Porsche is taking its first steps towards building its own charging network in Germany. In Bingen am Rhein, the carmaker has now commissioned a pilot location with a “brand-appropriate charging experience”. There are a few 300 kW fast chargers on site, as well as AC charging points and a dedicated lounge.
The exclusive ‘Porsche Charging Lounge’ offers six DC fast charging points with up to 300 kW capacity as well as four AC charging points with 22 kW each. The price per kilowatt hour is 33 cents and central billing is handled by Porsche itself.
According to the press images, the HPC columns are the Alpitronic Hypercharger HYC300. This is remarkable in that Porsche itself had developed an HPC column, which has also been installed at numerous branches of the car manufacturer in recent years. ADS-TEC Energy also relies in part on the Porsche charging pole for its combination of fast charger and battery storage.
According to the sports car manufacturer, the Hyperchargers set up in Bingen are prepared for faster charging. As early as the beginning of next year, 400 kW per charging point should be possible with an upgrade from the HYC300 to the HYC400, which was presented in 2022. This also allows for a different granularity in load management: the HYC400 has eight power modules with 50 kW each, which can be divided between the two charging points. In the HYC300, there are four modules of 75 kW each.
“Porsche has mapped out an ambitious path towards electrification. 2030 we want over 80 per cent of the cars that we deliver to be all-electric. This ambitious ramp-up requires a high-performance and dense fast-charging network,” says Oliver Blume, Chairman of the Executive Board of Porsche AG. “The exclusive Porsche Charging Lounges are making an important contribution to this. They are a barrier-free, sustainable and state-of-the-art addition to the IONITY network.”
Further locations along the most important European traffic routes are planned. Initially, the carmaker is focusing on Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The Bingen site is only a few minutes away from the A60/A61 motorway interchange.
In Spain, Porsche is building HPC parks with the Spanish energy supplier Iberdrola under the name ‘Porsche Iberdrola High Power Charging Network’. An agreement to this effect was signed in 2020 and the first charging park in Elche in the province of Alicante went into operation in February 2022. There are a total of four charging points with up to 400 kW and twelve charging points with up to 200 kW. With all charging points, the system has a capacity of four megawatts.
The manufacturer also emphasises the sustainability of its project. For example, the lounge is heated and cooled with a heat pump running on green electricity. Part of the lounge’s electricity needs are covered by its own solar system and the lights are automatically dimmed when no guests are on-site to save electricity.
Porche’s charging lounge follows through on the EU’s AFIR: A significant step forward to achieving the EU’s clean transportation goals.