Porsche confirms Mission E as first electric car before 2020

Porsche will ditch the petrol engine altogether and hunt down Tesla with its electric Mission E concept now confirmed for production before 2020.

What many tagged as a good looking Panamera – as oxymoronic as that seems – when the Mission E was revealed at the Frankfurt motor show last September will now be on the roads before the end of this decade.

“The first 100% electrically powered Porsche is on its way,” the Stuttgart brand confirmed in a statement. “It will be launched at the end of the decade [as] the supervisory board of the Porsche AG today gave the green light for the Mission E project.”

The four-door four-seater gets all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering, and 440kW from twin electric motors capable of delivering a claimed 3.5-second zero to 100km/h and onwards to 200km/h in “under twelve seconds”.

Lithium-ion batteries slide underneath the car from its front to rear axle, lowering the centre of gravity, while Porsche Torque Vectoring can allocate drive to any specific wheel of the 50:50 weight-balanced Mission E.

Many enthusiasts are just getting used to the lowered rev ceiling of a newly turbocharged 911 Carrera range, however an all-electric Porsche may be on an air-cooled-to-water-cooled level of controversy. It probably shouldn’t be, however.

The Mission E is expected to sit on a lighter platform than the next Panamera, using more expensive, exotic materials. While the next Pana is expected to continue to retail between $200K and $450K locally, the Mission E will almost certainly be at the upper end of – or beyond – that range.