Porsche heading back to hypercars

The pace of solid-state battery development is the key factor that will set the date for the arrival of Porsche’s new breed of hypercar.

Porsche is already working up a successor for its 918 Spyder (pictured) as part of its electrified-car product strategy, chairman Oliver Blume confirmed at yesterday’s Geneva motor show.

The plan is building to showcase Porsche’s next big technical leap in electrification and take on the likes of the Mercedes-AMG ONE, McLaren P1, the Rimac Concept One, and newcomers from Pininfarina and Piech.

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume told journalists that the unnamed hypercar project, which would be a halo for Porsche’s electrification plans, would most likely become reality some time after 2025.

It will be used to highlight the electrification of every market segment from Porsche, which will see the Zuffenhausen concern offering the choice of petrol power, hybrid power and pure EV power into every segment.

But while the 918 Spyder was always known to be a hybrid hypercar, Blume isn’t yet certain whether its successor would carry plug-in hybrid or pure EV power.

“The evolution of the batteries in three or four years can offer this,” Mr Blume said.

“It’s not decided yet if [the next Porsche hypercar] is a hybrid or a full battery car. We wait [on] the development of the batteries. It will be 2025 or later.

“In future I see a possibility for a hypercar [powered by] the next generation of batteries. That should be a very high performing car.”

But Blume wasn’t only talking about performance in a straight line, but battery performance.

He explained that the lithium-ion batteries in Porsche’s current production plug-in hybrids delivers 37Ah per cell. A production step is already planned to lift this to 47, but the 911 hybrid will have 60Ah per cell.

A move to solid-state batteries, as touted by budding EV-segment entrants John Dyson and Heinrik Fisker, could finally end range anxiety, pushing cars out to 1000km before they need recharging. They also promise to be safer in serious crashes.

“Today we work with liquid batteries but … in future the biggest opportunity is in solid-state batteries. Therefore we have to wait until 2025 or more.

“These batteries will have a big advantage for distance. In future you will be able to drive 1000km [between recharges].”

Porsche’s investigations into solid-state tie in with the financial and technical tie up from its parent company, the Volkswagen Group, into a solid-state spin-off of the Stanford University in the US.

The Group spent $US100 million last year to buy a chunk of QuantumScape, a solid-state battery research and development operation.

Blume pointed out that when solid-state battery technology is industrialised for the car industry, the batteries will be 30 percent lighter than lithium-ion batteries, with greater energy-storage potential per cell and that up to 99 per cent of the battery packs will be recyclable.

Porsche’s first EV, the Taycan sedan, will launch later this year with liquid lithium-ion batteries -- as will its second EV, the Taycan Cross Turismo, and the 2020 Macan-style EV.