Porsche “That’ll Be My Car”

Thrill of anticipation
Erling Henningstad and his son Nils-Henrik (right) inspect the model Taycan.

Erling Henningstad from Norway is one of the world’s first twenty thousand people interested in owning a Porsche Taycan. What prompts the wish to buy a car that you know virtually nothing about—except for the fact that it’s a Porsche?

A mild summer breeze carries the sound of traffic on the E6 freeway over to Skedsmokorset. If you drive south, you’ll reach Oslo in 15.5 miles. If you head north, you’ll reach the North Cape in about 1,370 miles. Erling Henningstad, a fifty-seven-year-old software engineer sporting a neatly trimmed beard and a blue checkered shirt, walks out onto the veranda of his home and blinks in the sunlight. A flagpole flying the red, white, and blue Norwegian flag stands on the stone courtyard of a 150-year-old farmhouse with radiant white wooden walls that look as if the painters just left half an hour ago. Next to the flagpole is a Tesla Model S, which will soon be replaced—by a Porsche Taycan. Henningstad eagerly approaches an inconspicuous aluminum case. He opens the lid and looks in. Then he carefully removes a white car and holds it up in the bright light of the sun. It’s a model of his future sports car, at a scale of 1:10. He turns it around to inspect every side, stopping repeatedly to examine specific details. He smiles. The thrill of anticipation for his first Porsche is written all over his face.

Henningstad has always dreamt of owning a Porsche. Thirty years ago that dream almost came true. Back then he wanted to buy a Porsche 911, but there was his family to think about, the first child, and the need for lots of space to accommodate a baby carriage and luggage. He opted for a different car, but didn’t stop dreaming about a Porsche. For a very long time. And then he spotted the Mission E study on the pages of a Norwegian online car magazine. “Something immediately clicked,” he recalls. The study turned into the Taycan, which has been available for preorder in Norway since April of last year. In the meantime, Porsche has received more than 2,700 down payments for the car from this Scandinavian country alone. One of the first was from Henningstad. “That’ll be my car.”

A Porsche plus an electric drive was the combination he was waiting for. “I love driving. And I’m a fan of electric drive systems,” he says. He became a fan thanks to his son, Nils-Henrik, the e-pioneer in the Henningstad household. Nils-Henrik’s first car was a lime-green electric Kewet of Danish production, with a peak speed of 50 mph and pleasantly low operating costs.

Papa Erling appreciated the economic benefits of that small vehicle, but his heart didn’t quicken. It belongs to racing. He used to be a regular sight on the racetrack—for the sheer pleasure of it. Rudskogen Motorsenter, Norway’s oldest asphalt circuit, is about one and a half hours away. Fast turns on an ideal line is the perfect way to relax from work as a programmer. Around twenty-five years ago Henningstad developed information management software for the oil and gas industry, which is now used in a wide range of other sectors, including in the construction of Oslo’s new opera house.

Open country
The Taycan will soon be out on the roads in and around Oslo.

Trailblazer
The Norwegian government has been promoting e-mobility for years.

Norway subsidizes electromobility more than any other country. Since 2012 its e-car buyers have not had to pay either the staggered CO₂-based import tax or the 25 percent sales tax on automobiles. They pay lower motor vehicle taxes in general and no tolls or parking fees. They can also drive in bus and taxi lanes. The results have been astonishing. In March of 2019, the number of newly registered electric cars exceeded the number of those with gasoline or diesel engines in Norway for the first time. Overwhelmed by success, the government stepped on the brake. Oslo no longer offers free charging power. But state subsidies have convinced men like Erling Henningstad. At first he wanted to buy two cars, one for his daily commute to the office and another with a combustion engine so he wouldn’t have to stop on the 186-mile drive to his cabin in the Jotunheimen mountains.

Then Henningstad saw the Tesla Model S and promptly started driving only on electric power, both to his office in Oslo and to go hiking or skiing in the mountains. “That worked out well,” he says, especially because of Norway’s first high-speed charging column in Lillehammer, about half the distance to his cabin. Henningstad, his wife, Elin Lauvstad, daughter Hannah, and son Nils-Henrik usually stopped for lunch there and then continued on with a full battery. Only once did they have rekkeviddeangst, which means “range anxiety” or the fear of being stuck somewhere with a dead battery. The term was number two on Norway’s list of “words of the year” in 2013. As Henningstad recalls, “We were coming back from the mountains, and the battery actually did have enough power.” The word “actually” would apply if everything had gone as usual. But that was not the case. It was 4 degrees below zero. That took power and cost range.

It soon became clear that the remaining charge would not be enough to reach their destination, so the Tesla rolled on its last legs to a gas station with a standard electrical power outlet. “We didn’t get home until after midnight,” he says. Today he can laugh about it. “But at the time it wasn’t much fun to stand around in freezing weather at a remote gas station and wait hours for enough power to dribble into the battery cells.”

That never happened again. Range anxiety levels decrease with every new charging column. At the end of last year Norway had 10,711 public charging stations—for the current figure of around 220,000 electric cars. Nobody is worried that the infrastructure won’t be able to handle the boom in electric vehicles. Most buildings in Norway are heated with electricity. The grid is correspondingly robust and generously dimensioned. Because the buildings need ever lower levels of energy thanks to modernization and better insulation, the system has sufficient capacity for electric cars. And finally, nearly all electric power in Norway comes from renewable sources and is therefore produced without CO₂ emissions. Hydroelectricity accounts for around 96 percent of it.

New normal
E-mobility is part of everyday life in Oslo.

“An electric motor lets you drive more cleanly than any other type of drive system—at least over the long run,” says Henningstad. “It’s important for cars to emit as few pollutants and make as little noise as possible, especially in Oslo and the densely populated surrounding areas.” It’s “great” that this is now possible with a Porsche, he adds. There’s also his underlying trust in the brand. The racing victories. The design. The jubilant initial reviews in the press. “And the fact that Germans know how to make good cars.”

Henningstad has not yet determined the exact trim for his Taycan. Like the 1:10 model, the car will probably be white. But that’s secondary. “What I definitely expect from a Porsche is better handling, more reliable performance, and higher quality.”

For his first drive in the Taycan, he has already selected a small, winding country road not far from his home. The playlist is also set—the Beatles and Dire Straits. Then he will finally drive his own Porsche for the first time. Henningstad holds his hands as if on a steering wheel. His dream is close enough to touch.

By Sven Freese
Photos by Matthias Haslauer, Heiko Simayer

Three questions for: Thomas May, Porsche AG’s area manager for northern Europe

Mr. May, what role does the Norwegian sales market play for Porsche?
This year we’ll sell around 750 cars in Norway, and probably three times that many in 2020 thanks to the Taycan.

Norwegians have been able to preregister their interest in a Porsche Taycan since April 2018. What’s your verdict?
The first country in which we launched this program was Norway. The response was enormous, so we extended it to all the Taycan markets worldwide.

What kinds of customers does Porsche expect to reach with the Taycan in Norway?
The Taycan will primarily attract new customers in Norway. More than 70 percent of the people interested have never owned a Porsche.

Just charge

Failing to reach the destination because the power ran out on the way there: that’s the fear of electric vehicle skeptics. What solutions does Porsche offer?

Electrify America
Electrify America owns and manages the nation’s largest electric vehicle charging network. By the end of 2019, the company expects to operate over 420 stations across forty-two states. Each charging station will be on average seventy miles apart. Taycan buyers will receive three years of unlimited DC fast charging at all Electrify America locations.

CCS
In the US, the Combined Charging System (CCS) is the leading option for DC charging. Most CCS charging stations offer an output range of 20 to 50 kW, but the network of high-performance charging stations with 150 or 350 kW is constantly being expanded. The Porsche Taycan uses this standard, which has been jointly adopted by numerous carmakers.

Charging at home
The standard hardware for home charging included with the Taycan is the Porsche Mobile Charger. It can utilize both a traditional 120-volt household socket as well as a 240-volt NEMA 14-50 socket. If the customer needs support when it comes to installing the appropriate electrical charging gear at home, Porsche has partnered with Amazon. A home charging station will be set up with a certified Amazon professional.

Charging on the go
With the right charging hardware and ideal conditions (battery temperature between approximately 85 and 95 degrees Fahrenheit), a charge up to 80 percent of capacity can take as little as 22.5 minutes. This is made possible by 800-volt chargers with 270 kW of output. In about five minutes enough energy for roughly sixty miles is pumped into the lithium-ion battery. And it’s possible for it to go even faster: in the future there will be offerings that look to exceed the 270 kW charging speed of the Taycan. As a result, Porsche Engineering has developed a charger that will charge at up to 350 kW of direct current into these future vehicles. The cleverly designed pedestals will be the trademark of Porsche’s in-house, high-power charging parks.

Porsche Charging Service
The Porsche Charging Service searches for suitable charging stations and takes care of the invoicing using centrally stored payment details. The corresponding free app and the embedded Porsche navigation system direct customers to the selected charging site. The platform currently encompasses over one hundred thousand charging points in twelve countries.

Charging Planner*
The Porsche Charging Planner plans travel routes including charging stops. The navigation system is designed to calculate the smartest route based on real-time traffic information. The route is continuously updated to help ensure that potential charging stations are safely within reach. The Charging Planner is also designed to provide the charging capacity of the charging stations and calculates the time for the optimal range up to 80 percent. The Charging Planner is also integrated into the Connect app from Porsche.
* Available upon market launch in Europe and the USA.

Charging at Porsche Centers
Each Porsche Center is also a building block in Porsche’s charging-infrastructure strategy. Many dealers in the USA are in the process of installing various levels of DC fast charging at their dealerships. During charging times, travelers can take advantage of new amenities from Porsche—conference rooms, co-working spaces, lounges, etc.

Electrify Canada
Electrify Canada owns and manages an ultra-fast electric vehicle (EV) charging network across Canada. Their initial plan includes the installation of thirty-two EV charging sites near major highways and in major metro areas in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec. Each charging site will have four chargers on average and be placed an average of sixty miles apart. Charging power will range from 150 kW to 350 kW, perfect for the Taycan.