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Porsche Will Buck Convention With First EV Sportscar by Keeping It 'Mid-Engine'

Porsche is going hard against the grain with its upcoming 718 EV sports car by placing its "E-Core" battery pack behind the driver. 
Porsche Mission R 6 photos
Photo: Via Porsche
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Take a good long look around the electric vehicle space today and it's easy to see that almost every manufacturer is using the same general layout. Pioneered by Tesla, the "skateboard" layout as it's often called today places the battery pack underneath the vehicle.

This allows the heavy batteries to lower the center of gravity and thus improve handling, balance, and packaging. With no large battery pack in the main core of the vehicle, more space is left for people and things.

Porsche uses this same stratgey with the Taycan but they're taking a different approach for the upcoming 718 EV sports car. In a recent interview Michael Steiner, Porsche's Technical Chief, said that putting the battery that low would require the vehicle to be too tall.

“With a typical two-door sports car, you see the car is really low because to reduce drag you want the silhouette as low and flat as possible...To do that you should have the driver sitting as low as possible, and if you do that there is no space for a battery below the seat of the driver," Steiner was quoted as saying.

By placing the battery pack behind the driver and in front of the rear axle, the same space the current internal combuston engine takes up, Porsche can improve aerodynamics while maintaining good handling characteristics.

Since this is a sports car in the traditional sense, the additional cargo space given up by placing the battery in this configuration is less of a factor in design. Will this type of thinking crossover to a new electric 911 product? We doubt it.

Steiner also made it clear that Porsche prefers to keep the battery inside the central crash structure of the vehicle and so placing it in the same space where the 911 has its motor won't be possible. 
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