Porsche Design Chief Believes A Fully Electric 911 Is Achievable

Earlier this year, Porsche’s CEO, Oliver Blume, stated that the 911 would be the last model to go electric “if it ever did at all”. However, that hasn’t stopped Porsche’s design chief Michael Mauer from envisioning and talking about the design of a fully electric 911, even though it would be highly unlikely for such a variant to be introduced before 2030.

Blume had stated that the concept of the 911 “doesn’t allow a fully electric car because we have the engine in the rear”. Mauer confirmed that the iconic silhouette of the 911 is not going anywhere, however the rear-engined layout limitation doesn’t seem to worry him at all, stating that an electric powertrain gives designers more freedom.

Read Also: Porsche Says 911 Will Be Its Last Car To Get An Electric Drivetrain, If It Ever Gets One At All

Porsche’s head of design told Autocar that he is more worried about the limitations in future combustion engines, such as the packaging of the exhaust system due to the increasingly strict emission regulations. He said that in 10-15 years, a rear overhang should be “almost two meters” in order to fit all the necessary equipment, adding that “purely from a design standpoint, an electric 911 is even easier in the future”.

Mauer admitted that “differing opinions” are part of Porsche’s culture and in the end, this is what leads to the best solutions, reminding the evolution from air-cooled to water-cooled and turbocharged engines. He believes that the traditional sound of the flat-six engine is not 100 percent of the car’s character, since styling, handling, and performance are also important factors of the 911 experience.

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While Mauer and his team already have a vision for a future fully electric 911, he sounded skeptical on when it would be the right time to put it out in the market: “We will see. Maybe with the next generation, we still can do a combustion-engine 911. I don’t know. As a designer, we will find solutions.”

We might not see a BEV variant of the 911 anytime soon, but it seems that Porsche is getting ready to electrify its iconic model. A hybrid 911 Turbo prototype was spotted testing at the Nurburgring a few months ago, hinting at a more powerful derivative. The current 992 generation that debuted in 2018 has been engineered with the capacity of electrification in both mild-hybrid and plug-in hybrid forms.