Retrofit 22KW charger

[whitex]

...I thought Porsche belongs to Volkswagen group and there are Audi, VW and other VW-brands benefiting from a 22KW charger...

Yes and no, Porsche does make some of their own decisions for some parts and software. I am not intimately familiar with all VW products. My wife drives an Audi Q8 etron with 19.2kW onboard charger as well, now you made me curious if it's the very same part as my Taycan - I know the battery pack is not the same (it's bigger on the Audi).

That said, the eTron GT and Q8 are also seeing declining sales (Q8 was cancelled completely IIRC), those are the only 2 I know offered the 19.2kW option.

EDIT: quick check, I can't see 19.2kW option for 2025 eTron GT. No 2025 Q8 etron at all. So they got rid of it across all VWAG it seems.

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[mpaulus007]

So they got rid of it across all VWAG it seems

Rumours say their supplier went bankrupt. Yet, do they rely on single-sourcing and didn't they have enough time to come up with alternatives???

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

I'm guessing no 22kW decision was a combination of low take rate of 19.2kW in North America and problems with 22kW charging on single phase in EU - the known issue was specific to EU, at one point Porsche issues a bulletin asking all users of 22kW on-board-chargers charging on single phase only to limit their charge rate to 6kW (vs. 7.3.kW that the charger accepted). I bet Porsche seeing a declining volumes decided it's not worth paying some Tier 1 supplier to redesign the on-board-charger - cheaper to just stick to 11kW.

I have a 19.2kW North American charger. I use it every day at home. It failed after ~2 years. But I also know of people with 11kW chargers which failed. Parts fail, such is life. The main defect IMO was the single phase charging in EU, which Porsche got a too high of a quote to fix. Maybe next time they pay someone to design a new onboard charger, they will offer the 22kW option again.

My 11kW currently in Porsche Silverstone. Failed.

Waiting for parts. No loaner. Tesla were better than this. By miles.

 

[simcity]

My 11kW currently in Porsche Silverstone. Failed.

Waiting for parts. No loaner. Tesla were better than this. By miles.

My 22 kW Tesla three-phase OBC failed outside of warranty at 5 years - cost me £2800 to replace. They did it within 2 days of booking though. Might have saved a few hundred taking it to an Indy but they couldn’t see the car for a month which was no good to me.

I hope my Taycan 3-phase 22 kW OBC doesn’t suffer a similar fate. Stay away Mr Murphy ?

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

My 22 kW Tesla three-phase OBC failed outside of warranty at 5 years - cost me £2800 to replace. They did it within 2 days of booking though. Might have saved a few hundred taking it to an Indy but they couldn’t see the car for a month which was no good to me.

I hope my Taycan 3-phase 22 kW OBC doesn’t suffer a similar fate. Stay away Mr Murphy ?

21 Taycan 11kW dying. Two weeks into this now. In Warranty at an OPC, still no loan car and have to call for any updates. V poor customer service.
L

 

[chun]

The 22kw is extremely useful not necessarily for home charging but for long trips when your destination is a city center. In this case you just plug your car when you arrive and in a few hours it is charged to 100%. This way you can do a 700+ km round trip for example without stopping a single time for DC charging. For this kind of trips it is actually faster doing it in the Taycan than an ICE if you have the 22kw charger. E.g Paris <-> Brussels I do 0 stops whereas I had to stop with an ICE to put some gas.

For how long will 22kw even be needed in big cities?

I can give you as example switzerlnad. Supermarkets started installing 400kw chargers in their underground parkings (migros & coop), here. Almost all got 400kw chargers overnight... it's not as expensive as some options - shell - either; only 0.59chf.

I would imagine other big supermarkets would do the same. In USA i heard they are starting doing it also.

22kw chargers are becoming useless, not needed for overnight, too slow for during the day - and same price as high speed chargers. I rarely need a 5% top up that would be given by a 22kw.

And for long travels, just stop mid way and top up 30-50% at a high speed and continue.... Why spend hours at a 22kw?

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

For how long will 22kw even be needed in big cities?

I can give you as example switzerlnad. Supermarkets started installing 400kw chargers in their underground parkings (migros & coop), here. Almost all got 400kw chargers overnight... it's not as expensive as some options - shell - either; only 0.59chf.

I would imagine other big supermarkets would do the same. In USA i heard they are starting doing it also.

22kw chargers are becoming useless, not needed for overnight, too slow for during the day - and same price as high speed chargers. I rarely need a 5% top up that would be given by a 22kw.

And for long travels, just stop mid way and top up 30-50% at a high speed and continue.... Why spend hours at a 22kw?

Yet they're *everywhere* in Europe.

They're only useless because manufacturers don't pull the full 22kW. ?‍

 

[chun]

Yet they're *everywhere* in Europe.

They're only useless because manufacturers don't pull the full 22kW. ?‍

They are everywhere because they were the first step into electrification network.

But now the network of high speed chargers is so wide in europe, i don't see their point anymore.
I travel to east europe, and even there, where porsche map shows NO high speed chargers, shockingly, there's 300-400kw chargers every 40-60km - just not recognised by porsche (they do work just fine with the taycan).

 

[freeforall]

For how long will 22kw even be needed in big cities?

I can give you as example switzerlnad. Supermarkets started installing 400kw chargers in their underground parkings (migros & coop), here. Almost all got 400kw chargers overnight... it's not as expensive as some options - shell - either; only 0.59chf.

I would imagine other big supermarkets would do the same. In USA i heard they are starting doing it also.

22kw chargers are becoming useless, not needed for overnight, too slow for during the day - and same price as high speed chargers. I rarely need a 5% top up that would be given by a 22kw.

And for long travels, just stop mid way and top up 30-50% at a high speed and continue.... Why spend hours at a 22kw?

I am not in USA I am in France. And I guess that all of us don’t have the same use cases.
Why would I stop and spend 15 min to do a DC charging while I have the option to spend 0 minutes. I just arrive and park after my 350 km trip. BTW sometimes it makes parking way easier in crowded cities with limited parking area. Just park for free and charge. And no, the price for AC is 19 cts the kw and 49 kw for DC with Porsche services. Also why would I charge in DC and stress my battery more often than needed when I have a choice to charge at 22kw with 0 impact on the duration of my trip? My SoH is currently 98%+ and 28k km and I intend to keep this way as long as possible.
For me 22kw has been an amazing option that helped me reduce stop time for DC charging or not stop at all.
I guess we can agree to disagree or at least agree on the fact that people have different use cases and the 22kw can be extremely useful for those people.

 

[chun]

I am not in USA I am in France. And I guess that all of us don’t have the same use cases.
Why would I stop and spend 15 min to do a DC charging while I have the option to spend 0 minutes. I just arrive and park after my 350 km trip. BTW sometimes it makes parking way easier in crowded cities with limited parking area. Just park for free and charge. And no, the price for AC is 19 cts the kw and 49 kw for DC with Porsche services. Also why would I charge in DC and stress my battery more often than needed when I have a choice to charge at 22kw with 0 impact on the duration of my trip? My SoH is currently 98%+ and 28k km and I intend to keep this way as long as possible.
For me 22kw has been an amazing option that helped me reduce stop time for DC charging or not stop at all.
I guess we can agree to disagree or at least agree on the fact that people have different use cases and the 22kw can be extremely useful for those people.

Where do you charge for 4h? I can see their uses in office space parkings, sure.

Do you at home charge in the night for 4h only? Would it make a big different if you would charge for 6.5h? Are you on average sleeping only 4h or?

The point was that 22kw is pointless, when 11kw services all the use cases 22kw would (mostly home charging) better. And outside of those use cases, high speed is the way to go.

Or do you, on your long trips, stop at hotels for 4h only, and not 6h+? Or you take 4h pee brakes, case in which 22kw would be justified over high speed?

That's the point. It's why porsche didn't fix the design of the faulty 22kw and didn't offer it as an for my25, because there's hardly any use case for 22kw, when 11kw covers those uses cases all the same.

TL;DR: 11kw better than 22kw

 

[freeforall]

Do you at home charge in the night for 4h only? Would it make a big different if you would charge for 6.5h? Are you on average sleeping only 4h or?

You didn't read. Who said it was about charging over night? I already mentioned that it was useless for home charging. BTW I have a 11kw charger at home.

when 11kw services all the use cases 22kw would (mostly home charging) better.

Sorry I didn't understand, probably because English is not my mother tongue

Or do you, on your long trips, stop at hotels for 4h only, and not 6h+? Or you take 4h pee brakes, case in which 22kw would be justified over high speed?

Why? because when you arrive at your destination all you do is pee or sleep?
Does it happen that you have a business meeting and go to lunch then go back home? or maybe you are in vacation and you planned to stop for visit in a city half way your trip and have lunch?
Or maybe you visit and go back home?

Now if all you do is pee or sleep, I cannot argue against that.

Also when you arrive with 5% and you have to charge at 100% you need at least 8 hours (not 6.5 hours) with the 11kw.

TL;DR: 11kw better than 22kw

Again this cannot be a general statement even though you want it to be.
Maybe it is true for you who spend time sleeping (in that case I agree, 11kw is perfect) or peeing (DC is perfect).
For others use cases: TL;DR: 22kw better than 11kw

That has been said it doesn't matter for me whether you are convinced or not about other people use cases finding the 22kw useful. Usually I don't reply because it is often a waste of time, but I had to this time because I found the way you replied was very funny on many different aspects.

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

I am not in USA I am in France. And I guess that all of us don’t have the same use cases.
Why would I stop and spend 15 min to do a DC charging while I have the option to spend 0 minutes. I just arrive and park after my 350 km trip. BTW sometimes it makes parking way easier in crowded cities with limited parking area. Just park for free and charge. And no, the price for AC is 19 cts the kw and 49 kw for DC with Porsche services. Also why would I charge in DC and stress my battery more often than needed when I have a choice to charge at 22kw with 0 impact on the duration of my trip? My SoH is currently 98%+ and 28k km and I intend to keep this way as long as possible.
For me 22kw has been an amazing option that helped me reduce stop time for DC charging or not stop at all.
I guess we can agree to disagree or at least agree on the fact that people have different use cases and the 22kw can be extremely useful for those people.

This.
We don't all rapid charge all the time Chun.

 

[daveo4EV]

faster charging is better than slower charging - the sooner the vehicle is ready the better
22 kW infrastructure should be leveraged when it can be use
11 kW is also goo
DC fast charging is good
not needing to charge is even better

it's ashame there is not more 19.2/22 kW charging in North America…

if you want a 22 kW charger you should be able to get one if you want one - but alas Porsche doesn't see it that way…

the main point is the advantage of this option is highly dependant on use case and the region's EV infrastructure where the vehicle is going to spend most of it's time…

get the car the way you want it - and if you can find and use faster charging great!!!

 

[F1Ruaraidh]

Where do you charge for 4h?

TL;DR: 11kw better than 22kw

??? now you're just being silly.

Parks. Restaurants. Cinema. Shopping Centre. Somewhere between 1 & 4 hours is the sweet spot.

You don't leave your car on a DC rapid but you do on a 22kW. Lock walk away charge at 60+mph. ?‍

You either have no imagination or a very boring life. ?

Either way we get it, you don't like them, but plenty of us do.

All my offices have 22s for example. ?‍

100% by lunchtime.

 

[Jonathan S.]

I am intrigued by this apparent alternate universe that is Europe with plentiful 22kW AC charging.

In theory, sure, urban areas, shopping malls, highway rest stops, etc. could have something like a dozen 22kW AC units -- or 19.2kW in the U.S. -- for every decent DCFC charger, going by both installation costs and utility hook-ups.

Unfortunately, 19.2kW units are exceedingly rare in the U.S. -- you can filter for this in PlugShare to see just how rare.

Even worse, merely 11kW units are exceedingly rare in the U.S.
Far more typical is around 6kW.

I once came across the theory that this is b/c of the conduit cost for 11kW.
But recently, at one ski resort with three clusters of three units each, 2x Tesla + 1x ClipperCreek, although I'd consistently been receiving ~6kW from the J1772, when I resorted out of desperation to using my NACS L2 Godzilla Superpower Number One adapter from eBay on a Tesla unit when nothing else was available, I got ~9kW.
So can't be the conduit -- unless perhaps the Tesla and ClipperCreek units were installed at different times, with one set running off of a different line even though they're hung up on the same wooden poles?
And it's not a problem with those ClipperCreek units, since another ski resort has the same units delivering a full 11kW.

And the coverage for any public L2 in the U.S. regardless of kW varies from adequate to nearly non-existent.
Even worse, the price varies from roughly in the middle of the DCFC range to entirely free.
The latter price (or rather, lack thereof) is a major problem since even sites that would have adequate coverage ended up being used by freeloaders (self included).

For example, many ski resorts in Vermont have L2 banks that would be marginally adequate if sensibly priced, but since they're instead entirely free, a plug is available to a weekend skier who actually needs those kWh to get back home only if arriving long before the lifts open.
(And self-restraint among the would-be freeloaders doesn't make much sense since the plug might just be going to another freeloader anyway.)

Another example: we were going on a family trip to my northern NH place, stopping before then at my in-laws in southern NH, and stopping before that at a some sort of roughly hour-long nutritionist appointment at a big hospital in Central Mass.

Hmm, wasn't sure if we could do this w/o a charging stop.
Checked PlugShare for the hospital: yes, *FORTY* L2 units!
Yet they're almost always all in use?

Dropped off my wife and daughter at the hospital entrance, pulled into the parking garage, and ... whew, just one available plug out of those 40!
Surveyed the EV model mix as I was walking out ... hmm, sure seems like a higher % of PHEV models?
After an hour or so, that 3 or 4 kWh was enough to put us over the top for the trip, yay!
Unplugged upon departure, and the ChargePoint app showed that my session had cost ... nothing?
Oh, so that's why all 40 units are always almost entirely in use!
Which means that the free charging is a nice financial bonus for many drivers, yet can't be relied upon by anyone who really needs them to get somewhere.

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