On the afternoon of September 14, 2015, Porsche released a surprising announcement: the Porsche Mission E, the first pure electric concept sports car, was officially announced.
At that time, I did not have much research on Porsche electric cars, but this news attracted me to browse the website for more than an hour. The reason behind it is superficial yet real: the design of Mission E is extremely beautiful, and even an ordinary person who does not understand cars can easily feel the popular and understandable sense of future beauty of this car, not to mention car enthusiasts like me.
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At the Frankfurt Auto Show that followed, the Mission E concept car inevitably became the top model of the current auto show, and it is still, to this day, the best pure electric concept car in my mind, second to none in terms of design.
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At the time, Porsche set several challenging goals for Mission E:
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Accelerate from 0 to 100 km/h in under 3.5 seconds, and from 0 to 200 km/h in less than 12 seconds;
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Max power exceeding 440 kW (600 horsepower), range exceeding 500 km;
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Fastest charging time to travel 400 km in just 15 minutes;
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Breaking into 8 minutes for the fastest lap speed record on the Nürburgring race track.In 2019, the production model Taycan of the Mission E, which Porsche set goals they all achieved, was officially put into production. In terms of vehicle performance, it even exceeded expectations. There were two factors that people often talked about that helped the Taycan achieve these goals. One was the rarely seen two-speed transmission in electric vehicles, and the other was the ahead-of-its-time 800 V high-voltage electrical system.
Recently, at a technical seminar organized by Porsche, the technical content of the Taycan’s three-electric aspects was further explained. During the seminar, I began to have a further understanding of this car.
When it comes to the 800 V electrical system, people may immediately think of some pure electric new cars that independent brands will soon launch. In the Chinese market where the awareness of new energy is gradually popularized with the increasing penetration rate, high-voltage fast charging has become one of the consensus directions for the development of the industry.
Therefore, it must be said that the decision to plan for 800 V mass production since the Mission E seven years ago was a very forward-looking decision.
Under Taycan’s 800 V high-voltage system, the vehicle’s maximum charging power can reach 270 kW. In addition, this 800 V system can also achieve higher sustained charging power, and charging with more than 200 kW of high power can last until SOC is near 60%. One of the keys to increasing sustained power is that under the same power, the current decreases as the voltage increases, and the heat generated by the internal resistance of the system also decreases accordingly.
The 800 V electrical system brings higher charging speed to Taycan, and also achieves better vehicle integration and lightweight goals: doubling the voltage under the same power can reduce the current by 50%, and the heating of cable’s internal resistance I²R can therefore be reduced to 1/4 of the original. The internal resistance R of the cable is inversely proportional to its cross-sectional area, so under the same heating limit condition, the cross-sectional area of the cable under the 800 V system is only 1/4 of that under the 400 V system.
According to Porsche’s development engineers, Taycan has achieved a 50% reduction in cable weight, with a quantified data of about 15-20 kg, including the additional boost charging module for matching 400 V chargers.
For ordinary readers, this data may not seem like much, but friends who often play performance cars should know that performance brands like Porsche have very high requirements for lightweighting, and it is almost necessary to use special lightweight materials in some key areas to achieve a 10 kg or more weight reduction, such as carbon fiber roof and carbon-ceramic brakes. The 800 V high-voltage system has achieved such an effect this time.
The boost module mentioned above is the consideration Taycan made for charging adaptability, to ensure that Taycan can also be charged through voltage matching using boost module on 400 V DC chargers, and the charging power could be higher than other 400 V electrical system vehicles under the same charging current limit, reaching 150 kW.
Another thing related to adaptation is the charging interface of Taycan. As a global model, Taycan needs to provide five different charging interface solutions for markets in China, the US, Europe, and Japan. The additional set of interfaces is due to the fact that Europe has both left- and right-hand drive, and Porsche has adjusted the charging port direction accordingly.
The advantages of the 800V electrical system can be summarized as follows: lighter weight, faster charging, and more sustained high-power output, which brings significant value in terms of product performance and user experience. However, the upgrade of the 800V electrical system is systemic, requiring the redevelopment of the following components:
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Drive motor
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Inverter
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Power battery
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Vehicle air conditioning
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OBC
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DCDC
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High-voltage harness
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High-voltage charging head
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High-voltage charging station
Back when Taycan was born, the new energy industry was not as booming as today. There were few supporting suppliers for the 800V system, and Porsche engineers commented that at that time, many high-voltage appliances did not have corresponding power semiconductors to adapt, which brought many challenges to Taycan’s development.
For the power battery part, Taycan adopts specialized soft-pack 3-element lithium-ion batteries developed by LG Chemical. There are a total of 396 battery cells in the pack, with a single cell capacity of 64.6 Ah and a maximum voltage of 4.2V. Every 2 cells are connected in parallel, and 6 cell pairs are connected in series to form a module, with a total of 33 modules. The highest voltage of the battery system can reach 835 V.
The final capacity of Taycan’s 800 V battery pack is 93.4 kWh, and the maximum output power of the system is 620 kW. If you are curious why there are two gaps in the battery pack in the middle of the following figure, which are not filled intentionally to accommodate the foot space for the passengers at the rear by Taycan. In recent years, Lucid Motors, the pure electric brand focusing on the ultra-luxury market, has also followed this design in its own cars.
Porsche-style electric drive system
Porsche has a great reputation in the project of “launch control” that can directly reflect the acceleration performance. In addition to the precise start-up torque control and its own acceleration ability, the continuous high-performance stability of Porsche is also widely known. For example, the continuous launch of Porsche’s PDK transmission in fuel vehicles is often talked about by car enthusiasts.
However, the performance decline of electric vehicles is not only due to system overheating, but also due to battery power reduction. Taycan has achieved the following results: Porsche officially conducted 28 consecutive 0-200 km/h acceleration tests on Taycan at the Lausitzring, with the time for every acceleration less than 10 seconds, and the difference between the first and the last acceleration was less than 1 second.
Porsche uses a very rare electric drive combination on Taycan, and the electric drive system located on the rear axle has the following parameters:
- Maximum power 335 kW, maximum speed 16,000 rpm;- Hairpin winding with higher slot fill ratio (improved from 45% to 70%) for better cooling efficiency;
- Top speed of 260 km/h;
- Apart from power exceeding 300 kW, this electric drive system is also equipped with two-speed transmission. The second gear enables the vehicle to have higher efficiency in high-speed cruising and reach a higher top speed.
The dual-clutch transmission uses a multi-plate clutch, ensuring uninterrupted power output during gear changes. In order to improve the integration of the system, a planetary gear reducer is used in the shifting mechanism.
Because Taycan itself is a performance-oriented electric car, Porsche considered the working conditions of unlimited-speed highways in Germany during the development phase. The electric drive system needs to reduce the temperature as much as possible under high-power operation to minimize the power attenuation caused by demagnetization. Porsche used a water-cooling system in the electric drive system, which has excellent heat dissipation ability. In addition to the previously mentioned continuous acceleration from 0 to 200 km/h 28 times without significant performance degradation, Taycan can also travel for a long time at 260 km/h on unlimited-speed highways.
Even more representative is the on-board video of Taycan Turbo S at the Nürburgring, where its maximum speed on a straight was higher than the top speed and horsepower of the Model S Plaid, yet it was still faster.
For Taycan’s thermal management system, Porsche also considered redundancy and stability in various working conditions. The vehicle’s compressor power reaches 10 kW. In more performance-oriented driving modes, the system prioritizes performance as a higher priority to ensure that the battery can output high power at any time, thus moderately sacrificing some efficiency.
Despite this, Porsche still hopes to improve the energy efficiency of Taycan during daily driving. The system has multiple heat pump circuits, and the vehicle’s heat pump will transfer the heat from certain parts of the system to where it is needed, such as:
- Circuit one: Waste heat to battery heating.
- Circuit two: Battery waste heat to air conditioning.
- Circuit three: Air conditioning to battery heating (the heat used to heat the battery is stored and then reversed to heat other systems when needed).
Due to the very strict design standards of Taycan’s battery system, temperatures above -30℃ have little impact on the battery’s lifespan, so the thermal management system does not work when the vehicle is parked.
9 years of development, 6 million kilometers of road testing
As the group’s first high-performance electric vehicle, Porsche has invested a substantial amount of resources in Taycan’s development. In terms of funding and manpower, the R&D investment of the Taycan project reached 6 billion euros, and the R&D team exceeded 1,000 people.
Taycan’s technical origins can be traced back to Porsche’s 919 Hybrid race car in the Le Mans race, where the high torque and low latency of electric drive systems made Porsche realize the trend of high-performance electric vehicles. Subsequently, Porsche began to develop and later unveiled the Mission E prototype.
As Porsche targets the global market and Taycan is equipped with many forward-looking technologies at the time, the entire mass production, testing, and validation process was lengthy in order to present this product to the market in a highly polished and stable state.During the development process, Porsche conducted tests on the Taycan in over 30 countries including the Arabian Desert, the frigid region of Finland, various racetracks and mountain roads that Porsche frequents, and some extremely challenging environments that people rarely encounter. The total test mileage exceeded 6 million kilometers, and the charging cycle exceeded 100,000 times.
In the industry, regardless of whether it is an electric vehicle or not, achieving a test mileage of 6 million kilometers is an amazing milestone.
In order to prove the durability and stability of the vehicle, Porsche also conducted a 24-hour endurance race test on the Taycan at the Nürburgring test track, covering a distance of 3,425 km in one day while including charging time.
It is quite surprising to spend nine years developing an electric car. In the emerging new energy vehicle sector, the development of a car usually takes 2 to 3 years, including related content on assisted driving software and hardware.
The reason why Porsche spent several times more time on the Taycan project is mainly because the Taycan is a flagship product designed to be sold globally and integrated with various new technologies. Therefore, its workload is much greater than that of companies that only sell domestically or primarily sell domestically.
At the same time, the new product’s reliability and performance must meet both the Porsche standard and electric vehicle standards, and ensure that it continues to lead in the marketplace for some time after its launch, achieving a connection between “Porsche” and “electric”.
Global Safety \& Precise Range Display
After discussing the performance and technological aspects, let’s talk about the fundamentals of Taycan as an electric vehicle, which are the body, battery system and driving range.
In terms of the body, the Taycan uses a steel-aluminum hybrid structure. The top of the front suspension tower is a cast component, and high-strength hot-formed steel is used both longitudinally and laterally on the chassis, while the outer cover and some parts of the vehicle are made of aluminum alloy to achieve lightweight design.In recent years, new car companies have been popularly using large-scale automotive die-castings. Although Taycan does not adopt an integrated front and rear body structure, two larger castings are actually used in the rear body part of the vehicle.
In addition to the hot-formed steel on the chassis and the battery pack, each of the 33 cell modules in the Taycan battery pack uses extruded aluminum shells, which provides the cell with secondary mechanical protection.
The structural strength of the battery pack used in Taycan itself is not low. To connect the battery pack with the white body, Porsche uses 28 bolts to lock the strong battery pack to the body, which helps to increase the body’s rigidity.
In terms of specific data, the static torsional rigidity of Taycan is 40,600 N·m, but for a performance car, static torsional rigidity is not that important. The dynamic torsional performance will more affect the dynamic response of the vehicle, and Taycan’s dynamic torsional performance is very outstanding.
In terms of collision safety, since it is a global model, Taycan has passed almost all mainstream collision safety tests worldwide.
The dynamic range display has always been a focus of attention for European car manufacturers. For electric vehicle users, the accuracy of the displayed remaining range actually has a considerable impact on drivers’ range anxiety. After all, when you don’t know how far your car can actually go, your confidence and sense of security during the journey will undoubtedly decrease significantly.
Porsche’s strategy for Taycan is to incorporate as many factors that affect the range as possible, making the calculation of the remaining range display as meticulous as possible.
In the absence of vehicle navigation, the vehicle references three main pieces of information: driving mode, average mileage consumption, and other electrical consumption.
Under the premise of having navigation, the system will also take into account traffic conditions, terrain (such as uphill), congestion, and driver habits.
Therefore, it can be said that the displayed remaining range of Taycan takes into account the main factors affecting energy consumption during the journey, and the impact of these factors on the actual range will ultimately be calculated by the system. Therefore, even though Taycan’s range is not top-notch, it is unlikely to experience mid-way power outage due to excessively optimistic displayed range.
Taycan and Porsche’s Road to Electrification
Under the trend of electrification, almost all car manufacturers are launching their own electric vehicles. What makes Taycan special is that it is one of the very few electric vehicle models that can continue to sell well in the high-end market among traditional car manufacturers.
The market performance of the 2021 Porsche Taycan far exceeded expectations, achieving the group’s sales target nearly half a year in advance. During this period, Porsche Group was understaffed and had to “borrow people” from Audi’s production line to ensure the production of the Taycan model. The total sales volume in 2021 was 41,296 units, surpassing 911 and Panamera in the same year to become Porsche’s best-selling non-SUV model.The closest competing model to Taycan is Tesla Model S.
The advanced 800 V electrical architecture and Porsche’s level of driving and reliability performance undoubtedly contribute to Taycan’s market success. However, as an electric car, Taycan’s design is the most noteworthy factor for its success.
Porsche cleverly combines its brand’s iconic elements with its electric concept in Taycan. At first glance, Taycan feels like a beautiful Porsche, rather than surprising or uncomfortable. Any person who knows a bit about cars could identify that this is not a cheap car before even seeing the Porsche logo. In this aspect, Taycan is similar to Model S.
Returning to the discussion of electric cars, Taycan’s technical layout still has Porsche’s distinctive characteristics – prioritizing track driving performance.
Although Taycan falls far behind the Model S Plaid in terms of power, it uses wheels with significantly higher specifications than the latter. The impact of large-sized, wide-width tires on electric car’s range is significant and direct, but the performance gains brought by it can only be felt during intense driving at the car’s limit. Taycan sacrificed other more intuitive aspects for performance. Taycan’s performance sustainability under high-load conditions is also reflected in its emphasized heat dissipation performance loss, which affects system space utilization and energy efficiency under certain working conditions.
I am not convinced that Porsche’s trade-offs in this area are necessarily correct, but Porsche’s racing genes have become the brand’s selling point and premium. Every Porsche model boasts the Nürburgring lap record, even though many of Porsche’s users do not buy this car for its performance and track driving. However, it must be admitted that Porsche remains a master in this regard.
ConclusionIn the future, if Porsche’s Taycan wants to compete with the new wave of electric car manufacturers, it won’t be enough to rely on specs alone. The unprecedented acceleration potential of electric cars has raised the bar, with countless models capable of zero to sixty mph in three seconds or less, and even electric cars with horsepower levels of up to 1,000 waiting in the wings.
Even though Porsche’s Taycan boasts a 16,000 rpm electric motor, it’s no longer considered a standout feature in today’s Chinese market. Porsche’s Mission R racing car is set to feature a direct cascade oil-cooled electric motor, which is already being used in many domestically produced electric cars.
Does this mean that the three-part electric system of the Taycan is inferior to that of these domestically produced electric cars?
Not exactly. Even if the Taycan doesn’t have the highest motor rpms or uses water-cooled electric motors, it remains the most powerful production electric car in the world when it comes to track performance. The key to this lies in the fact that water-cooling and high RPMS don’t always correspond to better performance, as there are varying degrees of quality associated with water-cooling.
It’s like the difference between a typical dual-clutch transmission and Porsche’s PDK dual-clutch transmission – there’s a clear difference in quality.
This is why the Taycan Turbo S, despite having:
- 250 fewer horsepower than the Model S Plaid
- slower acceleration than the Model S Plaid
- a top speed 60 km/h lower than the Model S Plaid
- a weight nearly 100 kg heavier than the Model S Plaid
can finish laps at the Nurburgring faster than the Model S Plaid.
Therefore, Porsche is intrinsically disadvantaged in terms of electric car marketing. Despite being proud of its track performance, Porsche’s vehicles are niche and don’t sufficient appeal to promote the Taycan.The best strategy for Porsche is to stick to its selling points and adopt a relaxed attitude towards the parameter war in the field of electric vehicles. Porsche should make its Taycan’s updated models and future electric cars as stunningly beautiful and easy to drive as possible. Then, Porsche should attach enough Porsche labels to these models, such as the ability for continuous acceleration and track lap times.
This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.