Family of electric Porsches coming

When the brave new Mission E sedan concept reaches production in early 2019, it will be Porsche's first all-electric – but it won't be the last.

Porsche's global boss Oliver Blume this week told motoring.com.au that the ground-breaking new large sedan, which will be positioned below the Panamera in terms of both size and price, will be the first in a series of battery-electric models to come from the German sports car maker best known for its flat-six boxer engines.

When it was revealed at the 2015 Frankfurt show, the Mission E turned heads not just because of its striking design but its massive 450kW power output, 0-100km/h acceleration in 3.5sec, 0-200km/h acceleration less than 12.5sec, 500km driving range and ability to be charged to 80 per cent of its battery capacity in just 15 minutes. Now, Porsche says its answer for the Tesla Model S will spawn an entire family of electric vehicles, almost certainly including a zero-emissions SUV, to go with its growing range of plug-in hybrid models.

"The first step is we start with the Mission E but then there are more and more options," said Blume after unveiling the Turbo S E-Hybrid, the first plug-in model to become the flagship of a Porsche model range.

"We can do a lot with this [platform] because we have a flat battery structure and with this you can think about various body options. For us, it is the first step and then we will think about the second and third step.

"Last year, we had a very big activity to build our Porsche strategy to 2025 and one important pillar of this is the product strategy. And we are thinking about not just to 2020, but out to 2025 and even further to 2030 in some areas."

The Porsche boss wouldn't provide further details -- including whether the Mission E will wear a three-digit nameplate like its 911 and 718 sports cars, or whether it will be a name like Macan, Cayenne or Panamera -- but he confirmed Porsche's first battery-powered car is on target to meet its performance and production targets.

"We are around two years to launch Mission E, and it will be a real Porsche using all of our experience coming from the racetrack," he said.

"I think this car will have a big potential as it has over 600hp, the range is over 500km and charging time is 15 minutes for 80 per cent charging. It will depend a lot on the electric nd the charging systems [in various countries] but the car will have a big success."

Blume said Porsche is currently investing about a quarter of its resources on vehicle electrification, but that number would increase as more plug-in models were developed in future.

“To give a percentage, it’s about 25 per cent we are working on electric, and with the new-generation models I think every year it will be a bit more,” he said.

“It’s very important to be flexible for the future, because the development of electrical needs will be very different in different countries.

“When you think about a long distance in Australia, people will have other arguments compared to people living in China and the big megacities. You have to be flexible. We make evaluations on every country in the world and repeat them every year, to think about what volume we will generate with electric attributes,” he explained.

Blume didn't rule out the possibility of a pure-electric sports car -- although that seems unlikely in the medium term given a plug-in hybrid 911 remains unconfirmed due to weight and packaging issues -- but he said that for the foreseeable future Porsche will continue to produce internal combustion-powered vehicles.

"There are a lot of options for the future, but I think for us it is important to make the first step with the Mission E and then you can think about everything else," he said.

"What we will do is a combination of combustion engines in the very puristic lifestyle and heritage [models] and also on the other hand electric cars," Blume stated.