Porsche Boxster, Macan could go EV

Speaking at a technical presentation for the all-new BEV Taycan sedan, Porsche’s board member for Finance and IT, Lutz Meschke, hinted that the Macan SUV (or an SUV just like it) could also be one of Porsche’s Taycan follow-ups into the EV world.

Porsche has already confirmed the Taycan sedan will be start full-scale production in the second half of next year, and will be followed by the Mission E Cross wagon (which won’t be its production name) not long after.

But Porsche’s third EV offering was a murky grey area until Meschke was asked about it.

“The Boxster and the Cayman could be suitable candidates for electrification... To become electric cars,” Mechke said.

“We will also have one offer in an SUV BEV in the near future, by 2022… We will have to see when hybrid makes sense for the 911,” he commented.

Astonishingly, that all means that the classic 911 sports car is the only current Porsche model guaranteed not to be turned into a full battery-electric vehicle within the next product cycle.

The Macan, which will be facelifted later this year, is due for replacement right around the 2022 timing.

While the timing seems fortuitous, it’s unlikely Porsche will mess with one of its best performing models. It’s more likely Porsche will run two models side-by-side, squeezing the BEV version between the Macan and the Cayenne.

However, Porsche and Audi jointly engineered the PPE (Performance Premium Electric) platform to allow the flexibility for cars and SUVs to be either hybrid or full electric.

And there’s also scope to move the classic 911 to a hybrid layout as well. Its all-new eight-speed automatic transmission is pre-engineered for it.

“The next [992 series] 911 is hybrid enabled. We predict that over 50 per cent of Porsche models delivered from 2025 will be electrified," Meschke admitted.

Meschke insisted Porsche’s new Production 4.0 manufacturing system was geared up to handle the diversity of so many new electric models arriving in a burst, even though the Taycan will be its first production EV.

It’s known that Porsche’s J1 EV architecture, which sits beneath the Taycan, is more specialized than the PPE system that will follow up for the all-new Porsche BEVs, and it also rides lower than the PPE cars are planned to.

It’s so low, in fact, that the rear seat pans are built into the top of the Taycan’s battery housing and there is a pair of surprisingly large spaced gaps in the floor-mounted battery that are there solely as “garages” to give rear seat passengers somewhere to put their feet.

But the tiny height of the battery pouches, coupled with the J1’s performance-first philosophy, may make it the Taycan the best basis for an electric sports car Porsche has.

“The 911 started as a coupe and then there were many derivatives and we will not lose our creativity with the Taycan,” Mechke insisted.