Porsche is seen as a pioneer of sustainable mobility. And now, as it enters the era of electromobility, the sports car brand is moving up another gear. In 2025, the company aims to deliver more than half of its new cars with an electric powertrain – either fully electric or as a plug-in hybrid. And its goal for 2030 is for more than 80 per cent of its new deliveries to be BEV models.
These goals are based on the brand’s high level of innovation. Take the Taycan: in 2020, the experts at the Center of Automotive Management (CAM) named the first all-electric Porsche as the most important innovator on the global automotive market. Among its exemplary innovations is the 800-volt architecture of the electric powertrain system. Today it is the quality standard for high-performance electric cars across the industry.
Premium Platform Electric (PPE) gives Porsche the opportunity to also bring high-volume electric models, made to the highest technical standards, to the market in a profitable way in the future. This will enable even more of the product portfolio to be electrified – in particular in the SUV segment. The 718 series is also to be fully electrified in the middle of the decade. In the medium term, the company also plans to add a new all-electric SUV model to the luxury segment of its model range. This car will be manufactured at the Leipzig factory.
With these steps, Porsche is continuing with its commitment to sustainable mobility. The strategic targets of the company are ambitious: Porsche aims to play a leading role among the traditional car manufacturers when it comes to sustainability, electromobility and technology. To this end, the future projects of the company are being consistently pushed forward.
Porsche aims to achieve a CO2-neutral value chain by 2030. At the main plant in Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen, it has already been manufacturing on a CO2-neutral basis since 2020. The Leipzig production site and the Weissach Development Centre followed at the start of 2021. With the start of production for the next model generation of the Macan, the Porsche plant in Leipzig is even on the way to becoming a “zero-impact factory” whose operations leave no ecological footprint. Porsche is also keeping an eye on the processes upstream from production in its efforts to increase sustainability. For example, the company demands that its system suppliers use green energy when manufacturing components for Porsche new car projects.
The progressive electrification of the Porsche product range is also accompanied by major work in the field of battery cell technology. With its Cellforce joint venture, the company is investing in the development of new high-performance cells. Porsche Werkzeugbau is driving forward the efficient production of state-of-the-art, powerful battery modules. At the same time, Porsche is also committed to extending charging infrastructure – for example, in setting up a European network of own-brand fast-charging stations exclusively for Porsche customers.
Electromobility is firmly rooted in the brand DNA of Porsche. Even the back-story of the manufacturer of luxury and sports cars began electrically. In 1898, the 23-year-old car designer Ferdinand Porsche played a leading role in the development of the Egger-Lohner C2 Phaeton. This car was powered by an electric ‘octagon’ motor. Two years later came the Lohner-Porsche Electromobile powered by two wheel-hub electric motors. It was with this development that Ferdinand Porsche caused a sensation at the 1900 World Exhibition in Paris. That same year, he supplemented each wheel-hub motor with a combustion engine that generated electrical energy. Based on this powertrain design the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus was built. This car is seen as the world’s first functioning full hybrid vehicle. In 1901, the further developed production version was launched as the Lohner-Porsche Mixte.
A good hundred years later the now world-famous sports car brand revived this historical idea. In 2010, Porsche presented the Cayenne S Hybrid, its first modern series hybrid car. That same year, the 918 Spyder super sports car appeared as a concept study with a powerful hybrid powertrain. In spring 2013, Porsche launched the world’s first plug-in hybrid in the luxury class. The new Panamera S E-Hybrid had a system output of 306 kW, of which 70 kW was generated electrically.
In 2014, Porsche entered a hybrid racing car in the LMP1 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for the first time. Between 2015 and 2017, the Porsche 919 Hybrid took overall victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship – three times in a row. Also in 2014, the company presented the first plug-in hybrid in the premium SUV segment. With the Cayenne S E-Hybrid, Porsche was the only premium manufacturer thus far to offer powerful plug-in hybrid series models in three different market segments.
Porsche intends to continue to live up to its pioneer role in the field of electromobility, with the brand’s electrically driven cars remaining the embodiment of sporty performance and driving dynamics into the future. It is an ambition that Porsche is aiming to prove worthy of, not only today with the Taycan, but with its future-oriented motorsport projects as well.
For example, the third-generation Porsche racing cars that will be entered in Formula E are among the fastest electric sports cars ever built: light, strong and, thanks to their high energy recuperation, particularly efficient. Then there is the GT4 e-Performance. This innovative test vehicle embodies the vision of an all-electric GT racing car for the customer motorsport of the future. In qualification mode the car has a maximum output of up to 800 kW. And with its 900-volt architecture, the car’s batteries can be charged from five to 80 per cent in just 15 minutes at full charging capacity.
These examples show that Porsche is consistently pursuing its chosen path. And as has always been the case throughout its almost 75-year history, the innovations that prove themselves on the racetrack will soon make their way into the development of series-production road cars. Porsche remains Porsche – in the long term, and with no exceptions.
