First all-electric Porsche is in the pipeline

Volkswagen Group bosses have confirmed a commitment to hybrid, electric and fuel cell vehicles over the next decade, including the first all-electric Porsche. The news was flashed up on a slide but was glossed over at the preview event to VW Group’s Annual Media Conference in Berlin on Wednesday evening.

Chairman of the board, Dr Heinz-Jacob Neusser wouldn't give much away, but confirmed a pure-electric Porsche was in the pipeline. "We have something up our sleeves in this respect," he said.

As a result, we can only speculate on what this model might be. A BMW 5 Series-rivalling, sub-Panamera rival is a likely candidate, but the fact that this new Porsche would be electric only – with no range-extending petrol motor – could pitch it directly at the battery-powered Tesla Model S.

 Elsewhere, Hackenberg also confirmed Volkswagen, Audi and Porsche were all working on hydrogen fuel cell vehicles for release later this decade. Again, he wouldn’t comment on what these might be, but we do know some will be based on the familiar MQB architecture. As we reported last month, Volkswagen has big plans for the highly versatile MQB platform. It was designed from the outset to accommodate future powertrains, which already include pure electric cars such as the e-Golf and plug-ins like the Audi A3 e-tron. Hydrogen is the natural next step, and we should see concept versions before the end of 2016. The expansion of the VW Group model range – including alternatively fuelled vehicles – will help the brand hit its target of seven million MQB cars annually by 2018.

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