
Porsche is showing off an electric sports car - adventured
http://qz.com/501986/porsche-is-showing-off-an-electric-sports-car-that-could-take-on-tesla/
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onion2k
_Porsche expect it to be a production car within 5 years._

So this shouldn't be compared with Tesla's current offering. This is going to
have to compete with the products Tesla are making in ~5 years time.
Statements like "It charges in 15 minutes, faster than Tesla's superchargers"
are effectively meaningless unless Tesla make absolutely no improvements to
their charging technology over the next half decade. I think Tesla have the
edge here.

~~~
ebbv
The 15 minute charge time is based on an 800V charger. There's nothing magical
here. Tesla (and the Nissan Leaf, and some other eVs) use a 400V charger which
charges to 80% in 30 minutes. If you double the voltage, then cutting the
charge time in half is what you'd expect.

The thing that isn't mentioned here is that setting up a 400V charging station
is already expensive. Tesla has taken up this expense themselves creating its
SuperCharger (400V) network that all Tesla owners can use for free. I don't
see anything in this article indicating Porsche is planning to do the same
with 800V chargers. If they are that would be amazing, but I doubt it. Setting
up 800V charging stations would be even more expensive than the 400V ones
Tesla has invested heavily in.

Honestly, the best thing VAG (VW Audi Group, who own Porsche) and all other EV
manufacturers could do is put a Tesla SuperCharger port in their vehicles to
allow for using the SuperCharger network.

~~~
adventured
Porsche can probably more easily afford to setup the 800V network than Tesla
can its 400V network. They have a large, wholly self-sustaining business.
Their operating profit of $3.x billion last year is comparable to Ford's
operating profit.

~~~
ebbv
Of course they can afford it, that's not the issue. The issue is that EVs are
100% of Tesla's revenue, so the investment is obviously worthwhile, even
necessary. EVs are none of Porsche's profit, they are just putting this out
there as a concept thus far, so it's unlikely they're going to make that kind
of investment.

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vjvj
The Mission E can even "reflect the mood by displaying an emoticon in the
dashboard".

Porsche's PR/engineering team are losing the plot if they consider that a
feature worth speaking about.

~~~
alexhawdon
I also thought that was a totally bizarre feature.

The only use I can think of is collecting the data and using it to determine
and suggest enjoyable routes. So the Sat Nav can suggest an alternative route
that might be slower but is a lot more fun to drive.

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leyfa
The original press release contains more information. It seems like they are
already using the drive system in race cars right now. The “Porsche Turbo
Charging” seems to require special charging stations though.

[http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-
mis...](http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mission-e-
mobility-all-electrically-concept-car-11391.html)

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CamperBob2
Charging any EV in 15 minutes is going to be challenging in a residential
area, I suspect. Imagine going out with a full charge and driving like a
maniac with the goal of draining the charge completely in 15 minutes. How much
energy did you turn into tire smoke during that 15-minute drive? That
determines how much available power you'll need to charge that puppy back up
in the same amount of time. 250 HP * 750 W/HP = about 50 kW for 15
minutes....? On a residential 220V circuit that'd require 225-amp service. The
thermal losses will be massive.

Once again, the only way this even remotely makes sense is to standardize the
battery form factor and swap them.

~~~
VLM
As long as they remain expensive and unpopular, electrical service simply
won't be an issue. If you're buying a $150K sports car, dropping around $3K to
upgrade to 400 amp service is pocket change. People who live in extreme rural
areas or service needs to trench thru solid rock ($30/ft!) or live in extreme
tax areas could pay a small multiple of that, but its such a small percentage
it'll round down to nothing.

Two problem areas are what if entire subdivisions go electric, distribution
lines are going to need upgrading, and that will not be cheap. For that matter
it trickles up all the way to the plant, shutting down gas refineries is going
to mean installing lots of coal burning electrical plants...

The other problem area is if electric cars drop to reasonable prices, the used
market will suffer horribly in the early years if a couple years old electric
sells used for $7K but it'll cost $3K to charge it. This will create a class
distinction where rich people charge their cars in 15 minutes and poor people
leave their cars plugged into standard extension cords overnight.

Something to think about with swapping is its so dangerous WRT connector
damage and immense weight that even trained industrial users generally don't
do it on pallet jacks up to medium size forklifts. It seems to "work" as a
technology up to push lawnmower size, no bigger. Also the cost of swapping is
staggering, now the cars engineering is compromised by having removable
batteries ($$$$) and obviously people need to own multiple batteries ($$$$$).
It rapidly becomes a financial win to simply not drive more than 200 miles per
day or to become a multi-car household.

~~~
CamperBob2
Good points for the most part, but with regard to swapping, no one needs to
own any batteries at all. You pull into an existing gas station and drive away
_5_ minutes later -- at most -- with a battery that was charged overnight at a
centralized plant with optimum efficiency, minimal thermal losses, and no
last-mile infrastructure problems.

Yes, this will be expensive, but not doing it this way will be even more
expensive in the long run. It will require intelligent, government-enforced
standardization of modular battery form factors, which is why it will probably
never happen. We just _have_ to have our VHS-versus-Beta and our BluRay-
versus-HD DVD wars, even when there is demonstrably zero consumer benefit.

~~~
VLM
Its interesting to abstract out the contentious electric car and just try to
find consumer or even professional analogies, looking at just physical bulk
and practical and safety issues.

Swapping giant dangerous things in and out of very expensive life critical
safety issues by and for semi-trained to completely untrained consumers at
random times and places.

There is nothing like it in all of commerce that I'm aware of. The closest
analogy I can think of is renting a u-haul trailer for a car, and that is
totally survivable both for an individual customer and as a sustainable
business model, but not fast, convenient, attractive, cheap, appealing. And a
uhaul trailer is enormously simpler than hundred of kilowatt level electrical
wiring and lithium batteries that explode when mistreated and weigh enough to
kill someone if dropped, so its far too simple an analogy.

There being nothing like it in current commerce means its probably doomed
because you'd have to roll out something totally new in the world of logistics
at the same time as rolling out something new in the world of automobiles. And
you can't "cheat" and roll out electric cars first because people will get
used to and not mind home charging making it a very hard sell to switch to
inferior cars and batteries that can very expensively and difficultly be
swapped.

The only real hope I can think of for that business model is massive
advancement in control semiconductors such that you can make a "raid array of
batteries" so a lunch box battery can haul your car to the nearest charger
when necessary, essentially the electric car equivalent of a gas can.

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ZeroGravitas
Does this actually exist, even as a one-off? It's a bit ambigous whether
they're "unveiling" and "showing off" an actual car that you can sit in and
drive, or just some pictures.

If it's the latter, then this seems to be a very weak offering, vaporware FUD
so lame that it actually makes the company putting it out seem worse than if
they'd just kept quiet.

~~~
josefresco
It's a concept car - so it's a "one-off" and seeing as how it was at the IAA
in Frankfurt, I'd say it actually exists.

If you RTFA you'd have found this link:
[http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-
mis...](http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mission-e-
mobility-all-electrically-concept-car-11391.html)

Found an event pic on Twitter:
[https://twitter.com/PorscheNewsroom/status/64371873566939136...](https://twitter.com/PorscheNewsroom/status/643718735669391360)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
I did RTFA, and that link, before I asked as all the images look like obvious
renders to me (with the possible exception of the interior shot).

Apparently something physical does exist, given the Twitter pic, but it's
still not clear if that's a dummy that needs to be rolled into position, or if
it's a car you can actually drive. And whether it fulfils the various claims
(15 minute charging combined with the claimed range seems something worth
shouting about, even apart from the rest of the car)

~~~
josefresco
Porsche doesn't f*ck around. It think the questions would be valid for a
start-up, but not one of the largest auto manufacturers in the world. Porsche
is also not a stranger to "electric" vehicles (see 918).

~~~
ZeroGravitas
It's enough of a stranger to fully electric cars to be announcing a concept
car for 5 years out that hasn't been confirmed for production, that doesn't
really seem to add anything new beyond emoticons and holographic eye-tracking
dashboard controls.

Given the apparent disruptive nature of this change to existing car companies
that cling to their ICE engine technology as their reason for existing, I'd
probably be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to some random new
entrant created by a Chinese battery manufacturer or Netflix competitor who
don't have such a big stake in the status quo.

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bane
This is excellent news, it means that VW is testing the electric car waters.
While Tesla has to trickle down all of its technology into wholly new cars, VW
can trickle down consumer level stuff into electric VWs (and yes, I know about
the e-golf but it only goes 83 miles on a charge and isn't even the blip the
Nissan Leaf is).

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mzs
Sorry air heads, it's water cooled:

[http://www.porscheengineering.com/filestore.aspx/Porsche-
Eng...](http://www.porscheengineering.com/filestore.aspx/Porsche-Engineering-
Magazine-02-2014-Le-Mans-%E2%80%93-Battery-Development-for-
the-919-Hybrid.pdf?pool=peg&type=download&id=pemagazin-02-2014-artikel-lemans-
batterieentwicklungfuerden919hybrid&lang=en&filetype=default&version=3e549e9a-c26c-11e4-a19d-001a64c55f5c)

(seriously now though - nice document about the 919 hybrid)

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braythwayt
An excellent essay about "concept" products, including (of course) cars:

Why Apple doesn't do "Concept Products"

[http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-
products/](http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/)

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6stringmerc
Kidding here, but after a few hypercar Porsche 918s caught fire being refueled
because somebody thought it'd be just fine to put the gas filler next to an
exhaust port, I'd be interested to see how they deal with electricity.

