Porsche likes to promote its new vehicles with track-day events, but this presented an issue when the company launched its all-electric Taycan model.
“Not everywhere provides the adequate infrastructure for charging the electric sports car en masse,” the company said in revealing its solution: A fleet of high-power charging trucks, each capable of recharging the batteries of as many as 30 electric cars.
The units had their official debut recently when Porsche staged a “Soul on Track” experience the Hungaroring track in Budapest, inviting potential customers the opportunity to test drive the Taycan on the racing circuit.
“Such driving events present organizers with a particular challenge, however: when a large number of Taycan cars need to be charged quickly and simultaneously, the local infrastructure isn’t always up to the job,” Porsche said.
“Without a satisfactory solution on the market, Porsche wasted no time in creating its own. Along with its partner in the project – the German company ‘ads-tec’ – it has produced seven mobile charging trucks with a proprietary charging system and buffer storage unit.”
Each of the trailers reportedly has a power rating of 3.2 megawatts so 10 cars can be recharged at the same time, at with high-speed recharging. Each truck has the capacity to re-energize 30 cars before the truck batteries themselves need recharging. That is done from the electrical grid. Each truck’s massive battery packs can be recharged in 4 hours.
Porsche began using the trucks in late 2019 but only now has done a news release about them.
“We have now used the trucks at numerous events all over Europe and have carried out around 5,000 charging operations – sometimes at extreme temperatures down to minus 40 degrees,” said Ragnar Schulte, director of experiential marketing for Porsche. “Their performance has therefore been tried and tested.”