Porsche Confirms Plans for Flagship Battery-Electric SUV

Porsche confirms plans for an SUV model based on a new Sport variant of Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) architecture – a dedicated electric-vehicle platform to be used by a number of different brands across the Volkswagen Group.

Plans for the SUV were revealed in a long-term platform strategy update provided by Porsche Chairman Oliver Blume. He says the upcoming third-generation Panamera and second-generation Taycan will be based on the same SSP platform.

“We plan to add a new luxury, all-electric SUV model to our portfolio, which will roll off the production line in Leipzig (Germany),” Blume says. “This will further expand our position in the luxury segment. We are targeting the higher-margin segments in particular and aim to tap into new sales opportunities this way.”

Further details of the SUV, which is to be priced above the Macan (pictured, below) and Cayenne when it launches during the latter half of the decade, remain under wraps. However, suggestions are it could be the unidentified model shown as a design model late last year in a presentation to a group of North American Porsche dealers.

Porsche Macan CROPPED

At the time, dealers described it as being “wider and larger than the Cayenne” and featuring a “flat rear design, not anything like the Macan and Cayenne.”  

The SUV will represent a seventh model line in the Porsche lineup, which currently includes the 718 Boxster/Cayman, 911, Macan, Cayenne, Panamera and Taycan.  

As well as revealing the plans for the new SUV model, Blume discloses Porsche has been granted the engineering lead for a new variant of the SSP architecture, known internally as SSP Sport.

The Porsche-developed EV platform draws on the “backbone” of the standard SSP structure, which is set to debut in 2025 with the launch of the production version of the Volkswagen Trinity – a Tesla Model 3-rivaling liftback likely to be sold under the ID.4 sedan name.

Among the SSP Sport’s key developments will be high-performance electric motors, dedicated battery cells and battery components in a strategy similar to that set to be undertaken by Mercedes-Benz and its AMG performance-car division. It also is expected to support an 800V electric architecture and 350kW charging.

Wards has been told the same platform is to be used by upcoming electric models planned by Audi, Bentley and Lamborghini.

While Porsche’s new SUV model will be based on the SSP Sport architecture, Blume’s long-term platform strategy update presentation confirms upcoming electric versions of the Macan and Cayenne will sit on the PPE (Premium Platform Electric) architecture debuting with the launch of the Audi Q6 e-tron.

Porsche also reveals the next Panamera is set to go electric, in a move that will see it twinned with the second-generation Taycan. Whether both models will be sold alongside each other or combined into one model line has not yet been confirmed, though insiders at Porsche’s Zuffenhausen headquarters in Germany have told Wards that current plans call for both nameplates to continue.

Today’s first-generation Taycan is based on the J1 electric platform developed by Porsche in partnership with Audi.

News of the hybrid Panamera’s switch to electric power suggests Porsche’s Leipzig plant will produce up to four electric models based on two platforms in the future: Macan and Cayenne on the PPE and the Panamera and new SUV on the SSP Sport.

Porsche graphic