718 Boxster

Make
Porsche
Segment
Compact

The Taycan is just the start of Porsche's electric revolution. Porsche wants 50 percent of its sales to be made up of fully electric or electrified cars by 2025. As part of this strategy, we already knew Porsche is planning to introduce a fully electric version of the Macan SUV. This makes sense since the Macan is Porsche's best-selling model.

During the launch of the Taycan, Porsche also hinted the next-generation 718 Cayman and 718 Boxster could arrive as fully electric models. But these models might be getting another major change that purists won't be happy about.

"The 718 just fits EV, doesn't it?" Lutz Meschke, Porsche deputy chairman, told Top Gear. "The next generation of these cars would be a good time to go all-electric." We doubt many will miss the current model's turbocharged flat-four engine that replaced Porsche's beloved flat-six. But while both the 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman have traditionally been rear-wheel-drive sports cars, Meschke said it "makes sense" for the fully electric variants to be all-wheel driven. We don't think Porsche purists will be happy about this, somehow.

While the Taycan is built on Porsche's bespoke J1 platform, which will be shared within VW Group, the electric Cayman and Boxster are expected to use Porsche's PPE electric platform being jointly developed with Audi, which saves Porsche 30 percent on the development costs according to Meschke.

This same platform will also underpin the electric Macan when it arrives in 2022. Like the Macan, the electric Cayman and Boxster will be sold alongside the current combustion-powered models for a couple of years before being phased out. Porsche even gave us a preview of the future electric 718 back in 2017 with the Cayman e-volution concept. It only delivered a 124-mile range on a single charge but featured an early version of the Taycan's 800V architecture.

After the Macan, 718 Cayman, and 718 Boxster go all-electric, the Cayenne and Panamera will also get the fully electric treatment. But will there be an electric version of the 911? Not likely, as Meschke admits developing an electric 911 is "much harder" than an electric 718. That doesn't mean the 911 won't be electrified at all, however, as a hybrid version of the current 992-generation 911 is expected to arrive after 2022.