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Spyshots: Porsche Mission E Breaks Down in the Snow, Cayenne to the Rescue

As you've probably noticed yourself, all the spy shots we get during this period of the year have a mostly white background. That's because winter testing is best done in winter, as its name suggests, and since not even car manufacturers are influent enough to make it snow whenever they feel like, they're forced to ply their schedule to the weather's own wishes.
Porsche Mission E breakdown 8 photos
Photo: S. Baldauf/SB-Medien
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For electric cars, cold testing bears even more importance than for ICE vehicles since it's a well-known fact that the battery efficiency drops with the temperatures, giving manufacturers a good idea of the range their customers can expect during winter. So they can buff it a little for the official figures.

Well, it looks like Porsche's first all-electric car, the very eagerly-anticipated Mission E, did not enjoy its time near the Arctic Circle. The camouflaged prototype was spotted being towed by a Cayenne SUV after it had suffered what has to have been a major breakdown.

The easiest guess would be that it ran out of juice, and wouldn't all Tesla owners and fans like to believe that: "haha, look at the useless Porsche, it has such a short range that it even took its test drivers by surprise." The truth is we can't know what happened, but the wires that run along the towing bar under the Mission E's hood suggest its 12-volt system also needed some support. Or maybe they were just testing out its "towing abilities," but got things mixed up a little.

All joking aside, we've seen other test cars malfunction, so it's no biggie. Besides, that's the point of this whole procedure: to iron things out so that customers won't have to deal with this kind of situations. However, we're sure Porsche would have been happier if our spy photographer hadn't been around.

Seeing the Mission E right next to a Cayenne is a perfect occasion to gauge its size. The EV might look like a Panamera, but it's nowhere near as big. It's more like a four-door 911, which is something a lot of people had been dreaming of, albeit not with an electric powertrain in mind.

Speaking of which, the latest rumors suggest Porsche will offer the E in three flavors, ranging from 402 horsepower to 670, with an intermediate stop at 536 hp. These options should be enough to satisfy everybody, from those who just want an electric Porsche to those who want a sporty car without the emissions guilt.

The Porsche Mission E is expected to make its official debut toward the end of 2019, meaning it still has close to two years of testing ahead of it. Considering this is a completely new type vehicle for the German manufacturer, the extra time seems justifiable, though pretty hard to swallow. Well, as long as they put it to good use, nobody's going to complain.
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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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