It might be a high performance EV well out of the reach of the average punter, but that hasn’t stopped Porsche Australia from presenting Australians with the opportunity to preview the all-electric Mission E concept at the automaker’s popup Future Lab, located in Sydney’s Barangaroo.
The Mission E, which is a concept the German sports carmaker has designed in competition to other high specced EV brands such as Tesla, sports a thin, flat underbody battery that the luxury sports carmaker says will have a range of over 500km, allowing inductive charging as well as 350kW fast charging to recharge to 400km range in around 15 minutes.
On display at Exchange Place, Barangaroo until October 21, the supercharged EV boasts a massive 440kW of power output from two motors, and acceleration from 1-100km/hr in less than 3.5 seconds.
At the Future Lab there are also several speaker events that Australians interested in electric mobility trends can attend for free.
“Porsche is very excited to give Australians the first close-up look at the ‘Mission E’ concept study,” says Porsche Cars Australia Director of Marketing and Motorsport, Toni Andreevski.
Speaking to the press yesterday, Porsche Australia’s product and smart mobility director Ingo Appel confirmed that Australians will also see the production version of the Mission E, which will be known as the Taycan, arrive on our shores within 12 months of its international launch overseas.
The Taycan will feature a lot of the same technology as the Mission E concept, says Appel, including the 800 volt technology and performance figures.
In addition to confirming plans to bring the Taycan out to Australia, Appel also revealed that Porsche will install a network of EV charging sites on the east coast of Australia, as well as Adelaide and some parts of WA.
“We wish to ensure with the launch of Taycan that our future buyer has the likelihood to drive from Melbourne as much as Brisbane if they need to take action,” Appel says, adding that while the company is in discussion with a third party supplier of EV charging infrastructure that is yet to be announced, they hope to cut a deal that will allow an identical charging experience to that of European EV drivers using the European IONITY network.
If we had to make a guess, we’d say that means Tritium, who already supply ultra fast EV charging technology to the European charging network, may be coming on board to supply fast chargers to fire up Porsche’s charging network.
The sleek, all-electric production-spec Taycan has been named after the automaker’s logo, and means ‘lively young horse’, and is also the brand’s flagship electric vehicle.
While a price has not been announced for Australia for the Taycan, in the UK it is expected to ask a hefty £60,000-70,000 ($A110-130,000).
Bridie Schmidt is associate editor for The Driven, sister site of Renew Economy. She has been writing about electric vehicles since 2018, and has a keen interest in the role that zero-emissions transport has to play in sustainability. She has participated in podcasts such as Download This Show with Marc Fennell and Shirtloads of Science with Karl Kruszelnicki and is co-organiser of the Northern Rivers Electric Vehicle Forum. Bridie also owns a Tesla Model Y and has it available for hire on evee.com.au.