WEISSACH, Germany – Porsche plans to switch to full-electric powertrains in its sedans and SUVs – and possibly even its entry 718 sports cars – over the next decade, the automaker’s finance chief said.
Porsche so far has only confirmed the launch of the full-electric Taycan sedan, which will be the brand’s first zero-emissions cars when it arrives in the second half of 2019. However, Porsche CFO Lutz Meschke said the Taycan was “only the beginning” as the automaker plans to invest more than 6 billion euros in electrifying its fleet over the next four years.
“It’s very likely that a [battery-powered] SUV will come by 2022. There is no final decision yet, but you can expect that this will be the case because we need a large-volume model that is fully electric,” he told reporters at the company’s development center here last week, citing the need to meet tougher global CO2 targets.
“This idea will then progress further with the next generations of the Panamera and Cayenne model lines,” Meschke said. “The direction for the large four-door models will be toward full electrification.”
His comments dovetail with expectations that the forthcoming second generation of Porsche’s best-selling Macan crossover, which is due in the next three to four years, will be built on the PPE electric architecture that the sports car maker is co-developing with Volkswagen Group sibling Audi.
By 2025 at the latest, Meschke said he anticipates considerably more than half of Porsche’s fleet will be electrified.
“We’re a relatively small company and we will not be able to afford to offer a combustion-engine version in addition to pure-electric models in the long term,” Meschke said. “There will certainly be an overlap of two to three years when the [models with combustions engines] would still be supported because you cannot immediately make the switch in all regions.”
Porsche is also considering switching its mid-engine 718 Cayman and Boxster models to battery-driven powertrains from their four-cylinder turbocharged gasoline engines. “Pilot projects that we have run since 2010 have clearly shown that pure electrification would be feasible in such a segment,” Meschke said.
In June Porsche acquired a 10 percent stake in Croatian automotive startup Rimac, calling its electric sports car technology “extremely promising.”
Porsche CEO Oliver Blume, however, has ruled out a full-electric 911 in the future since it has been core to the brand since debuting in 1963 with a rear-mounted six-cylinder boxer engine. He only favors a plug-in hybrid version of the iconic two-door model, which might come early in the next decade.
