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Porsche Unveils Its First Electric Car
An anonymous reader writes: German automaker Porsche has made its first foray into electric vehicles. On Monday at the Frankfurt Auto Show, it unveiled a concept car called the Porsche Mission E. Its 800-volt drive system can take the car from 0 to 100km/h in 3.5 seconds. The high-voltage charging system lets it gain 80% of its battery capacity back within 15 minutes. They claim a driving range of 500km on a single battery charge. Porsche said the car was not a response to the Tesla Model S, but the two will likely be direct competitors when the Mission E goes into full production. That will happen "within the next five years."
Zero to production in five years. Yay.
One of the first cars Dr Ferdinand Porsche designed was electric, had motors on all 4 wheels.
His son Ferry is the Porsche car maker we all know... and did the 356.
But for the cost of a high end rebuild on a 356 engine, you can convert them to electric. Same conversion should owrk on any model with the 200mm clutch - 356, 912, 914 - as well as later (post '64 IIRC) VW bugs and busses.
http://www.evwest.com/catalog/...
Also, I thought the 918 Spyder was electric?
Finally, Saturday is the 19th - not just Talk Like a Pirate Day, it is Ferry Porsche's birthday and Drive Your Porsche Day.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
This is NOT their first electric car by a long shot
http://www.history.com/news/fe...
This is Porsche's first foray into vapourware.
Assuming it launches for a similar price range, it can't compete with a Model S now, much less in the next five years. Next year the supercharger network will blanket the US and they'll have two attractive (/expensive) models to choose from. In 2018 they'll have a $35k everyman's car to compete with the LEAF and Volt. How is Porsche going to compete? If this came out a year ago maybe it could rely on it's brand but Tesla is quickly becoming the Apple of cars (not entirely a good thing). Talk about dead on arrival.
Big deal. Porsche is unveiling a prototype of a car that can compete with what Tesla has been doing for a few years. That's great, except that Tesla is a moving target. If Porsche wants to get some excitement going, they need to put out something that will compete with where Tesla will be in a few years when this thing actually makes it into production.
There's no point in questioning authority if you aren't going to listen to the answers.
I just can't seem to find the expected price tag. Whoops. I forgot, if you need to ask the price of a Porsche, you cannot afford it.
Personally, I'm vastly more excited about an affordable Tesla than some horrifically expensive EV Porsche.
A number of people (myself included) have known for decades (and somtimes brought to the attention of auto company executives that electric cars could be capable of performance far better than fuel-driven engines and limited only by the traction of the tires, and that people might want lectric vehicles with sane levels of performance.
But the auto execs only thought of electric vehicles as appealing to eco-freaks, who would be willing to accept - and might desire - classic VW levels of performance. So when they designed electric "concept cars" they didn't do the engineering to achieve performance. Their offerings were traffic-snarling, short-range, wimpy eco-freak commuter cars.
This left the market SO open that Elon Musk (who also understood the demand) was able to build a successful new auto company from scratch (a couple billion dollars worth) and capture the market.
Musk started with the high end - to recover the development cost from the early adopters willing to pay big for the new toy - in classic Silicon Valley style. He's working his way down from the pricey prestige cars to the bulk market as fast as his engineers can bring the cost down and his financing can build the manufacturing infrastructure (and his lawyers and lobbyists can remove the legal obstacles to his not-dealer-dependent marketing).
But now the PARTIAL lesson - that there's a market at the top for a high-performance electric car - has been learned, and a prestige auto maker is trying to get a slice of that.
They're STILL not seeing the whole picture. Which is very good for Tesla. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
many owners will be reluctant to climb into the new porsche electric. As a lead marketing and test analyst however, I can assure you we at porsche are keeping the finer appointments of the vehicle just the way they are. Turn Signals, or that strange stalk present in some cars, are of course removed to enhance sophistication. lane position assist helps ensure you maintain a comfortable 45 miles per hour in the left most lane of any road, as the Porsche aficionado is accustomed. and finally, our cup-a-fart seats allow you to continuously enjoy reap the rewards of a hard days work. As always, we offer available specialty armrests for customers who have recently fractured the appendage while vigorously masturbating to their own achievements.
Good people go to bed earlier.
Now that the real innovator has paved the way, the metoos will be coming out of the woodwork. I'll give my money to Elon, thank you ... And I do hope he gets his volcano lair too.
"The high-voltage charging system lets it gain 80% of its battery capacity back within 15 minutes. "
Don't they have any marketing slime in their company?
Why don't they just add another 20% to the battery, then they can claim that it will be _fully_ recharged after 15 minutes?
Later people will notice that if you let it stay longer on the charger, they will even get 120% of the capacity.
It would be a win/win.
800 Volt motor is quite unusual for an automobile. Wondering what the cost/benefit is for such an voltage. For the same power, the current will be low, so the conductors can be thinner. The motor could be made more compact. But insulation and isolation could be a head ache. Wondering how they would provide safety in crashes.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I easily change 120v to 25,000v in my house daily. Using 100 year old technology. It's trivial to do and I'm sure 800v would be just as easy.
Based on the spec, it will compete with now obsolete Tesla Roadster. Good luck.
Then the breakthrough is the fast charging system. 80% in 15 minutes is approaching the "electric filling station" of our dreams. Such a paradigm would still not be the same as filling up a car and going on your way, but it could fit in with a fill-at-the-supermarket strategy that works with a loyalty program, like the one Kroger offers to its customers.
For a long time, muscle cars kept trying to push the 0-60mph acceleration. We basically hit a limit with internal combustion engines. I don't think we've even come close to the limit an electric motor can do. Don't they produce more torque than you can get friction with tires? So the limiting nature might be on the tire design. It's been a long time since I've been intrigued by fast cars, but I want to see just how quickly they can get 0-60mph if the car is designed for that. We all know electric cars blow the doors off internal combustion engine cars, but just how much can they smoke them. What opening about a drag racing league with electric cars?
God spoke to me
So, um, basic math envelope-scirbbling:
~100kWh battery (to be slightly more range than 85kWh Tesla), charging to 80% (or 80kWh) in 15 minutes, is 320kW during charging.
320kW / 240V = ~1300kA
Good luck getting your local electric company to give you a 1300+ amp connection for a residence. Most people have at most 100-200A on their main breaker. And the theoretical "concept" of this car's inductive charging system: 800V at presumably around 400A is just scary. Don't accidentally drop a penny under the car on top of the inductive loop! I don't want to even picture trying to dissipate ~320kW through a penny.
Not clear to me how there are more people reading about this "concept" car that might or might not be in production in around 5 years maybe, and saying "wait a minute, this doesn't make any sense".
The market is more than large enough that Tesla can't keep up with demand. Porsche adds luxuries on top of the electric car. What if you don't like the look of the Tesla or you want other colors/features. These are two kids playing in a sandbox the size of a small city. More than enough room for both of them. I even find it likely that Tesla may consult for them and eventually in 5 years be selling them batteries from their Giga factories.
For the thousandth time, a low 0-60 time does not make your car a sports car. There is so much more to a sports car than raw acceleration. The Miata is 3x slower than a Tesla to 60mph but it's ten times the sports car. Go drive one and use a manual transmission.
Because the hybrid solution isn't the best - it's no better than a slightly more fuel-efficient car.
Add to that the fact that hybrids have both electric and petrol engines - so there is more maintenance and more things that could go wrong. Compare to a pure EV which has no need for spark plugs, exhaust, transmission, catalytic converters, etc....
Who cares how many electric charging stations there are when an EV driver wakes up every day with full range? Unlike petrol and hydrogen, where no filling stations results in your vehicle becoming a very heavy paperweight, EVs can take advantage of existing electricity networks and outlets. Fast charging stations are a bonus, not a necessity.
- Chuq
Why does everyone have wood for all-electric cars now? The Chevy Volt model, if refined to a Porsche/Tesla level of quality and not wrapped in a nerdmobile shell is the best of both worlds. At least as a bridge to some future model (all hydrogen?)
Until then, gas's "recharge" time (less than 5 minutes) + 10,000s of locations to fill up trumps all-electric every day of the week as of today.
Tesla owners that drive less than 250 miles per day, they never have to "fill it up." It's "full" every morning. Other electric cars, the range is much shorter, but if the range is comfortably in your daily commute the same principal applies.
As to why people have wood for them, there are a lot of reasons. Everything from helping move away from fossil fuels [1], to liking something that's different, to the crazy acceleration, or the fact that it's truly quiet, to having a status symbol. At least as far as the Tesla is concerned, it seems to actually be one hell of a car. The customer satisfaction ratings are off the charts.
[1] Yes, I know coal is used in parts of the US to create electricity, but so is natural gas [2], nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, whatever. Electric cars are basically multi-fuel.
[2] Yes, I know that natural gas is a fossil fuel. But it's way cleaner than coal.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.
In 3 years, the new roadster based on the Model 3 frame, will be out. Musk has said that it will blow the doors off ludicris speed, i.e. 0-100 km in 1.x secs. And for around 50-60K.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Ok, here is a 4 seater sports car which does 0-60 in 3.8 secs which after reading the description of the car, makes it sound like it will run about $250,000-500,000. Who really thinks that a slower car, that is easily 2-4x as costly, is going to compete against Tesla? Seriously?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Cars rarely go more than 100 miles. As such, there is little reason for 99% of the trips.
OTOH, the one place that hybrids SHOULD be used at, is in large passenger, and most commercial vehicles. Yet, that is not where the focus has been on hybrids.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Until then, gas's "recharge" time (less than 5 minutes) + 10,000s of locations to fill up trumps all-electric every day of the week as of today.
You'd think that, but in practice most electric car owners spend less time refueling than gas car owners do.
Why? Because it takes them just 10 seconds to plug in the car in their garage after they drive in, and 5 more seconds to unplug it again in the morning before they drive out -- a total of ~1.5 person-minutes spent recharging per week. Compare that to the 5-10 person-minutes per week that gas car owners spend driving to the gas station, waiting for a pump, refueling, paying, and then driving back again, and it's the gas car that is usually more time-consuming to refuel.
Of course the electric recharges are less convenient during long trips (Superchargers notwithstanding), since the driver has to wait for the recharge to finish, but long trips aren't the common case for most cars -- daily commuting and errand-running is.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The Tesla is an incredible car. I love the finishing, the build quality is great as well as the comfort. The screen is killer as is the software. The A4 size map right in front of you is a game-changer, and you can flick the map up onto the dash behind the wheel so you can navigate at the same time as drive through trickier/busier areas. The acceleration is beyond that of my "European" sports car. The styling is very neutral but I personally find it very pretty.
The "big boys" have been left in the dust. The offerings from BMW, Mercedes and Porsche have been pathetic vapourware. Ferrari are toys, all my friends with Ferraris use them as "weekend cars" and have a Bentley for day to day. I am amazed how such profitable companies like the aforementioned have managed to turn into such dinosaurs.
Phillip.
Property for sale in Nice, France
Yeah, sure. Now try to put a 150kW transformer in the trunk of your porsche.
aaaaaaa
There is something to be said for BEVs with range extenders, though. If your range extender fails, you're not left with a completely immobile car, and the unit could be quite small (being optimized for constant output in the range of kilowatts) and easily interchangeable in the car repair shop - it's just a few more cables, not a mechanical interconnection. Whether it's actually worth it in the real world is a different idea, regardless of the reliability. Here in Europe, I suspect most people wouldn't need it anyway.
Ezekiel 23:20
Is it rear engined and air cooled?
Try it! Library of Babel
Oh man, I sure don't miss the reverse defrost feature.
Or the constant smell of gasoline fumes!
But I still miss that car. Too bad the cancer became terminal (rust in the front bulkhead).
Sam
All of the responses to this are reasonable, but they rely upon one huge premise: "As long as you don't ever need to drive more than X miles without stopping for Y hours to recharge..."
That's a pretty big hangup for someone who wants an "all-purpose" vehicle, which is what gas-powered cars are. They're an increasingly unappreciated modern wonder - moving people around at an unlimited range at a high rate of speed without any time restriction for resting the power plant (horses, batteries, etc.) - that we've taken for granted for over a century now.
As flawed as it is, hybrid tech has that ability. All-electric (as of 2015) does not.
Maybe as people have become increasingly hooked into urban society and become less geographically mobile in everyday life, they've forgotten how important it is to have an unlimited range sometimes? I mean, which is easier to haul when stuck outside of civilization and out of "fuel" - hauling a gas can, or a two ton dead battery with four wheels? Are we all counting on our cellphones and some stranger with a tow truck to bail us all out in a pinch (or worse)?