Porsche 718 Electric Watch Party LOL

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spy videos date as far back as a year ago so it is DEEP into development and can’t be very far off ( spy shots below are camouflaged but give a good idea )

i want to use this thread to aggregate information about it as i think it will be a very important vehicle …

it will essentially be the original Tesla Roadster ( which itself was a modified Lotus ) returning back to life as a genuine Porsche … this is a big deal.

unlike Tesla Roadster 2.0 this isn’t vaporware - this is happening - and it will start under six figures …

https://www.caranddriver.com/porsche/718-ev

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some spy videos

New Electric Porsche Boxster (test car) in Marbella

2025 Porsche Boxster EV Electric Sports Car Testing With Sound

2025 Porsche 983 Boxster EV Prototype Continues Testing At The Nürburgring In New Video Footage

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Chris Harris drives Prototype Race version of Electric 718

Chris Harris Drives The New Porsche GT4 ePerformance

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so a few notes from that Chris Harris videos:

1 - that prototype is All-Wheel-Drive

2 - instead of under the floor battery it uses a battery where the engine used to be ( rear ) and another where the fuel tank used to be ( front ), plus an extra battery in place of the passenger since this is a 1-seater race car.

3 - harris said this prototype is a marketing exercise for the upcoming 718

also Porsche said electric 718 is coming “mid-decade” ( so 2025 ? )

Porsche Electric Macan, 718, and Cayenne Announcement

anyway Porsche is clearly taking this seriously. where Taycan was their electric GT the 718 will be their electric Sports Car and 911 will simply remain as it is - an ICE Sports Car.

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i am going to go ahead and guess the 718 EV will have 3 batteries

1 - front in place of fuel tank
2 - rear in place of engine
3 - center in the tunnel ( where Volvo and Karma Automotive put it )

from the image above you can see even the old ICE cayman already had good space in the center tunnel for a battery, so i don’t see why they wouldn’t put it there.

volvo PHEV fits 18 kwh battery there plus the exhaust underneath it. since EV would have no exhaust it could easily fit larger 25 kwh in there plus say another 20 in the front and 35 in the rear for a total of 80 KHW which would be right about how much you would want for this size of car.

this way Porsche should be able to use the same chassis for both EV and ICE Caymans and they said they will be making both. this is the strategy used by BMW that builds both EV and ICE on same platform for the new 5 series.

it worked great for BMW because usually EVs are made with crap interiors but BMW i5 has regular BMW interior and the Cayman EV should have regular Cayman Interior as well, which is great ( it will be from next-gen Cayman obviously, not current gen ).

the interior seen in spy shot i used in 1st post of this thread looks similar to what is in the new Panamera and Taycan - a huge upgrade from current Cayman. very nice.

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i estimate the 718 EV will weigh 4,000 lbs or about 1,000 lbs lighter than both Taycan and Model S.

i also estimate it will have about 700 hp.

so it will have same power to weight ratio as Plaid and 2025 Taycan but will be faster around the track because on the track it’s more important to be light than powerful.

case in point ICE Cayman ( Naturally Aspirated 6 cylinder ) is 20 seconds faster around Nurburgring than Panamera ( twin turbo V8 ) despite being slower i a straight line. expect the same to hold true for Cayman EV vs Taycan.

i estimate range on Cayman will be a bit less than on Taycan. about 250 miles for Cayman vs 300 for Taycan.

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Harris also said the E-Performance Cayman has 52 front / 48 rear weight distribution

this is as compared to 44 front / 56 rear for ICE cayman

but the E-Performance has extra battery in passenger footwell that production can’t have ( if it wants to seat a passenger ! ) so the final production Cayman will have roughly 50/50 weight distribution, like the Taycan. that’s good but it was expected.

0-60 should be maybe just a touch slower than new Taycan ( because no 2-speed gearbox ) and Plaid ( because Cayman is not about 0-60 ) but braking distance should be shorter by about 15-20 feet ( because 1,000 lbs lighter ).

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here it is charging:

anyway i am reminded of what designer of Corvette E-Ray said to Jay Leno - he said that for convertible to have chassis stiffness they needed a center tunnel and since they already had that they figured might as well put a battery in there …

so i figure since Cayman is based on Boxster convertible and has the same kind of tunnel for the same reason they may as well also put a battery in there like E-Ray, Volvo and Karma Automotive all do … plus the other two batteries front and rear proportioned to dial in the exact weight distribution needed which should be trivially simple …

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one thing i noticed between new 718 and old

is that the rear wheels on the new one seem to have been pushed back by about 2 inches …

so the 718 keeps climbing up the food chain from a Poor man’s Porsche to a serious machine …

and also i literally noticed it JUST NOW - check out the size of rear brake rotors on the new 718 ! ! ! they are legit DOUBLE the size of the ones on the old Cayman. this is of course due to the weight of the battery on rear wheels, which is also why the rear wheels had to be pushed back for better balance.

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Porsche doesnt fuck around, Tesla Plaid has tiny breaks by the way - they will literally cook after being used once or twice hard.

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yeah Teslas aren’t track cars. they are Muscle cars. even Joe Rogan called his Model S a Muscle Car.

a Muscle car only needs to brake once at the end of 1/4 mile run. a track car needs to brake on every corner.

of course i don’t plan to take my car to the Track ever so technically Tesla brakes would have been fine for me, i just want to see better attitude from an automaker LOL

the upcoming 911 Hybrid should be good for you. it won’t have a plug and will put performance over efficiency.

i think the current Corvette Hybrid should give you an idea of what that 911 Hybrid will be like. hopefully unlike the Corvette the 911 will not turn off the AC whenever the engine stops ! That was a major fuck up by General Motors.

the 911 should really benefit from the hybrid system because it would put more weight on the front wheels assuming the battery goes into the transmission tunnel, like where it is in both my Volvo and the Corvette E-Ray.

so that yellow thing in the shifter area …

it’s the perfect size for a hybrid battery good for about 150 hp. then just put electric motor on front wheels, same as in both Corvette E-Ray and the last Acura NSX. although Porsche might integrate it into the transmission like on Panamera and Cayenne.

regardless, the electric motor is basically like two extra cylinders. in every car i looked at the hybrid variant has comparable performance to gas variant with two more cylinders.

personally i want a car with a plug, but for you a car without a plug would probably be better - lighter battery, cheaper to replace as well. compared to ICE 911 it will be faster and more efficient, and if you want the car to make noise you would be able to put it into sport mode and that would keep the engine always on if you want to.

from what i read about Panamera hybrid the electric motor pretty much eliminates any turbo lag, because it gives you full torque instantly and from 0 rpm. obviously the implementation on 911 may be different but Porsche isn’t stupid so i’m sure they will figure out how to get the most of it.