I've heard back and forth on whether Porsche dealers will charge customers for a charge-"fill-up". Also whenever charging stations are in place that that there will be a cost associated for that as well? Anybody hear anything more conclusive?

 

All the articles I've read indicate Porsche's charging network will be fee based. No details have been released regarding the fee structure (per charge, per month, etc.), and I doubt the final decision has been made at this point. I wouldn't be terribly surprised if the dealers end up part of this discussion, with the option to add charging packages with the sale of the vehicle, or even including them as an incentive with the sale of the vehicle.

I don't expect to have much need of the charging network, as very little of my driving takes me beyond the round trip range stated for the Taycan. Perhaps half a dozen times a year, I'd be in need of a charge away from home. At that frequency, I'll be fine with paying on a per charge basis for the service.

 

Curious if anyone has seen a map of where the charging stations are in USA? I see that as a huge problem for Porsche as Tesla already has a deep and more advance charging station infrastructure.

 

Charging is a mess. Convergence to fewer standards may not come for a long time. Plugshare.com produces bubble maps, which can be filtered by standard (like CCS). Probably your best shot.

 

keep in mind - if you follow typical EV usage patterns - > 90% of your charging will be at home overnight - the normal use case for fast 800/400 volt DC charging systems (which are fee based) is only for your road trip usage…the majority of your charging should be done during off-peak residential electrical rates (which in northern California with PG&E is $0.12xx/kWh) - a complete fill-up of my Tesla (85 kWh) is about $10.66 - but that rarely happens, typically daily use of 15 kWh (60 mile total commute) is $1.88 or about $0.03/mile.

I use Tesla's supercharger network about 8 times a year and for the occasional "high use" day.

I am very interested to see where Porsche places their chargers, and I'm also interested in any potential fee structure, but honestly you won't use the chargers that much in your daily usage.

 

also - I think Porsche would have to be competitive with Tesla's rates - which depending on the state and local regulations is billed either by the kWh or by time - the current pay-per-use rate for Tesla Supercharging in CA is: $0.26/kWh with other states have less or equal pricing - I doubt Porsche would charge much more than the competition and to be clear this is an easy thing to manage and changes will be frequent - for example I could see them offering you 5,000 miles worth of charging for "free/included" with the purchase of the car - it would cost them next to nothing.

the current pay-per use rates for Tesla's superchargers can be found here:

https://www.tesla.com/support/supercharging

how ever most Model S and Model X owners supercharging is included with no pay-per-use fees, or in some cases an annual budget of 400 kWh, Model 3 owners are pay per use
another fast charging network is EVGo and their rates vary by location/session duration - https://www.evgo.com

In either case porsche has said the Taycan will be a 300 mile range EV - that mens they will be rocking a 80-90 kWh battery - and a full charge should be in the neighborhood of $25 or less - I would be surprised if it was more than $15 for a full charge, and substantially less if you just focus on filling up enough to get to your next destination while road tripping.

Porsche really can't get away with being drastically expensive because unlike gasoline there are no "grades" of electrons - only the fill rate of the pump for which Porsche as a claimed advantage - I'm dubious that their system will deliver any real benefit in most use cases - but we'll have to see once they have them deployed.

again for the most part I don't care what fast charging rates are as I use them infrequently and when I do use them I consider the fee more to save my time, and less about how much "fuel" I'm getting - typically I spend more on the food during the stop than the "fuel".