, the error was gone and the car was drive-able. In both cases, one thing i noticed was that the rear spoiler was stuck in an extended state after the failure had occurred.

Source: NHTSA complaint ODI #11700474 · view all complaints for this vehicle at nhtsa.gov