STUTTGART, Germany - Porsche, the luxury sports car and SUV maker owned by Volkswagen, has a problem. How do you take a brand which owes its success to the excitement and raucous noise generated by the internal combustion engine, and sell silent electric cars with the same name?
The answer would seem to be that for the time being at least, gasoline powered cars will still be an important part of the Porsche line-up, but meanwhile the first electric cars will at least look as exciting as their conventional counterparts, and provide traditional head-turning performance which you won’t be able to hear, but will see, albeit briefly as they disappear over the horizon.
At the annual press conference here Friday, Porsche spelled out this approach.
“For the next ten years, Porsche intends to continue with a three-pronged approach, incorporating optimized combustion engines, plug-in hybrid models and purely electric sports cars – all in typical Porsche style of course. The regions of the world are developing at different rates. We are therefore gearing ourselves up as flexibly as possible for the transitional period,” said Oliver Blume, Porsche Ag chairman.
Last month, Porsche said it is doubling investment in electromobility to more than 6 billion euros ($7.5 billion) by 2022, focusing on both plug-in hybrids and purely electric vehicles.
About 500 million euros ($622 million) of the increased spending was earmarked for the development of variants and derivatives of the all-electric Mission E sedan, and around 1 billion euros for electrification and hybridization of the existing product range, which includes the big Cayenne SUV, and the Panamera limousine.
The purely electric Mission E 600 hp sports car will accelerate to 60 mph from a standstill in less than 3.5 seconds and offer a claimed range of over 300 miles. The 800 volt system will take 15 minutes to add 250 miles of range. Porsche is expected to launch the Mission E next year. At the Geneva Car Show last week, Porsche unveiled a possible SUV variant, the E Cross Turismo concept, based on a similar powertrain.
At the meeting Friday, Porsche said full electric and plug-in hybrids will account for about 25%of sales by 2025. That’s a lot of quiet vehicles.
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