Porsche's road to an 800-volt powertrain

By 2025, more than half of the vehicles that Porsche produces will be electrically powered.

To achieve this, however, the Volkswagen Group subsidiary needed to first enter the EV sector. It did so with the recently launched Taycan, which stands out in the niche because of its 800-volt powertrain.

To support the Taycan's powertrain, the power electronics for the car's high-voltage components such as the DC/AC converter for the electrical drive motors and the electronics for the water heater had to be modified, Porsche engineer Otmar Bitsche said in a presentation at the annual Vienna Motor Symposium.

In addition, the Taycan had to be equipped with a voltage booster that can convert energy from the existing charging infrastructure to provide the 800 volts it requires.

The end result is a vehicle with an electrical architecture that is twice as powerful as that in a typical EV. Why does this matter? Because a drained Taycan battery can be replenished to 80 percent in less than 23 minutes at a DC fast-charging station.

The Taycan, which can go from 0 to 100 kph (62 mph) in 3.2 seconds, gets its propulsion from two permanent magnet synchronous motors with integrated power electronics.

The synchronous motors were chosen for the Taycan because of their better thermal properties, higher continuous power and the repeatability of that power, Bitsche added.

The Taycan's battery system consists of 33 modules with 12 cells each.

The weight of the battery system is about 630 kg.