Charging an EV is often worse than visiting a gas station as a number of chargers are uncovered and located on the edge of a parking lot.
This means if it rains, you get wet. If that wasn’t bad enough, amenities are virtually nonexistent and sometimes you won’t even find a nearby trash can. Furthermore, if there aren’t any stores open in the immediate area, you can’t even use a restroom.
Anyone unfortunate enough to experience that will likely be lusting after a Porsche Charging Lounge, like the one that recently opened outside Bingen am Rhein. It resembles a futuristic gas station as it features a sleek roof with wood accents as well as solar panels on top. The roof covers six 300 kW DC fast chargers and four 22 kW AC chargers, which are powered by “certified renewable sources.”
More: Audi’s Swanky Charging Hub Is A First Class Lounge For Electric Vehicles
Those are impressive numbers and Porsche noted they’re “capable of being upgraded to deliver even higher charging speeds.” That isn’t just talk either as the company said 400 kW chargers could be possible as early as next year.
Besides having fast, covered chargers that are available 24/7, the Porsche Charging Lounge has an area where owners can hangout while their vehicle recharges. The company didn’t say much about the building, but it’s eco-friendly and automatically dims the lights when no one is inside. Furthermore, the lounge’s temperature is kept comfortable via a heat pump that operates without fossil fuels.
More importantly, visitors will find “modern sanitary facilities” as well as vending machines with a selection of soft drinks and snacks. Other highlights include a WiFi network, “analogue and digital media,” and even a smart mirror that can be used for workouts.
A Porsche ID is required to access the charging station and lounge area, and it must be linked to a car. Porsche added automatic number plate recognition helps to streamline the process, but owners who don’t have their plate linked to their Porsche ID can use the “Porsche Charging Card or a QR code from the MyPorsche app to access both the site and the lounge.”
While the Porsche Charging Lounge puts glamour into the mundane, the company doesn’t charge you extra for it. Instead, prices are set at “33 cents per kilowatt hour” which is “as low as for other fast-charging stations in the Porsche network.”
While the first Porsche Charging Lounge is billed as a “pilot site,” the company aims to open additional locations in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland. Porsche Chairman Oliver Blume added the lounges will help out in their “ambitious path towards electrification” as the company wants “over 80 percent of the cars that we deliver to be all-electric” in 2030.
