As the German marque grows its army of electric vehicles in response to rising environmental concerns, it shows no signs of losing its performance roots
By 2025, around half of the new Porsche cars sold will be electrically-powered models, says Arthur Willmann, managing director of Porsche Asia Pacific. The vision is in line with the marque’s global plans announced in February last year. Porsche had unveiled that it will be investing more than €6b in electromobility by 2022, with a focus on plug-in hybrid and fully electric cars.
The marque’s push into electric car terrain is its response to climate change, which has become a growing concern in recent years. According to the Greenhouse Gas Bulletin published by the United Nations’ World Meteorological Organisation in 2018, the amount of carbon dioxide trapped in the atmosphere reached a new record high last year. Carbon dioxide emission from cars is one of the main culprits of global warming. With its new strategy, Porsche is committed to combating climate change and meeting government-imposed emission regulations effectively.
And while the electrification mission does sound ambitious, it is not at all far-fetched for a marque that is known to push its own limits. In fact, Porsche isn’t new to the electric game.
Over a century ago, founder Ferdinand Porsche developed the Lohner-Porsche Semper Vivus, the world’s first fully-functioning hybrid car. The hefty single-seat ride was powered by two generators, which were connected to petrol engines, forming a charging unit.
Fast forward to 2010, Porsche reignited its electric dreams and injected its modern hybrid technology into its motorsport racing cars. This resulted in the 911 GT3 R Hybrid, which had two electric motors and a 4.0L, flat-six petrol engine. Then came the 919 Hybrid prototype racer in 2014, which won the marque three 24 Hours of Le Mans trophies between 2015 and 2017, and its evolved version, the 919 Hybrid Evo. The latter was launched recently in April and is said to be faster than a Formula 1 car.
For Porsche, the race track is where it tests its technological developments before introducing them into its road cars. Thomas Neumann, manager of electrical and electronic engineering e-mobility at Porsche said: “We believe in transferring the technology of our race-track cars to our road cars, so the track is where our technological innovations first see the light of day.” Elements of the 919 Hybrid’s driving technology, for instance, have made their way into the Cayenne E-Hybrid and Panamera 4 E-Hybrid.
(Related: Vanda Electrics' Larissa Tan On Singapore's First Electric Hypercar)
