Confirmed: Next-gen Porsche 718 will be all-electric

It’s official: Porsche has finally confirmed what we all suspected – the next-generation Porsche 718 sports car family will be exclusively battery-powered, as previewed by the wild Mission R electric concept racer revealed last September.

Confirming a circa-2025 launch date for the ground-breaking new Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman EVs, the announcement was made by Porsche chairman Oliver Blume at the German car-maker’s 2021 financial briefing late last week, when Porsche also revealed its latest electrification plan.

“We are stepping up our electric offensive with another model: by the middle of the decade, we want to offer our mid-engine 718 sports car exclusively in an all-electric form,” Blume said.

“In 2025, half of all new Porsche sales are expected to come from the sale of electric vehicles – ie: all-electric or plug-in hybrid.

“In 2030, the share of all new vehicles with an all-electric drive should be more than 80 per cent.”

The ambitious targets come in the wake of surge in popularity of electric and plug-in hybrid (PHEV) vehicle sales; almost 40 per cent of all Porsches sold in Europe last year were electrified models.

Of the 301,915 Porsche vehicles delivered to customers globally last year, 41,296 of them were Porsche Taycans, meaning the all-electric fastback sedan comfortably outsold the fabled Porsche 911 (38,464 sales) as well as the Porsche Panamera (30,220) and aforementioned 718 duo (20,502).

Only the Porsche Macan (88,362) and Porsche Cayenne (83,071) SUVs outsold the Taycan, with the bigger high-rider already offering more than half a dozen PHEV variants – and let’s not forget there’s also an all-electric Macan on the way.

“The Taycan is 100 per cent a Porsche and inspires all kinds of people – existing and new customers, experts and the trade media,” Blume said.

In conjunction with its expected 80 per cent EV sales split, the German sports car marque has also nominated a 2030 deadline “to be carbon-neutral on the balance sheet”, a goal it intends to reach via extensive investments in its battery technology, charging infrastructure and module production.

In terms of the current 718 line-up, the news pretty much cements the new Porsche Cayman GT4 RS as the last hurrah for both the internal combustion and non-turbo mid-engined Porsche sports car, a lineage that was started way back in 1996 by the original Boxster.

Porsche being Porsche, however, we wouldn’t be too surprised if a hero-spec soft-top based on the GT4 RS emerged out of the Zuffenhausen skunkworks over the next couple of years as the ultimate send-off for this generation of one of the world’s best sports cars, open-top or otherwise.

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