Porsche’s Mission E all-electric vehicle becomes the ‘Taycan’

Porsche’s first all-electric vehicle has been known so far as the Mission E, but the company made the announcement today that the production version of the vehicle will be called the ‘Taycan’.

The German automaker announced it at the opening ceremony for the “70 years of the Porsche sports car” special exhibition at the Porsche Museum today.

The vehicle was known as the Mission E since the unveiling of the concept in 2015, but it was always known that the production version will most likely feature a name that works with Porsche’s current naming scheme.

The Mission E concept vehicle is a big part of the special exhibition as Porsche presents it as the “the future of the sports car”. They wrote:

“This principle is also shaping “the future of the sports car”, with the Mission E, the series version of which will be launched on the market in 2019 as the first purely electrically powered Porsche, drawing on the experiences gained from the Le Mans-winning 919 Hybrid. Digital projects, such as networking via Porsche Connect and data security using blockchain in sports cars, will also feature. The special exhibition will be accompanied by interactive experiences, such as an augmented reality application for the Mission E. As visitors view the concept study, AR glasses display further information about the technology behind the Mission E.”

It has a big front-and-center spot at the museum’s exhibition:

Ever since unveiling the concept, Porsche has been saying that the production version, which is expected to launch in 2019, will remain fairly similar.

Stefan Weckbach, Head of the BEV Model Series at Porsche, recently said that they want to make their first all-electric vehicle feel “like a real Porsche.”

The vehicle is expected to have a range of over 250 miles.

The company has previously been talking about a 0 to 60 mph acceleration in 3.5 seconds and earlier this year, a Porsche executive said that the Mission E will be able to go long distances at high-speed, like traveling on the German autobahn, or to complete a few laps on the race track.

But the vehicle’s charging system might be the biggest feature that the Mission E, now the Taycan, is bringing to market.

Porsche is talking about a 800-volt system that should allow a charge rate of up to 350 kW, which could charge the car up to 80% in only 15 minutes.

The company plans to deploy hundreds of stations capable of delivering that charge rate, including a recently announced network of 500 EV charging stations in North America.