When Porsche pulled the covers off the Mission E concept at the 2015 Frankfurt motor show, it made a bold statement. Electric means performance.
From that moment on, the German marque's been making gradual progress towards making that a reality. First came the news of its entry into Season 6 of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, then the marque's second concept - the more rugged Mission E Cross-Turismo - and now the Taycan. Soon to be the German powerhouse's first all-electric production sports car, the Taycan promises to deliver peak performance, wrapped up in familiar Porsche packaging but with none of the emissions. Interested? Yep, so are we, especially after the first performance figures for the four-door Tesla fighter were released. See below for the full story, as told by Porsche endurance racing legend Mark Webber.
"Porsche did its first electric car in 1898. Obviously, it's moved on a little bit since then!" says Webber, enthusiastically. "Naturally, E-mobility has been a huge part of our vision going forward. With the Taycan, it takes all of the work we've done with the 919 Hybrid [Le Mans Prototype 1 car], which of course had a huge electrical component to it. It may have been a hybrid but we understand this space very well with the 800V battery. That was pioneering - it was a very aggressive car."
With just short of the equivalent of 600bhp, the Taycan will hit 0-100km/h in under 3.5-seconds. That's faster than a petrol powered Porsche Carerra GTS and second only to the GT2RS in terms of power output in the Porsche range, just to put things in perspective. All that comes from two, floor-mounted electric motors that send power to all four wheels. "It's four-wheel drive, four-wheel steer - this is going to be the absolute game changer for the EV sector," says Webber. "It's not even in the same sentence as the Tesla. Everyone can dine out on the 0-100km/h - it's like flipping burgers. But the Taycan's driving dynamics, charging times, interface, finish and ergonomics of the cockpit are just incredible."
At its core, sits a lithium-ion battery that's capable of covering off near enough 500km on one charge. Best of all, Porsche maintains that the Taycan will be compatible with the 800V chargers that are being rolled out over Europe in the coming years, charging the car up to 80 per cent in just 15-minutes.
"Performance is a huge focus for the Taycan. The essence of the sports car has to be through all our products," insists Webber. With the marque lining up on the ABB FIA Formula E Championship grid in Season 6, starting in 2019, all eyes will be on the team as it looks to the city street circuits to perfect it's all-electric performance cars and, crucially, bring home the silverware.
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