Porsche confirms flagship electric SUV

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume has confirmed plans for a new electric flagship SUV.

Insiders indicate that the new flagship EV SUV will be made in-house at Porsche’s Leipzig factory, and not at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicle’s Hannover facility – the production hub of the Audi-led Artemis Project.

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Project Artemis is busy developing a scalable EV platform that will be shared by many brands under the Volkswagen Group umbrella.

Porsche was previously involved in a deal that would have seen the factory produce 25,000 vehicles a year for Porsche. It was reported in January, however, that Porsche had opted out of the agreement, at the cost of €100 million (AU$148 million) for projected loss of production.

It’s believed that the future flagship SUV will ride on a Porsche-led variant of Volkswagen Group’s Scalable Systems Platform (SSP), which will also underpin vehicles from a variety of brands across the Volkswagen Group ecosystem – called SSP Sport.

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The flagship electric SUV would sit atop the brand's Macan and Cayenne models, and will reportedly share tech with Porsche’s recently-revealed Mission R racing concept. The Mission R is propelled by two electric motors, a 428kW unit on the front axle and a 480kW unit out back, fed by an 80kWh battery.

A 900-volt electrical system allows the Mission R to charge from five to 80 per cent in just 15 minutes.

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The halo electric SUV aims to capitalise on consumer trends that skew heavily towards SUVs and, increasingly, EVs.

Speaking at a long-term platform strategy update this week, Blume stated: “We are targeting the higher margin segments in particular and aim to tap into new sales opportunities this way”.

Porsche has targeted an 80 per cent mix of electric vehicle sales by 2030. Elsewhere, prototypes of the electric Porsche Macan have been spied in the wild, although Automotive News Europe reports that the electric Macan, along with a number of key VW Group vehicles, has been delayed due to lagging software development.

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The iconic sports models of Porsche won’t escape electrification, either, with the future electric version of the vaunted 718 sports car expected by 2025.

“We are pushing ahead with our electric offensive: by the middle of the decade, we want to offer our 718 mid-engine sports car exclusively in all-electric form”, said Blume.

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A graphic from the strategy update indicates that future generations of the Panamera and Taycan will be based on the SSP Sport platform, confirming the Panamera’s future switch to EV power, while future electric Macan and Cayenne generations will be based on Audi and Porsche’s joint Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture.

It seems evident that, even at Stuttgart, the future is electric.