Porsche has been ahead of the curve on fast charging, developing its own 800-volt charging system, while also participating in cross-brand infrastructure projects including Electrify America and Ionity. Earlier this year, the company announced plans to deploy a network of 500 charging stations in North America in time for the launch of its Taycan EV next year.
Now Porsche has unveiled a plan for a new kind of modular fast charging system. The system consists of: the FlexBox, a transformer that provides up to 36 kilovolts; the PowerBox, an AC-DC converter; the CoolingBox, which provides liquid cooling for the charging poles and power electronics; and a compact and stylish charging pole.
The FlexBoxes can be stacked up fairly far from the actual charging points, with a distance of “up to 200 meters between the transformer station and PowerBox and up to 100 meters between the PowerBox and the charging station.” The charging pole is intended to be the only part of the system visible to drivers.
“The charging stations are the single customer touchpoint with the driver of an electric car,” says Porsche. “As the engineers removed everything from the charging station that wasn’t absolutely required at the customer touchpoint and packed it into FlexBoxes, a streamlined appearance could be achieved – and thus a typical Porsche design identity.”
Porsche claims an efficiency of over 95 % for the complete system.
Porsche has also created the more compact ComboBox, which combines the PowerBox and the CoolingBox into a single unit; and the ChargeBox, which incorporates a 70 kWh to 140 kWh battery pack for locations where the grid connection is insufficient for high-power charging.