The Porsche 718 Cayman and Boxster will go electric by 2025 Car News

Porsche technical chief Michael Steiner said the decision to adopt the unusual layout was driven by the need to make the car as low as possible to reduce drag, but this approach precludes the traditional “skateboard” chassis. » EV with batteries under the floor. This design is featured on the shared J1 architecture of Porsche and Audi, used by the existing Taycan and future PPE platforms.

“With a typical two-door sports car, you see the car sits really low because to reduce drag you want the silhouette to be as low and flat as possible,” Steiner said. “To do that, you have to sit the driver as low as possible, and if you do that, there’s no space for a battery under the driver’s seat.

“It’s the same reason why many super sports cars today have a mid-engine design, with the engine behind the driver. With current battery cell technology, batteries are the biggest and heaviest part of the car – and this could be true for the next decade – so we have developed what we call the e-core battery design . In terms of packaging and center of gravity, it’s more or less a copycat of a mid-engine design.

Steiner added that the design also helps with weight distribution and balance, especially with the Mission R concept’s two electric motors – one on each axle – geared towards rear-driven power. But while the Mission R concept uses a purpose-built platform, Steiner echoes Blume in ruling out such an architecture for production models.

“There is no platform unchanged by electrification, but the one platform in our portfolio that might not change much would be mid-engine cars like the Boxster and Cayman,” Steiner said. . “Ten years ago we started with electrification prototypes with this mid-engine layout because you could use the engine and transmission space for the battery.

“But we decided within Porsche, starting with the Taycan, that we wouldn’t do a conversion-type design, with room for an internal combustion engine, plug-in hybrid or all-electric options, because there are always a compromise in terms of weight, packaging and other dimensions.