Pure-electric power has spread to city cars, supercars and almost everything in between, and Porsche is looking to take the fledgling electric sports car market by storm with the new Cayman EV – which we’ve now seen testing at the Nurburgring for the first time.
The company has been developing the new coupe alongside its open-top Boxster sibling, which will also ditch its petrol engine in favour of an all-electric powertrain in the replacement for the current 718-generation models.
Technical details on the upcoming electric models are still under wraps, although Porsche has been testing the waters for some years now, with a preview of sorts coming in the shape of the Mission R concept back in 2021.
The electric sports car project has been delayed too. Porsche partnered with battery supplier Northvolt – which was expected to provide the battery set-up for the Cayman and Boxster EVs – in 2019, but Northvolt filed for bankruptcy in March this year. This means Porsche may well have to go down another route to supply batteries for its sports cars, with one option being Croatian hypercar maker Rimac, who’s worked with Porsche before on the Taycan and 911 GTS hybrid.
We expect dual-motor capacity for the Cayman and Boxster EVs with power outputs exceeding that of the current top-rung combustion-engined car – the 496bhp Cayman GT4 RS – to counter the increase in weight brought on by EV powertrain. Porsche hasn’t given us details on the size of the Cayman EV’s batteries, but they’re expected to sit in the middle of the car, behind the driver. That will allow for a lower driving position and a lower side profile too.
We’ll have to wait and see what kind of performance the Cayman EV will offer when it’s launched next year, but thanks to these spy images we already have a good idea of how it’ll look. The open-top Boxster EV and Cayman EV we’ve seen so far have a similar amount of camouflage on them with a lot of production-ready details on show.
