Porsche’s own fast charging station: exclusive, but pay for coffee

To be able to charge in Bingen, you must be in possession of a ‘Porsche Charging Card’, a pass that is only sent if you buy an electric Porsche – de facto a Taycan. While Tesla has now opened the Superchargers to other brands, this is emphatically not the idea with the Porsche Charging Lounge. Barriers prevent access and only open when the ticket in question is held against the intended reader. The system is not more intelligent than that, so anyone who has left the Taycan at home and wants to charge the woman’s Kia Niro with the card can simply go there. That also explains the presence of the Audi E-Tron GT – a cousin of the Porsche Taycan – in the photos: we had an extra pass with us. Regular visitors can also add a license plate via the Posche app, so that the barrier opens automatically when approaching the barrier.

Normally you will only find Porsches in Bingen am Main, close to Frankfurt. That is also the intention, because Porsche wants to offer a ‘premium charging experience’ to its customers in this way. The first Porsche Charging Lounge opened in Bingen this summer and is located on an industrial estate, between car dealers and storage sheds, but also directly at the bottom of an exit at the point where Autobahn 60 branches off from Autobahn 61. Nice and central, and accessible from all kinds of angles.

The charging location is very sleek, very clean and very modern. Anthracite-colored steel alternates with natural-looking wood and beautiful lighting. Everything is still new, but it still all looks very neat. The chargers themselves are very similar to what Fastned uses, among others, and are set up according to the ‘drive-thru’ principle, so the caravan can remain behind your Taycan. There are a total of six chargers with a capacity of 300 kW, plus four 22 kW AC chargers. The ‘lounge’ section consists of an unmanned ‘booth’ that can be opened with the now familiar card. Inside we find a kind of bar along the edges with power points and wireless phone chargers and of course there are toilets. The Porsche content here is somewhat disappointing. There are some books about the brand, but the coffee ‘normally’ comes in cups from the local wholesaler. Also a pity: you have to pay for that coffee, just like for the snacks from the neighboring vending machine. That in itself is not a shame, but it is a shame for something that was exclusively intended for its own customers. As a plaster on the wound, charging itself is not expensive: Porsche drivers pay 33 cents per kWh here.

Porsche is investigating other locations, but we do not have to expect them in the Netherlands for the time being given the abundance of fast charging locations already present.