What another U-turn in its electric vehicle plans would mean, Porsche The company will reportedly offer internal combustion engine (ICE)-powered versions of its next-generation 718 electric sports cars.
The currently fully electric fifth generation is scheduled to come onto the market in 2026 Boxster Roadster and fourth generation Cayman The coupé has already been presented as a concept and seen in development tests.
But now according to one Autocar They will also reportedly be converted to accommodate mid-engine petrol engines, like all previous Boxsters and Caymans, including the current 982 series, which introduced a new turbocharged four-cylinder boxer engine.
Production of the 982 models ended for Australia earlier this year and for other markets last month, but due to slowing demand for electric vehicles (EVs), Porsche announced in September that it would continue to sell “top ICE derivatives”, which could include the flagship 4.0-litre naturally aspirated six-cylinder GTS, Boxster Spyder RS and Cayman GT4 RS.
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At the time, Porsche said its “strategic realignment” to meet “new market realities” would include scaling back a number of its electric vehicle plans, including delaying the “Sport” version of Volkswagen Group’s Scalable Systems Platform.
The all-electric SSP Sport architecture would underpin an all-new seven-seat flagship SUV being developed by Porsche under the codename K1, and would serve as an all-electric replacement for the current Panamera and Taycan.
But with the SSP Sport platform now pushed back to sometime in the 2030s, the Porsche K1 will instead be powered by gasoline and hybrid powertrains, as will a new-generation Cayenne sold alongside the upcoming Cayenne Electric, and the third-generation Panamera, which was intended for electric vehicles only.
The latter is based on the same Platform Premium Electric (PPE) EV platform as the Macan Electric, which replaced the ICE Macan this year, but Porsche is currently developing a separate new mid-size SUV with petrol and hybrid powertrains.
It is codenamed M1 and is based on the same Platform Premium Combustion (PPC) platform that underlies the new Audi Q5. To get it into production more quickly, Porsche will reportedly use Audi’s front-biased all-wheel drive system rather than developing its own rear-biased setup like the original Macan.
Combined, the rollback of its electric vehicle plans and the development of new, unplanned ICE models cost Porsche €1.8 billion (AUD$3.2 billion).
Accordingly AutocarThe latest of these steps is the reverse engineering of the PPE Sport pure electric platform, developed for the new 718 electric sports cars, to accommodate a mid-engine.
Citing unnamed senior sources at Porsche’s Weissach engineering center, Autocar According to the statement, the plan aims to ensure maximum production efficiency and scale on key components.
One of the most radical powertrain reversals in Porsche history, mirroring a similar move with the facelifted Fiat 500 Hybrid, will lead to the addition of petrol variants of the upcoming fifth-generation 718 electric vehicles later this decade.
Porsche insiders told Autocar One of the challenges in developing ICE versions of the next-generation Boxster and Cayman electric vehicles – as opposed to reintroducing the ICE flagship current sports cars, which will only be stopgap models – was ensuring they matched the dynamic capabilities of their EV siblings.
Both the hardtop and softtop 718s feature a load-bearing battery pack as a load-bearing element behind the two seats, providing structural rigidity and allowing for a flat floor and, according to Porsche, an “extremely low center of gravity.”
Porsche’s solution reportedly consists of a new structural floor section that bolts into the platform’s existing mounting points, as well as a redesigned rear bulkhead and subframe to support the engine and transmission. However, the electrical architecture also lacks a fuel tank and exhaust system, which must also be housed in an entirely new rear section.
It is assumed that the watered-down Euro 7 emissions regulations, which originally required oversized exhaust particulate filters and aftertreatment devices and would have meant the end of Porsche’s 4.0-liter non-turbocharged boxer engine, as well as the exemption of e-fuels from the EU’s now delayed ICE ban for 2035, now make the business model for the new gasoline-powered sports cars viable.
“The electric Boxster and Cayman risked becoming niche. Euro 7 changed the arithmetic,” said a senior Porsche engineer Autocar.
MORE: Explore the Porsche 718 showroom
