Porsche is fully committed to electrifying its lineup of models, with the exception of one: the iconic 911 sports car that the manufacturer will want to keep selling with an internal combustion engine for as long as that’s possible. The manufacturer is even looking at synthetic fuels as a means to make it happen in spite of all odds, but it now looks like that an electric 911 may be closer than we think.
Electrek quotes an article from Germany’s Manager Magazin where mentions are made about not only an electric 911 being in development, but also about the fact that it could actually be powered by a lithium metal solid state battery supplied by QuantumScape, a US-based battery manufacturer that Porsche’s parent company Volkswagen has the largest stake in.
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VW invested $100-million in QuantumScape in 2018 and then an additional $200-million in 2020. So far it has secured over $1-billion in additional funding, which it says it will use to try to come up with a solid state battery for automotive applications, and since VW is a main backer, it makes sense that the group will take advantage of this breakthrough when it will be made.
The source report points to the fact that this electric 911 would debut before the end of the decade, which could mean that we will have one more gas-burning 911 generation before Porsche switches it to electric. And yet Porsche CEO Oliver Blume said that a 911 BEV will never be created – he alluded to the fact that they will be hybrids, not fully electric.
However, if we look at Toyota, it plans to first put a solid state battery in the next-gen Prius for the first time and not in a pure EV. Maybe Porsche will try something similar, and this would be in-keeping with what CEO Blume said back in 2018, as well as Porsche’s officially announced plans to make hybrid 911s (the first of which are expected to be launched next year).
