Porsche The Mission E will be Porsche's first all-electric production car.
- Porsche revealed new details about the Mission E, took shots at Tesla, and laid out plans for a super-charging network.
- Stefan Weckbach, the company's head of battery electric vehicles, claimed the Mission E will perform better and more consistently than Tesla's Model S and hinted at driver-assistance features.
- Klaus Zellmer, CEO of Porsche Cars North America, said the company will install fast-chargers at its 189 dealerships and work on a network of charging stations in cities and along highways.
Porsche's first all-electric production car, the Mission E, is scheduled for release in 2019. The company revealed new details on the vehicle and its electric strategy in a recent statement.
Stefan Weckbach, Porsche's head of battery electric vehicles, said in the statement that the Mission E will perform better than its high-end electric rivals, including Tesla's Model S, despite having less impressive specs in some areas.
Porsche's website says the Mission E can go from 0-60 mph in "less than 3.5 seconds," which means it probably won't be able to match Tesla's Model S, which can do the same in 2.5 seconds. But Weckbach said the Model S can't sustain that kind of performance, claiming it can only go 0-60 mph in under three seconds twice.
"The third attempt will fail. The system is throttled," he said.
Weckbach said the Mission E "will offer reproducible performance and a top speed which can be maintained for long periods."
Weckbach also hinted at driver-assistance features, like the ability to autonomously park or stop and start in traffic, and revealed that the production version of the Mission E would have to abandon the concept's use of exterior cameras rather than mirrors.
"The legislation currently in force would make it impossible to offer such a thing around the
world in a series-production vehicle," Weckbach said, and added that the production model would have "structural" and "functional" differences from the concept version without elaborating on those differences.
Klaus Zellmer, CEO of Porsche Cars North America, also said in the statement that Porsche's plans to start creating a charging infrastructure that will make the Mission E and subsequent electric vehicles more practical for consumers. The company will start by installing 800-volt fast-chargers at its 189 dealerships and plans to develop a network of fast-charging stations in cities and along highways.
The Mission E will be critical for Porsche as it seeks to challenge Tesla in the luxury EV market. Porsche announced in early February that it would double its investment in electric vehicles to $7.4 billion by 2022. If the Mission E delivers on the hype, it will bode well for Porsche's electric future.
Here's what we know about the Mission E so far.
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