From the latest trickle of technical wonders inside Porsche’s Mission E supersedan comes this tidbit: 600 horsepower.
That’s the quasi-official rating from former Porsche factory driver Mark Webber, whom the automaker filmed driving a lightly disguised prototype and blurting out its power rating. Porsche has yet to confirm, and while Britain’s Autocar magazine found the video on YouTube and assumed Webber’s number refers to the slightly higher German pferdestärke (ps) instead of our SAE horsepower, it’s a satisfactory figure. Until the car comes out late next year, it’s subject to change, but still . . .
With Tesla pushing a combined 532 horsepower in the Model S P90D—and possibly more in the P100D, although the company no longer cites power figures after Norwegian owners sued over its exaggerated claims—the Mission E needs to assert at least that much to compete. But Porsche has stressed the Mission E will prevail in track endurance testing, where Porsche has amassed strings of victories with its hybrid Le Mans racers, as opposed to the drag-racing battles uploaded by Tesla fans.
- 2020 Porsche EV Sedan: More 918 Than Panamera
- Porsche Mission E Electric Sedan Spied Testing Alongside Teslas
- It’s On Like Elon: Porsche Mission E Heads for Production
In a weekend tweetstorm, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed the Model 3 will “beat anything in its class on the track” despite the inability of his cars to dissipate heat during continuous heavy-footed driving. While we’ve verified scorching sub-three-second acceleration in a Model S, it’s only possible to make subsequent runs after letting the car cool, which the best gasoline and gas-electric hybrids never require. Don’t expect Porsche to lose its cool.
