Porsche expect it to be a production car within 5 years.
So this shouldn't be compared with Tesla's current offering. This is going to have to compete with the products Tesla are making in ~5 years time. Statements like "It charges in 15 minutes, faster than Tesla's superchargers" are effectively meaningless unless Tesla make absolutely no improvements to their charging technology over the next half decade. I think Tesla have the edge here.
Technologies are not as relevant to the market until they're implemented in a product. The challenges in that task make technology demonstrations something of a sideshow alone.
If they are showing us vaporware that's five years away, their comparison is roughly equivalent to doing a grand reveal in 2020 and saying "Look how much better this is than the state of the art for 2015."
Imagine Apple had revealed the iPhone in 2007... And compared it to a 2002 Nokia.
They can say anything they want right now - it's just a concept and not real. The proof of the pudding is what the feature set is when they ship. The same goes for the price.
Tesla are at least 5 years ahead. What a total embarrassment from Porsche.
Not to mention it shouldn't be compared to the Tesla Model S, which is a sedan not a sports car. Tesla has already announced it will release a new Roadster in four years [1]. So now that Porsche has already shown its cards, you can bet that the new Roadster will be better in every single way AND arrive earlier.
We already know it will be significantly better in at least one way - the Maximum Plaid acceleration will probably give it a ~2.5s acceleration from 0-62 miles. And Porsche's increase in mileage 5 years from now compared to current top of the line Model S seems tiny as well, and my guess is the new top of the line Roadster will have at least 20-30% better mileage as well.
Well - that depends on the model. The cayenne is no sports car - thats for sure.
But in Germany / Europe Porsches are used for racing. Here is an overview of the "official possibilities" http://www.porsche.com/porschesportscup-germany/en/series/
Totally agree. The Porsche outside my office window belongs to the CEO of the neighbour company. The Tesla belongs to the chairman of the board. They are both up in luxury territory because they are both really expensive cars.
Tesla wants to fight BMW and possibly but less importantly Porsche - their interiors and build quality needs to match the price tag. No exceptions.
this - it's nice and all to try to compare yourself to some market leader, but Tesla is no match to Porsche in overall driving experience, and won't be in 5 years (theoretically it could catch up, but its extremely unlikely). BMW is much, much better comparison (or Mercs)
All modern interiors have awful touch screens and shitty UIs and so are less usable than my 2004 Accord's interior. If you put a computer monitor in your dash, I am not buying your car.
Current model Honda Fit maintains a small screen for displaying radio/bluetooth settings + backup camera while all other controls are traditional knobs/buttons.
I prefer it despite only being available on the 'economy' trim model as a large touch screen is embedded in everything else.
This is a common complaint by people and I'm starting to believe it's just the only thing people can find wrong with it so it seems to stick. I read the same thing yesterday on a different article about this new Porsche concept.
That said, this is the first car I've found interesting since I bought a Tesla. With everything else, it's eh--it's probably loud, vibrates, has jerky acceleration, drips on the garage floor, makes me stand in the cold while I fill it with gas, uses old "tiny explosions under the hood" technology.
Should we criticize the best because it could be better? Of course, that's how we make progress. Would I prefer a different car with a better interior but a bunch of other compromises? No way.
Tesla have mentioned a few times that they don't want people who work for them to think of themselves as a luxury car maker, since their business plan is to go mass market.
Obviously that leads to some weird contradictions since the plan is to fund that by selling little sportscars, then high-end sedans, then high-end SUVs, before the still relatively high-end 3, but not spending too much time on the luxury interior does kind of fit with that ethos.
That's the exact business Apple are in with the iPhone. The most expensive models fund the company and make it possible to push the more affordable models to a broader and broader base of users.
I do prefer a Tesla with a nicer interior. Like this Porsche, it doesn't exist.
My point is that the interior, which is actually great but could possibly be better, isn't really important to me when nearly every other aspect of the car is amazing and better than anything else I would consider in its price range.
I like the Tesla interior as it is. It is different in style from BMW, Mercedes, and Porsche interiors. Lots of reviewers say positive things about the interior. So it's not just me.
And also Tesla isn't exactly making a lot of money right now. And this is just selling in a handful of countries as opposed to Porsche which is selling in most of them.
Oh, take off that "I love you, Elon" t-shirt, will you?
It's ridiculous to assume that Porsche is talking about taking 5 years to productize today's tech. Their tech will evolve just as anyone's and a car that ships will be way different from what they showed today.
What you are missing is that Porsche has batteries that charge in 15 min and power driving for 400 km. They can do it now and Tesla can't (or Musk would've demo'ed it already). That's direct and accurate apples to apples comparison, so, no, Tesla doesn't have an edge. Not here.
Then what is it? Actual working prototype with advertised parameters? What are concept cars? Do they need to actually drive at all? Or can you get away with design, idea an chassis physical mockup?
What you say is very true, but we are talking about Porsche here, the maker of the 911.
For that very reason, Tesla should keep their eyes on them and the buying public should take note whenever Porche's electric offering hits the market.
The upshot is that Tesla will not have this market to themselves forever. So that's probably bad for TSLA shareholders and good for the low emission* car buying public.
The gigafactory is probably a direct response to the their knowledge that they won't have the high performance electric car market to themselves forever.
* assuming your electricity is not generate by a coal fired plant.
We are not talking Porsche here, but VAG, so Audi, Skoda, Seat and VW as well. That means that this technology will soon find its way into their cheaper brands. Porsche means high marketing value. VW means high market value.
The 15 minute charge time is based on an 800V charger. There's nothing magical here. Tesla (and the Nissan Leaf, and some other eVs) use a 400V charger which charges to 80% in 30 minutes. If you double the voltage, then cutting the charge time in half is what you'd expect.
The thing that isn't mentioned here is that setting up a 400V charging station is already expensive. Tesla has taken up this expense themselves creating its SuperCharger (400V) network that all Tesla owners can use for free. I don't see anything in this article indicating Porsche is planning to do the same with 800V chargers. If they are that would be amazing, but I doubt it. Setting up 800V charging stations would be even more expensive than the 400V ones Tesla has invested heavily in.
Honestly, the best thing VAG (VW Audi Group, who own Porsche) and all other EV manufacturers could do is put a Tesla SuperCharger port in their vehicles to allow for using the SuperCharger network.
Considering Tesla has opened up their patent portfolio, I think they'd be able to put the physical port no problem. But licensing use of the SuperCharger network probably involves some kind of agreement with Tesla.
Porsche can probably more easily afford to setup the 800V network than Tesla can its 400V network. They have a large, wholly self-sustaining business. Their operating profit of $3.x billion last year is comparable to Ford's operating profit.
Of course they can afford it, that's not the issue. The issue is that EVs are 100% of Tesla's revenue, so the investment is obviously worthwhile, even necessary. EVs are none of Porsche's profit, they are just putting this out there as a concept thus far, so it's unlikely they're going to make that kind of investment.
I thought this was a bit of marketing genius on Porsche's part to capture some media attention. I saw a lot of headlines that read "New Porsche charges twice as fast as a Tesla".
Of course there are two caveats: (1) the new Porsche doesn't quite exist yet, but also (2) I think Tesla could fairly easily respond with the same charge time.
As I understand it, Superchargers skip the Tesla's onboard chargers (that normally do AC to DC conversion) and use their own array of chargers working in parallel to deliver direct current right to the battery as fast as it can take it.
So it feels like Tesla could provide 800V chargers with little to no modification needed to the cars. Does that sound right? I know they've been experimenting with higher voltage chargers.
Yeah, to me the big surprise was that this car isn't coming within the next two years. I don't think it should surprise anyone that Tesla would have a Model S challenger within 5 years. I thought for sure Tesla would have strong all-electric competition by next year at the latest.
I also thought that was a totally bizarre feature.
The only use I can think of is collecting the data and using it to determine and suggest enjoyable routes. So the Sat Nav can suggest an alternative route that might be slower but is a lot more fun to drive.
Charging any EV in 15 minutes is going to be challenging in a residential area, I suspect. Imagine going out with a full charge and driving like a maniac with the goal of draining the charge completely in 15 minutes. How much energy did you turn into tire smoke during that 15-minute drive? That determines how much available power you'll need to charge that puppy back up in the same amount of time. 250 HP * 750 W/HP = about 50 kW for 15 minutes....? On a residential 220V circuit that'd require 225-amp service. The thermal losses will be massive.
Once again, the only way this even remotely makes sense is to standardize the battery form factor and swap them.
> Once again, the only way this even remotely makes sense is to standardize the battery form factor and swap them.
But then how will the apple car be distinct and unrepairable. /joke.
The battery standardization train is long gone. We missed the opportunity with consumer device Li-ion. And manufacturers now know that non replaceable battery is better for them, than for the consumers. Because you can bundle higher capacity batteries with only premium devices.
If some big regulatory power like EU steps in as with the universal USB charge it will be possible. But I doubt it.
As long as they remain expensive and unpopular, electrical service simply won't be an issue. If you're buying a $150K sports car, dropping around $3K to upgrade to 400 amp service is pocket change. People who live in extreme rural areas or service needs to trench thru solid rock ($30/ft!) or live in extreme tax areas could pay a small multiple of that, but its such a small percentage it'll round down to nothing.
Two problem areas are what if entire subdivisions go electric, distribution lines are going to need upgrading, and that will not be cheap. For that matter it trickles up all the way to the plant, shutting down gas refineries is going to mean installing lots of coal burning electrical plants...
The other problem area is if electric cars drop to reasonable prices, the used market will suffer horribly in the early years if a couple years old electric sells used for $7K but it'll cost $3K to charge it. This will create a class distinction where rich people charge their cars in 15 minutes and poor people leave their cars plugged into standard extension cords overnight.
Something to think about with swapping is its so dangerous WRT connector damage and immense weight that even trained industrial users generally don't do it on pallet jacks up to medium size forklifts. It seems to "work" as a technology up to push lawnmower size, no bigger. Also the cost of swapping is staggering, now the cars engineering is compromised by having removable batteries ($$$$) and obviously people need to own multiple batteries ($$$$$). It rapidly becomes a financial win to simply not drive more than 200 miles per day or to become a multi-car household.
The "where do you charge" issue is pretty significant if you live in a flat in a city center - only practical way I could use a full electric car at the moment would be to buy a garage, which would be at least $50K and would be at least 5 minutes from where I live.
Street level charging may come in - but I don't see that happening for at least 5 years where I live so the Porsche timescales don't look that silly to me - and going by my neighbours high-end cars I suspect they will have the same problem (NB I drive a cheap-n-cheerful Skoda).
Good points for the most part, but with regard to swapping, no one needs to own any batteries at all. You pull into an existing gas station and drive away 5 minutes later -- at most -- with a battery that was charged overnight at a centralized plant with optimum efficiency, minimal thermal losses, and no last-mile infrastructure problems.
Yes, this will be expensive, but not doing it this way will be even more expensive in the long run. It will require intelligent, government-enforced standardization of modular battery form factors, which is why it will probably never happen. We just have to have our VHS-versus-Beta and our BluRay-versus-HD DVD wars, even when there is demonstrably zero consumer benefit.
Its interesting to abstract out the contentious electric car and just try to find consumer or even professional analogies, looking at just physical bulk and practical and safety issues.
Swapping giant dangerous things in and out of very expensive life critical safety issues by and for semi-trained to completely untrained consumers at random times and places.
There is nothing like it in all of commerce that I'm aware of. The closest analogy I can think of is renting a u-haul trailer for a car, and that is totally survivable both for an individual customer and as a sustainable business model, but not fast, convenient, attractive, cheap, appealing. And a uhaul trailer is enormously simpler than hundred of kilowatt level electrical wiring and lithium batteries that explode when mistreated and weigh enough to kill someone if dropped, so its far too simple an analogy.
There being nothing like it in current commerce means its probably doomed because you'd have to roll out something totally new in the world of logistics at the same time as rolling out something new in the world of automobiles. And you can't "cheat" and roll out electric cars first because people will get used to and not mind home charging making it a very hard sell to switch to inferior cars and batteries that can very expensively and difficultly be swapped.
The only real hope I can think of for that business model is massive advancement in control semiconductors such that you can make a "raid array of batteries" so a lunch box battery can haul your car to the nearest charger when necessary, essentially the electric car equivalent of a gas can.
The original press release contains more information. It seems like they are already using the drive system in race cars right now. The “Porsche Turbo Charging” seems to require special charging stations though.
Does this actually exist, even as a one-off? It's a bit ambigous whether they're "unveiling" and "showing off" an actual car that you can sit in and drive, or just some pictures.
If it's the latter, then this seems to be a very weak offering, vaporware FUD so lame that it actually makes the company putting it out seem worse than if they'd just kept quiet.
I did RTFA, and that link, before I asked as all the images look like obvious renders to me (with the possible exception of the interior shot).
Apparently something physical does exist, given the Twitter pic, but it's still not clear if that's a dummy that needs to be rolled into position, or if it's a car you can actually drive. And whether it fulfils the various claims (15 minute charging combined with the claimed range seems something worth shouting about, even apart from the rest of the car)
Porsche doesn't f*ck around. It think the questions would be valid for a start-up, but not one of the largest auto manufacturers in the world. Porsche is also not a stranger to "electric" vehicles (see 918).
It's enough of a stranger to fully electric cars to be announcing a concept car for 5 years out that hasn't been confirmed for production, that doesn't really seem to add anything new beyond emoticons and holographic eye-tracking dashboard controls.
Given the apparent disruptive nature of this change to existing car companies that cling to their ICE engine technology as their reason for existing, I'd probably be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to some random new entrant created by a Chinese battery manufacturer or Netflix competitor who don't have such a big stake in the status quo.
Concept cars are super common in the car industry. They're not in any way intended to reflect an actual car headed to production. Here's one of BMW's concept cars from a while ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:BMW_Mille_Miglia.jpg
Whether they're worth paying attention to, or worth doing at all, is an open question. I don't disagree with your dislike of them. But it's not like Porsche is doing something new and novel with this "concept car" idea. It's been happening for decades: http://www.designfloat.com/blog/2010/04/21/best-concept-car-...
This is excellent news, it means that VW is testing the electric car waters. While Tesla has to trickle down all of its technology into wholly new cars, VW can trickle down consumer level stuff into electric VWs (and yes, I know about the e-golf but it only goes 83 miles on a charge and isn't even the blip the Nissan Leaf is).
Kidding here, but after a few hypercar Porsche 918s caught fire being refueled because somebody thought it'd be just fine to put the gas filler next to an exhaust port, I'd be interested to see how they deal with electricity.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 130 ms ] threadSo this shouldn't be compared with Tesla's current offering. This is going to have to compete with the products Tesla are making in ~5 years time. Statements like "It charges in 15 minutes, faster than Tesla's superchargers" are effectively meaningless unless Tesla make absolutely no improvements to their charging technology over the next half decade. I think Tesla have the edge here.
They are not comparing cars. They are comparing technologies.
Imagine Apple had revealed the iPhone in 2007... And compared it to a 2002 Nokia.
Tesla are at least 5 years ahead. What a total embarrassment from Porsche.
Tesla has a lot done for the market of electric vehicles, but they also need to make money.
We already know it will be significantly better in at least one way - the Maximum Plaid acceleration will probably give it a ~2.5s acceleration from 0-62 miles. And Porsche's increase in mileage 5 years from now compared to current top of the line Model S seems tiny as well, and my guess is the new top of the line Roadster will have at least 20-30% better mileage as well.
[1] http://www.theverge.com/2015/7/17/8994649/new-tesla-roadster...
Because right now it is sad compared to a Hyundai. It is a downright joke compared to a Porsche.
The Porsche is a premium luxury vehicle in which most of the drivers are rarely going to give a crap about 2.5s acceleration spec.
Totally agree. The Porsche outside my office window belongs to the CEO of the neighbour company. The Tesla belongs to the chairman of the board. They are both up in luxury territory because they are both really expensive cars.
Tesla wants to fight BMW and possibly but less importantly Porsche - their interiors and build quality needs to match the price tag. No exceptions.
I prefer it despite only being available on the 'economy' trim model as a large touch screen is embedded in everything else.
That said, this is the first car I've found interesting since I bought a Tesla. With everything else, it's eh--it's probably loud, vibrates, has jerky acceleration, drips on the garage floor, makes me stand in the cold while I fill it with gas, uses old "tiny explosions under the hood" technology.
Should we criticize the best because it could be better? Of course, that's how we make progress. Would I prefer a different car with a better interior but a bunch of other compromises? No way.
Obviously that leads to some weird contradictions since the plan is to fund that by selling little sportscars, then high-end sedans, then high-end SUVs, before the still relatively high-end 3, but not spending too much time on the luxury interior does kind of fit with that ethos.
My point is that the interior, which is actually great but could possibly be better, isn't really important to me when nearly every other aspect of the car is amazing and better than anything else I would consider in its price range.
Perhaps not:
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/09/14/apples-project-tit...
And also Tesla isn't exactly making a lot of money right now. And this is just selling in a handful of countries as opposed to Porsche which is selling in most of them.
It's ridiculous to assume that Porsche is talking about taking 5 years to productize today's tech. Their tech will evolve just as anyone's and a car that ships will be way different from what they showed today.
What you are missing is that Porsche has batteries that charge in 15 min and power driving for 400 km. They can do it now and Tesla can't (or Musk would've demo'ed it already). That's direct and accurate apples to apples comparison, so, no, Tesla doesn't have an edge. Not here.
http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/motor-shows-frankfurt-moto...
These are just ideas and concepts at this point. Why does Tesla get credit, but Porsche is ridiculed for them?
For that very reason, Tesla should keep their eyes on them and the buying public should take note whenever Porche's electric offering hits the market.
The upshot is that Tesla will not have this market to themselves forever. So that's probably bad for TSLA shareholders and good for the low emission* car buying public.
The gigafactory is probably a direct response to the their knowledge that they won't have the high performance electric car market to themselves forever.
* assuming your electricity is not generate by a coal fired plant.
The thing that isn't mentioned here is that setting up a 400V charging station is already expensive. Tesla has taken up this expense themselves creating its SuperCharger (400V) network that all Tesla owners can use for free. I don't see anything in this article indicating Porsche is planning to do the same with 800V chargers. If they are that would be amazing, but I doubt it. Setting up 800V charging stations would be even more expensive than the 400V ones Tesla has invested heavily in.
Honestly, the best thing VAG (VW Audi Group, who own Porsche) and all other EV manufacturers could do is put a Tesla SuperCharger port in their vehicles to allow for using the SuperCharger network.
Of course there are two caveats: (1) the new Porsche doesn't quite exist yet, but also (2) I think Tesla could fairly easily respond with the same charge time.
As I understand it, Superchargers skip the Tesla's onboard chargers (that normally do AC to DC conversion) and use their own array of chargers working in parallel to deliver direct current right to the battery as fast as it can take it.
So it feels like Tesla could provide 800V chargers with little to no modification needed to the cars. Does that sound right? I know they've been experimenting with higher voltage chargers.
Porsche's PR/engineering team are losing the plot if they consider that a feature worth speaking about.
It could be useful for surveillance purposes though..
The only use I can think of is collecting the data and using it to determine and suggest enjoyable routes. So the Sat Nav can suggest an alternative route that might be slower but is a lot more fun to drive.
Once again, the only way this even remotely makes sense is to standardize the battery form factor and swap them.
But then how will the apple car be distinct and unrepairable. /joke.
The battery standardization train is long gone. We missed the opportunity with consumer device Li-ion. And manufacturers now know that non replaceable battery is better for them, than for the consumers. Because you can bundle higher capacity batteries with only premium devices.
If some big regulatory power like EU steps in as with the universal USB charge it will be possible. But I doubt it.
Two problem areas are what if entire subdivisions go electric, distribution lines are going to need upgrading, and that will not be cheap. For that matter it trickles up all the way to the plant, shutting down gas refineries is going to mean installing lots of coal burning electrical plants...
The other problem area is if electric cars drop to reasonable prices, the used market will suffer horribly in the early years if a couple years old electric sells used for $7K but it'll cost $3K to charge it. This will create a class distinction where rich people charge their cars in 15 minutes and poor people leave their cars plugged into standard extension cords overnight.
Something to think about with swapping is its so dangerous WRT connector damage and immense weight that even trained industrial users generally don't do it on pallet jacks up to medium size forklifts. It seems to "work" as a technology up to push lawnmower size, no bigger. Also the cost of swapping is staggering, now the cars engineering is compromised by having removable batteries ($$$$) and obviously people need to own multiple batteries ($$$$$). It rapidly becomes a financial win to simply not drive more than 200 miles per day or to become a multi-car household.
Street level charging may come in - but I don't see that happening for at least 5 years where I live so the Porsche timescales don't look that silly to me - and going by my neighbours high-end cars I suspect they will have the same problem (NB I drive a cheap-n-cheerful Skoda).
They can just site the stations so they attach to a kilovolt level transmission lines or transformer stations.
Yes, this will be expensive, but not doing it this way will be even more expensive in the long run. It will require intelligent, government-enforced standardization of modular battery form factors, which is why it will probably never happen. We just have to have our VHS-versus-Beta and our BluRay-versus-HD DVD wars, even when there is demonstrably zero consumer benefit.
Swapping giant dangerous things in and out of very expensive life critical safety issues by and for semi-trained to completely untrained consumers at random times and places.
There is nothing like it in all of commerce that I'm aware of. The closest analogy I can think of is renting a u-haul trailer for a car, and that is totally survivable both for an individual customer and as a sustainable business model, but not fast, convenient, attractive, cheap, appealing. And a uhaul trailer is enormously simpler than hundred of kilowatt level electrical wiring and lithium batteries that explode when mistreated and weigh enough to kill someone if dropped, so its far too simple an analogy.
There being nothing like it in current commerce means its probably doomed because you'd have to roll out something totally new in the world of logistics at the same time as rolling out something new in the world of automobiles. And you can't "cheat" and roll out electric cars first because people will get used to and not mind home charging making it a very hard sell to switch to inferior cars and batteries that can very expensively and difficultly be swapped.
The only real hope I can think of for that business model is massive advancement in control semiconductors such that you can make a "raid array of batteries" so a lunch box battery can haul your car to the nearest charger when necessary, essentially the electric car equivalent of a gas can.
http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mis...
If it's the latter, then this seems to be a very weak offering, vaporware FUD so lame that it actually makes the company putting it out seem worse than if they'd just kept quiet.
If you RTFA you'd have found this link: http://newsroom.porsche.com/en/products/iaa-2015-porsche-mis...
Found an event pic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/PorscheNewsroom/status/64371873566939136...
Apparently something physical does exist, given the Twitter pic, but it's still not clear if that's a dummy that needs to be rolled into position, or if it's a car you can actually drive. And whether it fulfils the various claims (15 minute charging combined with the claimed range seems something worth shouting about, even apart from the rest of the car)
Given the apparent disruptive nature of this change to existing car companies that cling to their ICE engine technology as their reason for existing, I'd probably be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to some random new entrant created by a Chinese battery manufacturer or Netflix competitor who don't have such a big stake in the status quo.
Whether they're worth paying attention to, or worth doing at all, is an open question. I don't disagree with your dislike of them. But it's not like Porsche is doing something new and novel with this "concept car" idea. It's been happening for decades: http://www.designfloat.com/blog/2010/04/21/best-concept-car-...
Video of the car at the IAA stand: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkMzc3wBKC0
http://www.porscheengineering.com/filestore.aspx/Porsche-Eng...
(seriously now though - nice document about the 919 hybrid)
Why Apple doesn't do "Concept Products"
http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/