An All-Electric Porsche?
 

Where would this fit in our battle of Turbo's vs. NAs?

A Tesla fighter from Porsche? | Canoe

Probably going to happen someday (despite my dismay). But not while gas is less than $3/gallon.

No reason to not just shove an engine under there too. Even if it's small like the i8s 3 cylinder. Let's get the lmp1 v4 in a supped up panamera e-hybrid!

Used to get upset about Porsche making SUV's but I'm over it. Electric, whatever as long as the exhaust note sounds great.

I think the full horror of the running costs of hybrid and battery powered vehicles is yet to surface because they're all so new.

I'm sure most people have experienced how pathetic the battery life gets on their mobile phone after a couple of years. Who's going to enjoy the cost taking their car in for it's 60K battery replacement service?

I wouldn't touch any of these cars, and I can only imagine how unpopular they'll be as second hand buys once they get a few years old and make their way down the food chain.

Who knows what the future holds when it comes to R/D. What you are scared of now, people where scared of way back when when it came to what we have today. TImes change, technology improves, many parts become dramatically cheaper (heck, look at big screen tvs). The Prius has been out for some time and it sells quite well in resale. Batteries are expensive....but will quickly drop in price as technology and more demand (and therefore, a most likely drop in production costs) continue. When you can save a thousand or two in gas over the course of a year.....the batteries ain't so expensive anymore.

Personally I'm not scared of this technology, I just think it's essentially a complicated sticking plaster solution to what is basically non problem.

Batteries are always going to be less efficient than an engine that burns fuel directly. Until a car can run completely on recovered energy :) they're not really doing very much apart from increasing the cost of manufacture, and using up rare earth metals at a rate of knots.

Now that oil fracking is here, there is not likely to be an immediate shortage of oil, and as for global warming, ha!

You are right about technology moving on, and long term I expect Fusion Power to come along, which will make an alternative fuel to petrol (when needed) possible to synthesise, or maybe the hydrogen storage problem will be solved, who knows. Either way, all this investment in batteries and renewables is just dead money IMHO.

Why not? The Tesla was the safest car ever tested. Families are a big target for the Pana and Cayene. And Tesla owners are wild about them.
On the performance side, the 918 obliterated the production car record in large part because of E-power.
On the tech side, the typical Porsche buyer (in the U.S. at least) is equal parts educated and wealthy with a great interest in engineering and science... and gadgetry. If a small start up like Tesla can now sell as many Model S cars as Porsche sold cars in NA during 2009 economic crisis, then surely Porsche can whip up something great too.

p.s.
The cost of battery replacement will fall dramatically in the near term. The capacity is increasing quickly, the size of the batteries themselves are shrinking and intense competition in the market from Asia will commoditize prices just like GPS devices, digital cameras and smartphones. You'll be able to buy a spare electric car battery for peanuts before you know it.

+1 Amen brother, totally agree.

Yeah, for some reason it doesn't always work out that way. I'd say the jury is still out on EV's.

http://i1114.photobucket.com/albums/...ps870dd2e3.jpg

PL, not sure what TechBuzz Magazines you are reading but when that almost-free energy days will come you and I both will for sure be driving turbo 'wheelchairs'. You could be right but it doesn't look as promising as you are describing (peanuts lolll). I say fusion energy will come way before you get your battery pack for cheap - but then at that point of life what's mine is also yours mate so who will care lol

Can't wait until automakers finds the tech to effectively travel light years, that'd catch my attention. Batteries pfff... still needs a great deal to recharge doesn't it. Useless, we're doomed lolll

^ it will be that quick. Tesla decided to break from the herd and offer a different solution in packaging the batteries by skipping the large format li-ion packs that were so expensive in previous "green" cars and instead pack together thousands of small batteries much like in your gadgets and cellphones. If you're someone who has been buying these batteries over the years you've seen a real sea change in how cheap these batteries are now and how much better they are. For instance I carry eight 3,200 mAh aftermarket batteries for my Samsung phone in my laptop bag, I don't really plug the phone into the wall anymore, I have full use of the phone at all times by simply swapping in one of my spares whenever the battery gets down to 15%. Despite being able to last about a day or day and half, each of those 3,200 mAh spares are only the width of three credit cards. The manufacturers see plenty of demand and the intense competition for that business has driven down the costs to the point where each battery runs about $8 retail, probably $1-2 wholesale. That's cheaper than a pack of of double A Energizers that go right in the trash bin after they're spent. Tesla packaging the batteries this way was a genius move. They want to sell cars, not batteries. A task that will be made easier by being partnered with Panasonic.
And it's not just the Tesla Gigafactories, everything we use today will need more efficient and centralized battery production to drive down costs. For everything from iPad to iCar. Where there is a need there will be eager investors and excellent managers to re-think how the market demand is met just like Henry Ford did with his assembly line. Same thing WILL happen with batteries because there's simply too much darn money to make. If Musk pulls this off that will probably make him richer than anything he's done before. Meanwhile everyone else is asleep. Except maybe Porsche.

You mean for the next few months? :confused:

Electric is the future. Period.
As I've always said, some are just scared of change and advancement and will never admit that they're afraid. It is absolutely 100% no different then the guys who were scared of the horseless carriage and wanted to keep their horse-drawn buggies.

Battery tech is going to explode over the next decade. Increased capacity, decreased size and cost.

That's all I have to say and I'm going to check out of this thread. I'm not going to debate the topic because there is nothing to debate. :D

You still have one of those? I finally tossed mine about a year ago. LOL

You mean you tossed out your smartphone??
The Palm Pilot and Handsrping Visor was the modern smartphone. Ahead of its time because wireless networks for this kind of thinking weren't even ready yet.

Palm just needed someone who was a little pushier about development and presentation like Steve Jobs. The PP had touch screen, rows of icons, ESPN and Yahoo mail, wireless beaming of files to other devices. I even used this app called Handango where I would push the synch button and all the content up to that minute for all the websites I frequented were copied onto the palm pilot so I could read it on the go. Just like Pulse or Flipboard on your Android or iPhone now. Some 8 or 9 years before the iPhone or iPad was even uttered. Only place you could get iTunes on an actual phone was on that Motorola Rokr no one bothered with.

Keep dreaming my friend, can't stop you on that loll

You are possibly right for now. However when you'll have 51% of the transport industry rolling on batts you'll see your GOV and most others setting up their great tariffs as they always do, anti-dumping, firm policies, and I pass tons of others that leads to the common monopoly of energy - in what ever forms it will be.

When any of that happens crude oil should cost approximately the same as H2O but then.... you'll be forbidden to burn it for various reasons. And then you think your batts will be cost effective and be recharged for near free money?! Be serious please

Electric is in favor to GOVs, not our societies. Automakers are just little white sheep mate... go figure why they receive large federal funding and why energy companies gets help out of their bankruptcies. Meeehhhh!

Not my smartphone silly, my old palm pilot. It had no phone function, no wifi. Just a electronic Filofax with extra stuff. It was pretty cool in its day, about 16 years ago

Electric is in favor with consumers, or anyone who favors energy costs that are more predictable and less prone to volatile swings and cartel mischief. Most any modern economy can make electricity cheaply which makes the issue of whether it is cleaner irrelevant. Nobody is trying to save the planet in earnest, but nearly all want to drive out the uncertainty in costs from energy sources that largely based on speculative demand (and always will be).
If you look at the history of business, once a more predictable option emerges in a feasible way, it takes over. Look at these guys drilling oil out of the ground, one year they're popping champagne the next year they have more rigs sitting dormant than at any time in decades. Business likes certainty. And it just so happens that single largest economy in the world is the Saudi Arabia of electricity-making coal. On the one hand you have gigafactories making batteries and on the other side you have all that coal. Sooner or later consumers and business will figure it out. This cheap oil isn't going to last.

what you were too cool for the Treo? :D

Palm Pilot anyone?