Porsche builds itself a 900-volt hypercar as a 75th birthday present

The Porsche Mission X concept on display — Enlarge / The Mission X is Porsche’s idea of what its next high-end sports car might be.

Carmaker Porsche turns 75 this year. And as a birthday present, it has designed what it says could be the future of its sports cars—a new design study called Mission X. It’s the latest in a series of one-off concepts and technology demonstrators; these give us a good idea of what the German brand is thinking when it comes to high-performance electric vehicles. Should this one go into production, it promises plenty. But that’s by no means certain—for now the company is saying that decision has not yet been made.

“The Porsche Mission X is a technology beacon for the sports car of the future. It picks up the torch of iconic sports cars of decades past: like the 959, the Carrera GT, and the 918 Spyder before it, the Mission X provides critical impetus for the evolutionary development of future vehicle concepts,” said Oliver Blume, Porsche AG’s chairperson. “Daring to dream and dream cars are two sides of the same coin for us: Porsche has only remained Porsche by constantly changing.”

Enlarge / The doors are inspired by racing cars like the 917, 956/962, and 919 Hybrid

The two most recent electric Porsche one-offs have been aimed at the race track. There’s the Mission R concept, which debuted in 2021—some lucky journalists even got to drive it—and then last year an electric version of the 718 Cayman with 1,088 hp (800 kW) on tap that proved extremely rapid from the passenger seat. Porsche wants to develop an electric alternative to the production racing cars it sells (like the Cayman GT4 Clubsport), and those two EVs are how it’s testing out some ideas to arrive at that point.

Mission X, on the other hand, is Porsche’s idea of its next possible hypercar, an all-electric successor to low-volume cars like the 959, Carrera GT, and 918 Spyder. (And, lest we forget, the PlayStation-only Vision Gran Turismo.) It’s more compact than the 918 Spyder but longer than the Mission R, with a longer wheelbase than that car as well.

Porsche says no decision has been made regarding production yet—that will depend upon the response from the sort of people who buy Porsche hypercars once they’ve seen the Mission X. That explains the lack of specifications for now.

The interior is mostly focused on the driver, but there's a stopwatch module in front of the passenger they can try and use if the G forces of acceleration aren't pinning them to the back of the seat. — Enlarge / The interior is mostly focused on the driver, but there’s a stopwatch module in front of the passenger they can try and use if the G forces of acceleration aren’t pinning them to the back of the seat.

Should it progress, the performance targets are high. For one, Porsche wants it to be the fastest road-legal car at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. And note, it just said “road-legal car”; there was no “EV” qualifier. Currently, that record belongs to the Mercedes-AMG One, which used a version of Mercedes’ all-conquering F1 powertrain plus four electric motors to lap that legendary but scary circuit in 6:35.183 minutes. (That’s 50 seconds faster than the fastest Tesla Model S lap, set last week.)

The Mission X plans to achieve this with a high power-to-weight ratio: 1 horsepower per pound or 0.7 kW/kg. It would also generate more aerodynamic downforce at speed than the current 911 GT3 RS; that car’s wings and splitter can create 1,895 lbs (860 kg) at 177 mph (285 km/h), or more than 900 lbs (408 kg) at 124 mph (200 km/h).

And it will be quick to recharge. Porsche says the production car would use a 900 V battery pack that’s mounted centrally behind the seats—similar to the 718 GT4 ePerformance and the Mission R—which should charge more than twice as quickly as a Porsche Taycan Turbo S. That car’s battery pack can go from 5 to 80 percent state of charge in just 22.5 minutes thanks to an 800 V battery pack.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1946427