If electric cars are ever going to make serious inroads into the new car market, they're going to need places to recharge. Not just rinky-dink 110-volt wall outlets and Level 2 chargers; pure electric vehicles will need serious flow, in order to recharge 300-mile battery packs in reasonable amounts of time. So rather than unleash a slew of super-powerful electric cars on the market without a place to top up, Porsche is building out a network of uber-potent EV chargers theoretically capable of powering up in record time. While the Mission E super-sedan—the carmaker's upcoming fully-electric four-door—is still a little ways away, Porsche has already installed the first couple chargers capable of meeting the car's rapid-charging needs.
The two new high-power electric car chargers are found at the company's new Berlin office, which opened last Friday, according to Electrek. The 800-volt chargers can deliver power at up to 350 kilowatts, according to the carmaker—though it's currently restricted to 50–150 kW, Electrek says, as no existing electric cars are capable of guzzling power at the higher wattage. (Indeed, even Tesla's Superchargers only crank out power at around 120 kW.)
In addition to the extra-juicy outlets, the new facility has a pair of less-powerful Level 2 chargers better suited for Porsche's existing electrified models, such as the Cayenne S E-Hybrid and the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid. To help generate the power for those electric cars, the Berlin office also includes an 83-foot tall pylon covered in photovoltaic cells capable of transforming sunlight into 30,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity every year.
Using the 800-volt charging system, Porsche has said the Mission E will be capable of reaching an 80 percent state of charge in 15 minutes, in part to give the car the track-lapping capability expected of any car bearing the famed badge.
Porsche is just one of a number of carmakers and other organizations looking to bring super-powerful electric car chargers to public roadways and parking lots in the near future. Volkswagen's Dieselgate-rectification campaign known as Electrify America is bringing 320-kW chargers to California, for example, while ChargePoint's Express Plus chargers will be able to spit out electricity at a stunning 400 kW.