Porsche rolls out battery Boxster for real-world trials

...But don't expect to find the Boxster E in showrooms any time soon. The three examples on Stuttgart roads are technology trial test-beds, and that's all
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Porsche has rolled out three all-electric Boxsters for road trials in Germany.

The company has been quick to admonish media and onlookers not to take the trial as a direct pointer to the vehicle badged Boxster E's imminent arrival in showrooms. It's merely the test-bed for a raft of technology trials the company is conducting in cohorts with Stuttgart local government agencies, utilities and other local green-power businesses.

Porsche describes them as 'rolling laboratories', set up to feed back to Zuffenhausen the kind of data that can only be harvested from real-world, day-to-day use.

In the same way as Audi did in 2009 with its R8-based e-tron concept car games, Porsche engineers have supplanted the Boxster's normal mid-mounted flat six engine with a bank of batteries, sitting behind the two seats but ahead of the rear axle.

Good for 29kW/h, it feeds two 90kW electric motors putting their power to the road through the rear wheels.

Little beyond that is available in the way of technical detail, but Porsche CEO Matthias Müller has told media that it should match petrol models for performance, quoting a 0-100 dash time of 5.3 seconds and a 270km/h top speed.

Porsche also claims a range of 160km, but it doesn't take Mensa potential to assume the car won't achieve that while it's plumbing its performance potential.

"Electric mobility is a central challenge of the coming years and we at Porsche have a part to play, to gain insight into requirements for future products and the inclusion of electric vehicles in the infrastructure," Müller said in the statement.

The Boxster's lightness and mid-engine configuration provides an ideal environment for EV technology testing.

"It allows the new components -- electric motors, batteries and high-voltage technology -- to be safely and accessibly accommodated while still providing the performance and dynamics expected of a Boxster."

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