You can never really accuse Porsche of sitting on its laurels for too long and the news of the Porsche Mission E concept is testament to that. The good news is that the all-electric sports car will actually go into production and therefore gain the honour of being the first all-electric production Porsche vehicle in history.
Equally good news is that building the Mission E will necessitate the creation of 1400 new jobs as the company sets out to break new ground. A further 50 jobs will also be created for Porsche Digital GmBH with the task of bringing new technology into Porsche vehicles.
So what is the Mission E all about? Well, as one might expect, the plans are ambitious, but with electric vehicle technology advancing so rapidly, it’s far less pie in the sky than it might have been just a year or so ago. The range is the first thing to note at an impressive 311 miles (remember when 100 miles range was the holy grail?). This pits it firmly up against Tesla.
Just as impressive for those in a hurry, is that 80% of the battery charge can be topped up in just 15 minutes thanks to an 800-volt charger unit. Porsche say that the Mission E will also have the capability of wireless charging. The inductive charging technology will enable the car to be charged from a port in the garage floor by simply parking over the base plate.
Although performance statistics are not yet available, it certainly wouldn’t be a Porsche if this new all-electric sports car didn’t have some sort of wow factor performance wise, and the company has hinted that the Mission E will be potentially capable of a Nurburgring lap time of around 8 seconds.
Equally, the Mission E could have around 600 horsepower with the all-wheel-drive and two motors powered by a lithium-ion battery that is so large that it extends the length of the chassis – intriguingly for a Porsche, giving the car equal front/rear weight distribution.
Top speed is likely to be approximately 150mph with a 0-62mph in around 3.5 seconds – now that would be pretty impressive for an electric car and we know it’s certainly possible thanks to the Tesla Model S and its 0-62 figure of 2.8 seconds (with various upgrades).
Now it wouldn’t be a concept without some eyebrow raising ideas that may or may not reach production. The taxi-style door opening system is just one of those, with the front doors of the 4-seater opening in standard fashion while the rear doors open in the opposite direction. But that’s not all, as the Mission E not only does away with petrol, but also does away with mirrors as well preferring camera tech to display the outside world on the bottom corners of the windscreen.
Eye tracking control will intelligently display what the driver is looking at on the dashboard and wake that area up accordingly. Similar technology has been used in high end camera systems for some time now, so it will be interesting to see how well this will to work in the confines of a speeding motor vehicle.
Other than its debut at the Frankfurt International Motor Show, the Mission E is going to take a little time to materialise on our roads and Porsche hopes to get the Mission E up and running by 2020. These are certainly exciting times for Porsche fans.
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