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Porsche technology chief talks about Porsches approach to range, charging and batteries
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Translation:
> **Porsche wants to produce its own high-performance cells in the Cellforce Group in the future. What can you reveal about this already?**
> More than 20 employees are already working intensively on the cells at the company’s headquarters in Tübingen. We are currently holding intensive discussions with several communities in southwestern Germany about where the planned small series production could be set up. What is clear is that we are focusing on Germany as a location – and in Baden-Württemberg, to be precise.
> **What does small series mean?**
> Our initial goal is to be able to equip up to 1000 vehicles per year with battery cells. That means we are planning on a capacity of around 100 megawatt hours per year.
> **Why are you doing this at all?**
> The mainstream of today’s cell development is aimed at energy density and cost for understandable reasons. Mass electrification requires very low-cost cells. That’s why many manufacturers are now turning to LFP cells…
> **..lithium iron phosphate cells…**
> Exactly. But it is not so important for us to have the cheapest cell. We want the electric cars with the best performance. This requires cells with a high power density and a high gravimetric energy density.
> **Meaning?**
> Two things make a sports car: That it’s not too heavy and has decent power. An electric sports car therefore needs battery cells that store a lot of energy per unit of weight. We see potential here to differentiate ourselves from the competition. That’s why we are investing in our own production facility.
> **Will charging performance increase again with the new cells?**
> If we can make further gains in this area, that’s welcome. But it’s always a question of where we draw the line between power density and energy density. The issue of charging power has long been underestimated. There are two ways to make an electric car suitable for travel.
> **One is to increase the capacity of the battery.**
> Which makes the battery pack, and thus the vehicle, heavier and heavier, and significantly increases its carbon footprint, even if the car is mostly short-haul. The alternative is high charging power. In case the electric car ever has to cover long distances, I make the charging time very short. We are clearly focusing on this approach: not infinite range, but high charging power. That makes the car lighter, which makes much more sense from a sustainability perspective.
> **Will the Taycan also get the new high-performance cells – perhaps in the next facelift?**
> We are continuing to drive forward the topic of power density and high-speed charging outside the Cellforce Group with all our battery partners. We will receive new samples at the turn of the year. After that, we will decide in which vehicle and in what quantity we will use them. In the beginning, the delivery volume will be limited. We have not yet decided where we will use the new high-performance cells first.
The interview also covers a few other topics like e-fuels but I think that was the most interesting part.