Porsche's Sports Car Boss Says An Electric Porsche 911 Isn’t Happening

Not anytime soon, anyway

Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser is like a lot of Porsche fans. He loves the brand, and he owns two 911s himself. He took up the reins of 911 and 718 development from "Mr. 911," August Achleitner, earlier this year, and is usually hard at work in meetings or spending time with development mules to ensure the Porsche sports cars of the future retain their trademark balance and approachability. So when we had the rare opportunity to catch up with Dr. Walliser at the 2019 Los Angeles Auto Show, we had to ask him a few questions about the future of the 911. Specifically, will the much-rumored electric Porsche 911 happen anytime soon? His answer: Nope. Not while he's in charge, anyway.

Citing packaging reasons, Walliser said the 992 platform wasn't even developed with a full EV powertrain in mind. When asked about supercapacitors—a smaller and lighter EV solution—like the one found in the Lamborghini Sian, he said Porsche considered them in the early days of the 991's development but decided they didn't provide enough of a power benefit to justify their use. Trying once more, we wanted to see if a mild hybrid would be possible sometime during the 992's lifespan, he retorted by simply asking, "What is mild?" He added that any hybridity Porsche adds to its sports cars will have to have a little "pepper" to it.

Walliser drives a 993 in the summer, his daily is a Panamera Turbo S E-hybrid Sport Turismo, and he's waiting on the delivery of a Taycan—so Dr. Walliser is clearly into a little pepper. He joked that he likes to stay away from anything with less than 500 horsepower if he can help it. He sounds like our kind of guy, so as curious as we are about the 911's future, it's good to know the iconic Porsche sports car is in Walliser's safe hands.