With the upcoming launch of their first all-electric vehicle, Porsche has been emphasizing that the vehicle will “still be a Porsche” despite its new electric powertrain.
Now the German premium automaker adds that it will differentiate itself from other EVs with a relatively light performance electric vehicle.
Electric vehicles are generally heavier than their gas-powered counterparts due to the battery pack.
In order to enable a range of over 200 miles in a full-size sedan, like the Taycan, you generally need upward of 75 kWh of energy capacity and a battery pack of that capacity will generally weight around 1,000 lbs.
It’s a problem that all automakers developing electric vehicles have to deal with and Porsche’s Stefan Weckbach, the heads of the Taycan program, addressed it in a new interview.
He told Germany’s Firmenauto:
“A central question in the development was: Where is the optimal balance between range and performance? Theoretically, one would have to pack only a correspondingly large battery in the vehicle to get a lot of range. But that would not be typical Porsche, if only because of the excessive weight. Instead, we use very light electric motors. In addition, we can achieve a range of 500 kilometers via the high power density and high efficiency of the electric drive. This results in low power consumption, so we can use smaller and lighter batteries.”
The executive said that they were able to have a smaller battery pack thanks to other efficiencies in the powertrain.
Weckbach also added that the Taycan’s efficient powertrain will be able to maintain a high output for long periods of times.
When asked about electric vehicles not being able to do that, Weckbach said the Taycan can.
He added that it was enabled by their choice of motor and a new cooling system that they developed :
“With Taycan we provide two measures for consistent performance in all driving situations. On the one hand, we opted for the choice of electric motors with permanent-magnet synchronous machines, which enable high continuous power and thus ensure reproducible performance. This means that they can accelerate not just once but several times in a row. The same applies to driving at a constant high speed. On the other hand, we have developed an intelligent cooling system that prevents potential power losses due to excessive heat generation by always delivering cooling power exactly to those components that you need.”
Porsche executives have previously insisted that the Taycan will be able to go long distances at high-speed, like traveling on the German autobahn, or to complete a few laps on the race track.
During the interview, Weckbach also reinforced the clear Porsche marketing push about the Taycan “being a real Porsche despite being electric” – something the automaker has been saying every chance it got.
The vehicle is expected to have a range of over 250 miles and the most impressive feature is arguably the 800-volt system. That is double the voltage of most EVs and should allow a charge rate of up to 350 kW, which could charge the car up to 80% in only 15 minutes.
Porsche is expected to unveil the production version of the vehicle next year for a launch toward the end of 2019.
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