New supercar or Tesla rival? Porsche under pressure to choose new model

Porsche will add a seventh model to its range to dramatically increase the number of cars its sells. That's the major take-out from the annual Porsche press conference held late last night at its Stuttgart HQ.

What the seventh car will be remains a mystery -- even to Porsche, according to senior sources.

Recently, engineers have pushed from everything from a Panamera coupe (the spiritual successor to the 928), a Panamera 'Shooting Brake' wagon, a sub-Panamera 'Pajun' sedan to rival the Maserati Ghibli and a new supercar that would sit above the Porsche 911 but below the Porsche 918 to challenge the McLaren 650S and Ferrari 488 GTB.

Now, it seems a new contender has emerged for the seventh model. Speaking to journalists and senior company execs, Porsche chief Matthias Mueller publicly praised the Tesla Model S, fuelling rumours that an all-electric rival was now favourite for the seventh model.

“Tesla has built an exceptional car,” said Mueller, before adding that the US-built luxury sedan had “set the standard, where we have to follow up now”.

If Porsche does go ahead and create an all-electric model, it’s expected to share its platform and technological knowhow with Audi, which has been developing its own EV tech over two generations of the R8 e-tron.

Audi recently revealed at its own annual press conference that it too had Tesla in its sights and was developing a new all-electric SUV to rival the upcoming Tesla Model X.

Called the Audi Q6 e-tron, the new all-electric SUV could spin-off a luxury sport sedan if the all-electric Porsche was green lit for production amd both models would benefit from sharing development costs with Audi.

Last year Porsche made 189,849 cars -- an increase of 17 per cent over 2013. Sales are expected this year to exceed 200,000 cars following the recent introduction of the mid-size Macan SUV.