Porsche’s electric car quiz

Porsche is yet to decide on its next electric vehicle. A fear of getting it wrong has kept the sports car icon from locking in its follow up to the 2019 production sedan based on the Mission E concept.

The company has put some strategically obvious model programs on hold, pouring every development resource it has into the Mission E. But it isn’t sure what it should do next, development boss Michael Steiner admitted at the Paris motor show.

While the second battery electric vehicle (BEV) Porsche will almost certainly be an SUV, Steiner insists it hasn’t been locked in, although he is also adamant there will quickly be a family of zero-emission Porsches by 2021.

“The battery-electric business will continue to grow faster and we think the whole business will change pretty quickly at some turning point,” Steiner said.

He was less sure where the business would go after that starting point, though.

“The Mission E is as close as possible to what we saw in Frankfurt and it should be not the only battery-driven car for us. It is conceptual work and we do a lot to be prepared for anything...

“With the Mission E [underway], we are thinking what is the second or third step. There is no reason why this has to be just one body style.

“It depends how the success goes… Would we add more body styles?. With some modifications it could be made into an SUV. The technology is made so it’s not complicated,” Steiner told motoring.com.au.

Not complicated, but not locked in, and that’s largely because Steiner admits Porsche may well have gotten its background sums and assumptions wrong. In short, he wants to hear from Mission E owners before committing to a second BEV.

“We should have as much knowledge as possible on the acceptance of the technology and some feedback from the customers from their experience to do the next car… Before we do the next car,” he said.

Porsche claims the Mission E will not only be capable of 0-100km/h sprint times of less than 3.5sec and 200km/h in 12sec, but will be capable of doing them repeatedly, at short intervals -- something with which the Tesla Model S struggles.

The car will go through the same painstaking development process used by all Porsche models, widely acknowledged to be the most demanding in the car industry.

Porsche also insists the car will lap the Nurburgring’s Nordschleife in less than eight minutes, all while boasting a 500km range out of its lithium-ion battery packs.

The car’s drive and recuperation technology is derived from its Le Mans-winning 919 petrol-electric hybrid racing car, which gives full performance for 24 hours.

The all-wheel drive Mission E will be based on a multi-material steel/alumimium/magnesium/carbon-fibre architecture and will drive via two permanently excited synchronous electric motors that also recover braking energy.

It also uses torque vectoring, all-wheel steering and an on-demand all-wheel drive setup.

It was conceived as completely scalable, from wheelbases adjustable up or down for length and ride heights that can stretch lower s higher.

Steiner insisted the entire Porsche BEV strategy was inked in using the assumption that ‘black-hole’ concentrations of engineering on the first car would make any subsequent models far cheaper and faster to bring to market. But he’s aware that the reality might prove that to be completely false.

“There are good reasons that the cost to us should be a little bit easier and also faster to do additional derivatives for BEV.

“The main issue with internal-combustion cars is not the next car or derivative but the costs to stay legal in all emissions regulations with emission. We have to develop for emissions and CO2 and we have to upgrade the whole engine within every vehicle to the next emissions level when it comes and this takes some effort.

“The unit costs are higher with BEVs, but the rest of the costs should be better and more cost-effective. I say ‘should’ as we don’t really know what we are talking about,” Steiner stated.

“We are on the second generation of plug-in hybrid, so we know more there, but we don’t have that knowledge for BEV.”

The Mission E, which made its debut at September 2015’s Frankfurt motor show, has already ended its virtual development and Porsche is testing early-development hardware ahead of building prototype test mules.

That said, Steiner admitted the investment in the Mission E wouldn’t necessarily guarantee the all-new layout would sit beneath Porsche’s second BEV. It might be something derived from Volkswagen or Audi BEVs.

“The Mission E could be seen as a step and we do another one from it. On the other hand within the VW Group we have the potential to use the components of the platforms from another vehicle and another brand,” he stated.