2017 Porsche Panamera - INTERIOR (Awesome)

INTERIOR
The interior serves as yet another big welcome change, as the interior has been reworked pretty well. First off, the steering wheel has been redesigned and looks to feature gesture control buttons on the left and right spokes. The center of the wheel is now a little smaller, and the bottom spoke is now open in the middle. The spokes and center hub are outlined in chrome. The design of the door trim panels and seats haven’t changed much, but the doors do feature a larger storage area. The center console now features two cup holders instead of one – you know; in case you trust your wife to bring her $8 coffee with her as you bend some corners.

"The interior, in a weird kind of way, brings together old and new and blends it all together in the best way possible"

Ahead of the center console’s armrest, the layout of the central command area is pretty familiar. There is a host of buttons and switches on each side of the gear shifter. These buttons now look to be touch sensitive, and the shifter bezel itself is now much thinner than before. Up on the center stack, there is a new 12-inch display screen that replaces the smaller screen on the outgoing model. The center vents that were on each side of the display screen are now very thin and positioned just to the outside edges of the screen. The instrument cluster has been reworked, but still features the same center-mounted tachometer with the smaller circular gauges on either side.

The rear seating area is quite similar to the outgoing model, but that center console has now been heavily revised. It looks like the armrest is now built into the center seatback and the rear-seat command area is now a little taller and features the same glossy black finish as the center console up front. Furthermore, it looks like it is also adorned with touch-sensitive buttons. All told, the interior, in a weird kind of way, brings together old and new and blends it all together in the best way possible. Not bad, Porsche; not bad.

Porsche Connect

When Porsche pull the sheet off of the Panamera, it also pulled the sheet off of its Porsche Connect infotainment package that comes as part of the next-gen Porsche Communication Management (PCM) system. Now that the Porsche Connect system has officially launched, customers are able to stay in almost constant contact with their Porsche anytime they wish. Before we go into the details, let me assure you that the current functionality of the system – like the support center calling and the 24/7 concierge (In China and Japan) – carry over to this new system.

On top of that, customers will now be able to reach a better level of connectivity with the vehicle via a smartphone or Apple Watch. Customers will be able to control various vehicle functions remotely like locking and unlocking the doors, using GPS to locate the vehicle, and on E-Hybrid models, customers can event activate auxiliary heating and cooling or retrieve hybrid-specific data as needed.

There is a total of three packages available for the Porsche Connect system. The Navigation and Infotainment package includes features like online search for local restaurants or attractions, real-time traffic information, and Google Earth and Street View functionality. Another available service is the ability to recall flight information, car park vacancies and pricing, as well as operating hours of certain businesses and parking facilities.

Apple CarPlay comes standard as does a special smartphone storage compartment that Porsche claims to be optimized for mobile phone reception. The system makes use of Apple’s app Siri, which will read and send text messages, answer the phone, or play music on your command. There are a total of two SD card ports and multiple USB interfaces that can be used to stream downloaded music or upload music to the 10-gigabyte jukebox. Needless to say, the system is pretty sweet.