• Making a later update to a car from a previous model year may be unusual, but Porsche has done it, offering a replacement for the factory-installed onboard charger to a more powerful one.
• The newer 19.2-kW AC charging unit will let owners of the 2020 Taycan charge their vehicle several hours faster.
• Owners of newer Taycans can get the upgrade as well, but the real benefit is to 2020 models that will become as up-to-date as new models when it comes to charging speed.

Software updates to add new or uprated features to electric cars are no longer a new and novel idea. Tesla’s been doing them for a decade; its first over-the-air update for the Model S was in October 2012. Other makers have followed, with software reflashes done at dealerships (which predated Tesla, but were almost always for safety recalls) and now, increasingly, over the air.

But updating hardware—actual physical components of the car—is a different and far rarer offer. So a recent announcement by Porsche is an admirable outlier: The company will offer owners of 2020 Taycan electric sports sedans the ability to replace the 9.6-kilowatt onboard AC charger fitted at the factory with a more powerful 19.2-kW unit, launched in 2021 as a $1680 option. The upgrade can shave several hours off an overnight recharge.

Owners of 2021 and later models who want faster AC charging benefit as well: The upgrade is offered for any Taycan. But it’s particularly important for the first-year models, bringing them up to the same…