Porsche Taycan owners will get three years of free charging on Electrify America’s network

Porsche today announced a deal with Electrify America, VW’s EV charging network born out of the Deiselgate settlement with the U.S. government, to provide upcoming Taycan owners with “three years of charging at Electrify America public stations across the country.”

It’s an interesting development because Porsche was talking about addressing the charging problem by building its own network of charging stations ahead of the launch of the Taycan.

Last year, the company announced plans to deploy hundreds of stations capable of delivering high charge rates. That includes a recently announced network of 500 EV charging stations in the US and Canada.

It was supposed to be a mix of high-powered stations to support the Taycan’s 350 kW charge rate installed at both dealerships and strategic locations along highways to enable long-distance travel.

Later, they even ramped up the effort to 700 stations across North America.

But now, following this deal with Electrify America, Porsche is only talking about installing 191 charging stations at its dealerships:

“To further expand power options, all 191 U.S. Porsche dealerships will install DC fast charging. More than 120 of these dealerships will feature Porsche Turbo Charging, which is the automaker’s own DC system that delivers up to 320 kW and also uses the CCS plug. The remaining dealerships will install 50 kW fast chargers.”

We asked Porsche if they abandoned their plan to have their own charging network outside of dealerships following this deal with Electrify America and we will update if we get an answer.

Update: Porsche confirmed that their own network will only be at dealerships.

Klaus Zellmer, President and CEO of Porsche North America, commented on the Electrify America deal:

“Every Porsche is a sports car with soul, and the Taycan is soul electrified. Together, Electrify America and our Porsche dealer network will provide a national infrastructure for DC fast charging that frees future Taycan owners from range anxiety. And Porsche home charging technology will turn the customer’s garage into the equivalent of a personal gas station.”

By the time the Taycan hits the market, Electrify America claims that it will have 484 locations with more than 2,000 chargers.

Electrek’s Take

That’s actually disappointing. It feels like a step back from having their own network.

Porsche’s previous plans felt like the most significant effort in fast-charging from an automaker since Tesla’s Supercharger network.

Instead, they are going to rely on a third-party network.

Though it happens that the third-party network is owned by their parent company.

What it shows really is that CARB and the EPA forcing Volkswagen to spend their settlement money on Electrify America is not really a “punishment” for Dieselgate. They are just using it for their own charging network.