Porsche has the EV Game Messed Up; Wants to Charge Gasoline-Like Prices for its Charging Network

TopSpeed

By Robert Moore

Published Mar 26, 2018

Because God forbid it not cost us an arm and a leg to drive anymore

Unless you’re a tree-hugging hippy or one of those smug, “be-green” types, the fact that driving an EV could help stop global warming is vaguely insignificant. What’s more important is the fact that, with enough range, you can actually save a decent chunk of money on your daily commute since you don’t have to pay for gas. Well, leave it to Porsche to ruin that – the German brand wants its charging networks to be “profit centers” and will, effectively, charge gasoline-like prices for charging. In fact, Porsche won’t even warm up to you before bending you over as it plans to stick it to customers right from the very start.

So Much for Saving a Little Money with your Reduced Emissions

“Yes, we want to earn money with new products and services. Of Course, Yes.” “Yes, we try to do this of course. We can invest in the beginning, but after two or three years you have to be profitable with new services, of course.” Those words were said by none other than Lutz Meschke, the Deputy Chairman of Porsche’s Executive Board to GearBrain. The worst part is that the brand isn’t even going to charge a reasonable rate. Instead, it will charge gasoline-like prices for its 800-volt car chargers.

Those charges, by the way, will be capable of delivering enough charging capacity to get you 250 miles down the road in about 15 minutes. Furthermore, Porsche is working, in collaboration with BMW, Rolls-Royce, Mini, Audi, VW, Daimler, and Ford to bring charging to Europe on a broad scale as well. This move is quite the opposite of Tesla which offers free charging in some cases; it could spell some serious trouble for the EV industry.

At this point, we’re shelling out money to oil companies to get around. Part of the significant advantage of an EV is lessening our dependence on the black gold, which ultimately saves us money. Should other automakers follow Porsche’s greedy tactics and begin charging gasoline-like prices for EV charging, then what’s the point?

For now, it's only the Mission E sedan that will make use of the charging stations – you know, the model that Porsche claims isn’t benchmarked against the Tesla Model S, but was testing next to one? – and it will be followed by the Mission E Cross Turismo (based on the Cross Turismo Concept that was shown off at Geneva.) Let’s just hope only Porsche customers will be forced to shell out all this extra money and that other automakers keep charging reasonable or at least at a fair rate.