Yahoo Autos Charge! Porsche Plans 500 Places to Energize Mission E in U.S.
Porsche has long boasted that its Mission E electric car will be able to recoup 250 miles of range in just 15 minutes-far quicker than any Tesla-thanks to its exclusive (and expensive) 800-volt vehicle architecture and the high-power charging hardware to match. But what would be the point of that capability if there aren’t enough stations that can deliver those charging speeds to enable long-road-trip flexibility?
Avoiding that question entirely is surely part of the motivation behind why Porsche is already laying out plans for hundreds of DC fast chargers by the time the Mission E is introduced, in late 2019. “We believe there need to be about 500 fast-charging locations across the country in order to really assure drivers there are no grounds for ‘range anxiety,’ ” Porsche Cars North America CEO Klaus Zellmer confirmed to C/D.
Porsche figures that 88 percent of charging occurs at home or at work, where charging times will be longer but also easier to accommodate. It also says that it considers range anxiety to be more a psychological than a physical issue at this point. But it’s laying down that national network to ensure that Mission E owners can access the advantages of quick-charging capability when they want it to enable longer journeys.
Earlier this year, Porsche announced its 189 U.S. dealer partners will be installing 800-volt fast chargers at their locations, which are already strategically located to reach the greatest concentrations of Porsche customers. Those units will be capable of delivering 350 kW of power to enable the minimal recharging times. So are the six being installed at the brand’s Experience Center in Atlanta and an additional few at the Experience Center in Los Angeles-all to help educate customers on the Mission E and the technology.
Dealerships are also being required, according to Automotive News, to get a battery buffer capable of charging three vehicles in a row. Zellmer declined comment to C/D on the report, but it seems likely that this would be to avoid the steep charges that utilities can charge for energy use during periods of peak demand. Porsche is leaning toward an arrangement that will allow dealerships to decide how much customers will pay for fast charging-with some potentially wrapping it into the sale-but dealers aren’t going to be left to fend for themselves. “We’re going to train all the dealers not only on the technology aspects of the car but the overall technology, the charging infrastructure, and home charging,” said Zellmer. “We think we have a good value proposition when it comes to range, performance, and charging time, which is something that people have to buy into.”
Charging Partners Are Critical to the Mission
About 300 of those full-power fast chargers-which will have city and highway locations-will be installed by partner organizations such as ChargePoint, EVgo, and Electrify America. Eventually, Porsche plans to work with a single strategic partner in the United States, although it hasn’t yet announced details about that partner or relationship.
Speaking at the Geneva auto show last month, Zellmer told C/D that the automaker is “talking to various players in the U.S. market providing highway charging in the U.S., and that’s part of our strategy.” No special favor, he emphasized, will be given to Electrify America, the electric-vehicle-infrastructure organization created as one required atonement for VW’s diesel emissions scandal-which put Porsche diesels for the U.S. on hold.
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Although Porsche’s 500 fastest chargers are no match for Tesla’s many thousands of Superchargers, it might-at least at first-be nearly enough. First, the Mission E will be fully compatible with Combined Charging System (CCS) fast chargers-most of them 50 kW, but by then including many capable of 150 kW-and thanks to Electrify America, that standard may soon outnumber Tesla’s in terms of actual charging connectors. Secondly, Porsche plans a complementary network of destination chargers-much like Tesla’s-to provide charge points at hotels and shopping centers where drivers could recoup some miles overnight or during a shopping trip. With such a mission laid out for the infrastructure, let’s hope the production version of the Mission E is every bit as up to the task.
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