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."

Comments

Fast

[Anonymous Coward]

Zero to production in five years. Yay.

Re:Fast

[tnk1]

Which is pretty sweet, and exactly what Tesla wants.

Tesla wants the competition in the market. They won't be able to put enough money together to make electric cars into the "new normal" by themselves. For that, they need a lot of competitors who are producing enough volume to make EVs something that you see everywhere.

Once it hits a certain tipping point, the market will start supporting EVs as more than just toys. At that point, the goal of mass adoption could turn EVs into a replacement for gasoline vehicles which means that now Tesla makes more money due to increased volume over all. And being the owner of a great deal of production capacity for these sorts of vehicles, this means they have a head start on everyone else.

It won't be enough to make Tesla completely dominant in the EV market, but it could propel them into a top spot in a New Electric Vehicle Order. More to the point, it would turn them into a real honest to goodness car company, and not just an expensive vanity project.

Or to put it more succinctly, a rising tide lifts all ships. Any work that anyone does to support EVs or dedicate production capacity to EVs will help Tesla out too. Just like they're helping out everyone else by releasing their patents and building infrastructure.

EV conversion

[i.r.id10t]

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.

Re:EV conversion

[Type44Q]

His son Ferry is the Porsche car maker we all know... and did the 356.

His grandson Ferdinand Piech is the Porsche car maker we all should know... and did the 240mph 917/30, the Quattro (amen) and the Bugatti Veyron. Hell, he even designed the most reliable and indestructible engine ever put in a passenger car (the Mercedes turbo-charged five-cylinder). These may be among the reasons that it was he (and not his father or grandfather) who won Car Executive of the Century.

Wrong headline

[Anonymous Coward]

This is NOT their first electric car by a long shot
http://www.history.com/news/fe...

Re:Slower, Same range, within 5 years?!?

[lymond01]

Porsche doesn't compete with non-performance cars. From appearance and probably stats, this will be more in the supercar arena: Audi R8, BMW i8, Ferraris, Lamborghinis. My guess, if it's up to Porsche standards, one will be required to find at least $150,000 to afford this. Which, according to reports, is how much a fully loaded Tesla Model X will run (the price range is...large on that one: mid $70s to mid $100s).

I drive a Civic. I had a Porsche for a weekend earlier this year -- 911 Carrera S. I imagine it to be a land-based version of a fighter jet. I haven't driven a Tesla -- I hear they are very very nice, very fast off the line...but I wonder how their sport handling compares to a 911. Hmm...need to find me some Youtube comparisons...

Oh, and will someone explain what BMW is doing with the i3? When I think BMW, I think sport sedan. That thing has the specs of a Nissan Leaf and the looks of a Scion Cube. I'd expected something Tesla-ish.

Pity the big auto companies were so blind.

[Ungrounded Lightning]

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-)

Re:Pity the big auto companies were so blind.

[AaronW]

I agree. I own a Tesla model S P85 (for 2 1/2 years now). Tesla brings a lot more to the table than just the car. They also have a nation-wide charging network that nobody else comes close to. Next week I will be driving from the SF Bay Area to Seattle, WA. I plan to take a leisurely drive, stopping in Grants Pass for the night. On my drive to Grants Pass I will spend less than 90 minutes charging out of about 8 hours of driving. Given how most superchargers are near malls and other amenities I've found that often I grab something to eat and my car is fully charged before I am.

Besides the charging network, Tesla is also addressing the battery supply with their gigafactory, which should significantly reduce the cost of their batteries. On top of that they're also offsetting their superchargers with solar power and are now starting to add grid battery storage as well to significantly cut peak power usage.

Nobody else comes anywhere close. Their service and support has been excellent, though I've also heard that Porsche is also quite good. Even though my car was one of the early ones manufactured (VIN in the low 5000s) I've had very few problems and no major problems. Most were just squeaks and rattles, which they quickly fixed. They've also made very rapid improvements to the car in the 2 1/2 years since I bought mine. It may look the same on the outside, but there are a lot of new features under the hood and Tesla has addressed problems quickly in their production run, not waiting for 6-month or yearly intervals like many manufacturers.

Re:Slower, Same range, within 5 years?!?

[AaronW]

Not easily. With Tesla you're getting a lot more than just a car. You're also getting access to the largest network of rapid chargers along major routes. Next week I'm driving from the SF Bay Area up to Seattle in my Tesla. At least from the Bay Area to Grant's Pass OR I'll spend around 90 minutes charging for that route with most stops being 20-30 minutes. Right now I can drive from San Diego to Edmonton Canada or across the country to the East Coast on Tesla's superchargers. There's already a huge amount of charging infrastructure in place with more going online quite rapidly. There is nothing equivalent right now for non-Tesla EVs. Sure, there's a lot of ChaDeMo chargers in urban centers but there are many places where it's quite difficult to go. I have a friend with a Leaf and it takes him at least a couple of days to reach the Oregon border from the SF Bay Area since he has to spend a significant amount of time charging at RV parks since there's no infrastructure between major urban areas.

Also, I don't think there are many CCS chargers that could output anywhere near enough to charge the Porsche to 80% in 15 minutes. Tesla's supercharger network outputs 120KW (135 in Europe). Also, unlike the mish-mash of CCS and ChaDeMo chargers, they're being installed along major routes. It will be at least several years until CCS catches up with where Tesla's network is now. As it is, Tesla owners with the ChaDeMo adapter have been complaining that many ChaDeMo chargers can't even handle 45KW without overheating (even in the dead of winter when it's 0F outside).

Tesla also will have the battery manufacturing capacity to significantly cut prices on the batteries. Additionally, they're already starting to offset their charging stations with solar and grid-tied batteries to significantly reduce peak electricity usage and cut costs. Also, nobody has talked about the price of the Porsche. You can bet that it will be a lot more expensive than Tesla.

Re:Slower, Same range, within 5 years?!?

[Amouth]

once you get above 300 volts you have to start really dealing with NFPA-70E Arc flash regulations (below 300 is only an issue if "exposed" other wise it is avoid contact).

If you then start getting above 750 and in the kV range you start dealing with hard regulations around approach boundaries

751-15kV is 2'2" restricted boundaries (requires PPE and training) and 7" prohibited boundary (meaning you can't be within 7 inches of a live line in that range period)

My bet is that no car manufacturer wants to deal with having to design a charging station standard which requires people to hook it up, step away, AND have a method for ensuring that there is zero possibility of someone within the area.

When you have power in that voltage range someone will be liable for safety in that area, and car manufactures can not insure that the operator of the car and charging station have had the appropriate training or PPE available so they most likely won't go there. Even on industrial equipment that uses this level voltage most OEMs have safety interlocks so that you can't accidentally get into an energized compartment.

Sorry you just won't see real high voltage charging systems for consumer cars. This is one of the reasons they will have to figure out how to deal with the current side of the problem.