Between the city of Brescia and Lake Iseo, in the heart of Italian Lombardy, is one of the Porsche Experience Centers that the German brand has throughout the world. So far we have traveled to find out what the future of Porsche will be like: yes, the brand knows that it will inevitably go through electrification and that they must adapt to it without losing its essence. How do they intend to achieve it? The answer lies with the Porsche Macan and its new platform, the PPE, developed together with Audi.
Porsche expects that, by 2025, more than half of the cars it sells will have some form of electrification: pure electric or plug-in hybrid. In 2030 the goal will be more ambitious: by then. The objective is that more than 80% of its deliveries are carried out by completely electric models. The Premium Platform Electric (PPE) is just one of the tools that will help them with this purpose.
The Premium Platform Electric (PPE)
Porsche and Audi have jointly developed this platform that allows the commercialization (in a profitable way) of high-volume models that they will be electrified and, in addition, they will comply with the high technical standards expected from a vehicle formed on the production lines in Stuttgart.
The PPE will be the starting point for shaping models with various levels of performance with rear and all wheel drive. Vehicles in which they have taken a step forward in electronics: to make them more efficient, they have replaced silicon as a semiconductor material with silicon carbide (SiC). The coating of the electronic components is also innovative: Porsche has applied for a patent for its Integrated Power Box which reduces the components required and consequently minimizes weight and costs.
The new Premium Platform Electric from Porsche and Audi It will also be the starting point for models of different segments because it offers the possibility of scaling the wheelbase, track width and ground clearance. This, at the same time, allows the German brand to retain its character.
The DNA of the electric Porsche Macan
At the Porsche Experience Center in Franciacorta (Italy), we had the opportunity to see, first-hand, a heavily camouflaged prototype of the electric Porsche Macan that will hit the roads in 2024. Dominik Hartmann, ‘Chassis Manager’ of the German SUV, explained that taking the Premium Platform Electric as a starting point has allowed them to conceive an electric model with Porsche DNA.
What will we find in a half year or two years? A Porsche Macan with a marked coupé style in which its electric motor will be placed “particularly behind”: this will result in a weight sharing 48:52. If we even add that the wheel width of the front and rear axles will be different to adapt to that distribution and that the tires can be up to 22 inches, we will have an SUV with better responsiveness, better steering precision, a more precise guidance, a higher transverse rigidity and, in general, a behavior superior to the current one.
To take this to another level, higher versions will have (as standard) the Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus: an electronic lock of the rear differential, which guarantees greater traction, stability and dynamics. With the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM), the car will react to the state of the road, but also to the speed, the acceleration, the force applied to the accelerator pedal, the behavior of the steering and the position of the vehicle. And it is that, depending on the pace, we can lower the bodywork to improve aerodynamics and, consequently, autonomy.
The electrical part of the new Porsche Macan
Knowing how it is, on paper, the behavior of the new Porsche Macan, it is time to address the electrical part. Dominik Hartmann told us that the power of the German SUV It will initially be around 450 kW (600 hp) with a maximum torque of more than 1,000 Nm.
It will have a system all wheel drive in which each axle will have an electric motor: this will allow fast and precise control of all four wheels, in addition to carrying out a fully variable torque distribution based on the selected mode, driving and the demand between them axes.
Power will be supplied by a lithium ion battery, located in the lower part of the body. It will be made up of twelve modules made up of prismatic cells and will have a total capacity of about 100 kWh. To achieve higher energy density, Porsche has opted for a mixture of nickel, cobalt and manganese in a ratio of 8:1:1.
The Porsche Macan will have, like the Porsche Taycan, an 800 volt architecture with which the recharging process is reduced because, in addition, the charging capacity will exceed the 270 kW of the electric saloon. Not for nothing, at a powerful charging point, the battery can go from 5 to 80% in 25 minutes. And not only that: if the station uses 400-volt technology, the Porsche Macan can split that 800-volt into two equal 400-volt parts so that each can be charged in parallel.
With this approach, Porsche intends that the electric Porsche Macán pick up the successful replacement of the combustion version to become “the sportiest model in its segment”. We will be able to verify it in 2024.
