The Porsche Mission E Sports Car Truly Electrifies
The first question that will spring to mind when you set your eyes on the Porsche Mission E Concept will probably be: what precisely is it? While it’s clear that this is a member of the Porsche family, there are also enough visual cues to suggest that this is something unfamiliar. The answer, quite simply, is that the Mission E Concept represents the brand’s first all-electrically powered, four-seat sports car.
Even in concept form, the Mission E tag has a not-so-subtle likeness to the title of that action-packed, iconic movie series (Mission Impossible, if classical musicals are your thing and you didn’t quite get the reference). Read on, and you will see why this association is entirely appropriate, for just as agent Ethan Hunt appears to defy the laws of physics as he scales skyscrapers and leaps from cars to motorbikes whilst evading the clutches of madmen, so too does the Mission E achieve impossible feats with a drivetrain that has never before been seen.
Let’s start with a few eye-popping numbers:
With its 800-volt drive system, the Mission E offers double the voltage of many other electrically powered vehicles. This has several clear advantages, including vastly improved charging times. Making use of the Porsche Turbo Charging system, you’ll get to about an 80% full charge after just 15 minutes. A total driving range of over 500 kilometers (or about 310 miles) is also achievable; intriguingly, this is just enough to leave the Porsche Headquarters in Atlanta, blast down to catch a concert at the Grand Ole Opry House, and return to Atlanta to do a few laps on the Porsche Driving Experience track…with a couple dozen miles left on the charge!
Speed Machine
New from the ground up, the drive system makes use of two permanent magnetic synchronous motors to realize a power output of over 600 hp, enough to see you streak to 60mph in under 3.5 seconds. Adds a new flavor to the term “struck by a bolt of lightning”, doesn’t it? The system also overcomes a major electric car shortfall: it can achieve maximum power even after multiple accelerations over short intervals.
A Pretty Picture…Inside and Out
But before even accessing the vast spread of mechanical abilities under the svelte skin of the Mission E concept, you’ll probably need just as much time to take in its exterior design. A low height of just over 51 inches, futuristic, deep-set matrix LED headlights and counter-opening doors (minus the presence of a B-pillar) add up to an engrossing overall effect. Its greatest achievement is perhaps that it manages to be distinctively Porsche and yet something radically different at the same time. 
The view from the driver’s seat is as you would expect of a concept, which is to say jaw-dropping. While the five round dials are still nestled in the instrument cluster, here they appear virtually, using organic light-emitting diodes (OLED). There is also a holographic display integrated into the dashboard, coupled with touch-free gesture control. In fact, only the steering wheel seems to have survived the sci-fi treatment, being similar enough in its design to versions used in other Porsche models.
As Porsche literally charges ahead of the competition with the Mission E concept, will we see this pioneering sports car on the road anytime soon in production form? Let’s just say, it’s not impossible.