Porsche and Electrify America are poised to give Tesla a run for its money

screen-shot-2019-01-25-at-11-27-23-am — This map of a planned charger infrastructure should be great news to EV owners, unless you live in the Dakotas. You guys are totally boned.
Porsche/Electrify America

Porsche's entirely battery-powered Taycan is nearly upon us, and the folks from Stuttgart are starting to get serious about building infrastructure to support the car's 800-volt charge rate capacity. To that end, it has partnered with Electrify America -- aka Volkswagen's "We're federally mandated to be sorry for Dieselgate" electric charging initiative -- to expand its network dramatically.

The Taycan will be unusual in its ability to support 350-kilowatt charging at 800 volts when it makes its debut, so having an infrastructure in place that can support that high rate will be critical. Currently, Electrify America and Porsche will offer this fast charge rate to buyers for free for three years after purchase at any of the 300 highway charging stations and 180 metropolitan stations in the Electrify America network.

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"Every Porsche is a sports car with soul, and the Taycan is soul electrified," said Klaus Zellmer, president and CEO of Porsche Cars North America. "Together, Electrify America and our Porsche dealer network will provide a national infrastructure for DC fast charging that frees future Taycan owners from range anxiety."

But wait, there's more. Porsche is planning to invest more than $70 million in its partnership with Electrify America, which will lead to a total of 484 charging locations with 2,000 chargers, all slated to be finished or at least in the process of being built by this July. This is in addition to the 191 US Porsche dealers that will be installing DC fast charging and the Porsche "Turbo Charging" (we see what you did there guys) stations that are planned for the Porsche Experience Centers in Atlanta and Los Angeles.

The takeaway from all this is that Porsche and Electrify America are interested in being the first alternative capable of really giving Tesla a run for its money when it comes to making life with an electric car convenient.