The sports car manufacturer Porsche has to recall almost all of its first electric car model, the Taycan, that have been delivered to date due to a software error.

Porsche announced on Friday that the engine control software must be updated in around 43,000 vehicles worldwide, including around 3400 in Germany.

That is all units of the model that came onto the market last year that were produced and delivered by June.

The fault could sporadically cause a loss of driving power. For example, the electric motor can fail at full speed, so that, for example, at a speed of 150 kilometers per hour, the vehicle coasts down within 90 seconds, as the responsible Porsche project manager Klaus Rechberger explained in a press conference. After restarting the engine, the car is roadworthy again.

The malfunction was noticed in around 130 vehicles, so it is not a mass phenomenon, added Rechberger. Accidents are not known. However, since this is the flagship model from Porsche for the age of e-cars, the Volkswagen subsidiary, unlike in the industry, informed itself in advance of the upcoming official recall orders. The incidents were put on record for the first time in mid-May at the US traffic safety authority NHTSA. She initiated a preliminary investigation following complaints from customers. According to Porsche, the software update of the control unit cannot yet be installed remotely via the Internet, so a one-hour workshop visit is necessary.

With the later introduced sister model Audi e-tron GT, which uses the same component, there were no complaints from customers, as an Audi spokesman explained. The software was already up to date on all vehicles delivered in America. More than half of the affected cars in the other markets have already been put in order and a three-digit number still needs to be processed.