An all-electric Porsche 718 has been hinted at for years now, and it makes sense, given that the 718 is the smaller sibling of the 911 and was always going to go electric first. On Thursday, Porsche confirmed as much.
An electric 718 was actually supposed to be here by now, more or less, with Porsche saying in 2019 that it might get here by 2022. But that was before the pandemic, which prompted many a new car to get shelved or delayed. Now Porsche says that the electric 718 will get here by “mid-decade,” via The Drive.
“The Taycan is 100 percent a Porsche and inspires all kinds of people – existing and new customers, experts and the trade media. We are stepping up our electric offensive with another model,” [Porsche CEO Oliver Blume] said. “By the middle of the decade, we want to offer our mid-engine 718 sports car exclusively in an all-electric form.”
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He said that the company’s goal is to have 80 percent of its new cars be fully electric by 2030, and to have half be electric or hybrid by 2025. Evidently, that necessitates a move into fully electric sports cars, like the 718.
Bloomberg says that the electric 718 will be Porsche’s first two-seat EV, and also that the 911 will be going hybrid, but not plug-in electric, though the timeline for that is less certain. Porsche, of course, already makes the Taycan, which is all-electric, and which outsold the 911 last year globally, according to CNBC, with Porsche selling 41,296 Taycans and 38,464 911s, while the Macan is also going all-electric next year.
An all-electric 718 remains the headline here though, for my money, given that the Boxster and/or Cayman has always been the Porsche to buy for those with taste and/or those who have not sold their souls to the devil. An all-electric 718 even more so.