Yikes, the Porsche El Camino.

 

Early test mules are often quite different from the real thing.

One of the first 928 mules was hidden under Audi sedan bodywork.

I'm betting that the Mission E will be a stunner...

Enjoy the process and hope that it eclipses the Tesla in both performance and range. The Mission E must lead - not follow.

 

From what i understand the "chassis" is the same as the pano - not the unibody. Chassis, meaning wheel locations, suspension placement, etc. Nothing to do with anything above that. Audi uses the same"chassis" as the cayenne and the macan - same principle. The Porsche people that I have talked to are owners of larger dealerships that have visited the factory. They have limited info, because Porsche is tight lipped. Just a few items that they picked up on - nothing proven.

BTW - according to what these people understand, Porsche is going to eventually build a all electric pano. I think that Porsche wants to shake things out in the mission e (my assumption)

 

By definition, a Chassis is a lot more than you describe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chassis
http://www.automotivedictionary.org/Chassis

Car manuracturers - specifically Volkswagen and their brands - are moving their vehicle designs to modular component systems, which are geared towards specific vehicle types. They determine the overall technical architecture and packaging for the vehicles built on them.

VW has the MQB (Modularer Querbaukasten) for small cars with front engines mounted sideways (transverse), and the MLB (Modularer Längsbaukasten) for midsize cars with longitudinal engine placement. Then there are variations for luxury vehicles and sports cars.

You can see the full list here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ponent_systems

The component systems are flexible to adjust wheelbase and track, but have fixed positions for engine and firewall, and a few other items. However, VW may use different rear suspension set-ups depending on price point an power level of a vehicle (depending on the engines, Golf and Jetta may have independent rear suspension or not).

Porsche is leading the engineering for the MSB (Modularer Standardantriebsbaukasten), and the MSS for the sports cars. Why? Because neither Bentley nor Lamborghini would have the engineering capacity to handle the complexity of developing a complete car from scratch that would be competitive AND profitable.

The development of the MEB (Modularer Elektrifizierunbsbaukasten) appears to be led by Volkswagen, but I was told there is involvement from Porsche engineering as well. I heard loud and clear that the Mission E is based on its own platform, and that it may end-up being the only vehicle built that way.

Coming-back to the Panamera - it is built on the new MSB, which is geared towards front engine, rear wheel drive vehicles. This architecture is not suited for a full electric car, due to it's design for ICE, gearbox, drive shaft, differential, tank and other components that require completely different types and shapes of room than an electric battery.


Porsche led the development of the original Cayenne and Touareg, which shared much of the same platform, including the basic body structure. The Q7 followed. Today, they no longer design cars that way.

Similarly, the Macan is basically a heavily modified Audi Q5, not a small Cayenne. Both Macan and the current A5 it is based on are still built on the old platform architecture. An all new A5 coming in 2018 will use MLB.

The 2018 Cayenne is based on the new MLB architecture, not the more expensive MSB.

In the future, they will simply start with one of the modular component systems and design a unibody around it, choose the components that best fit the price and performance goals, and be done.


If your "Contacts" tell you there will be an all electric Panamera anytime soon, they likely didn't pay attention.

There is no doubt that more vehicles will become electrified, but there will likely never be a model from Porsche that is available as fully electric AND combustion engine powered. If they did it, neither would be good. Porsche is not about compromises like that.

Bottom line: Dealership owners, sales managers and sales people are in the business of selling cars for profit. They are not engineers; don't expect them to understand vehicle architectures and manufacturing synergies... The Mission E will be built in a newly erected part of the factory, independent from any of the other models. It is a completely different car than the Pano, or any other Porsche currently in production. If anybody tells you otherwise, they are BSing.

 

Nicole,

As I understand the chassis/platform issue:

The platform/chassis is inherently different with an EV given the packaging of the battery in the floor/center console of the chassis and the motors at the inner ends of the half-shafts.

It is safe to say that EV's are totally different packaging opportunities for the designers of our future cars... Exciting times for us as consumers.



As an aside: It is interesting to note how many 928 owners have a strong interest in the Mission E.

 

one of the guys that was at the factory tells me that "they" believe the suicide doors are out. probably an every day driver engineering issue.

Also one of the other guys there was accidentally in a "wrong" room and was quickly escorted out saying that "we are not supposed to be in here". This guy, who was in the room, told me that there were quite a few mission-e vehicles in the room. best guess - it was the production prototypes. if that is the case, he told me that they are very close to the one presented that everyone has seen. but - he was only in the room for a very short period of time.

so - who knows!

 

^^^ I would say that if they "Believe", they should go to church... building cars is not a religion.

Forget the (frame less) suicide doors on a car of that length. How would you ever meet side impact standards without making this super strong and heavy? It's a nice thing to show-off on a concept car, but there is a reason we hardly ever see it in production. The short, carbon fiber bodied BMW i3 being a recent exception.

 

It's doable. Bonus points if you can guess the second car.

 

GT6ixer,

Nicole's big caveat was "on a car of that length". That said, I think that there could be a minimally sized, but high strength steel "B" pillar hidden behind the center door seams like on most of the 1960's Lincolns or Thunderbirds.


Bonus points for identifying the second car? Scion Ion, 2002-2008 (found it in Wikipedia...)

 

I agree with her point. Though a solution to that is that the B-pillar is made integral to the front edge of the rear doors and is recessed such that the front door nests on top of it. The down side to this approach is that the front doors have to open before the rear door. Probably not a good thing for the rear passenger in the event of a crash.

And I award you zero points for having to wiki the answer. . Plus it's a Saturn not a Scion.

 

Note how the above latch into the roof. The Mission E has frameless windows, so there is nothing to latch into the roof that could give it more stability.

And to be honest, I don't find these suicide doors very practical anyway...

 

Already put in my deposit money Cant wait Bitchin

 

Bottom line - these conversations, being entertaining, in the end - do not matter at all. To me its like all the BS sports debates - goes nowhere. What ifs and maybes - we will know the design direction when it comes out. Any thing else is what ifs.

 

These photos do show the mules are not just modified Panameras, but to me, I think the mule already looks quite good and sleek. I guess years of looking at mules and how effectively a bit of camo can "degrade" the looks helps me be more optimistic about the actual final execution.

To me, I am indifferent to the suicide doors. Actually, I'd prefer to forego them in preference to the lower overall weight that a standard door configuration would likely enable.

 

+911

I grew-up in a village that was on the test route for Mercedes mules. During my youth, I saw every future Mercedes pass-through, with varying degrees of disguise. My brain simply adjusted to seeing what matters and discarding the camo.