For owners of Porsche e-performance EV and PHEV vehicles like the Taycan, Porsche Centre Langley (PCL) is now the go-to-hub for everything battery servicing and repair related.
Having the distinction of being the only such designated facility in B.C., which will look after markets from Victoria to Edmonton, PCL fixed operations manager Brian Maguire says talks first started about four years ago with the project getting the official green light in 2019.
“We're the first dealer in Canada to complete the infrastructure upgrades — so adding a battery repair room and an outdoor critical storage facility, new walls and fire safety doors, doing all the electrical updates to the building, etc.,” said Maguire, adding construction took place over the fall and winter leading to the final approval given by Porsche Canada in early March.
“The half million-dollar investment also includes three high voltage-charging terminals for customers, and an ultra high-speed charge box coming in the second quarter.”
There will be two Porsche-trained “High Voltage Experts” on-hand at PCL to aid in lithium battery remanufacturing or repair efforts — as opposed to a complete replacement that the company is weaning off of — this entails anything from addressing an issue with a temperature sensor or wiring harness, to working in a live 800-volt environment while tending to one of the 33 individual power cell modules found in a Taycan. The entire battery unit weighs more than 600 kilograms and has to be removed from the vehicle using a specialized forklift.
These expanded store services aren’t exclusive to the pure electric supercar, but the partially electric model lineup as well such as the Cayenne and Panamera S E-Hybrids sold after 2015.
“the biggest benefit [to our customers] is is that now they know they can get their car repaired in the Lower Mainland in a timely fashion. That's really the biggest takeaway,” said Maguire.
Written May 2021