Ignore the exhaust tips on the back. Those are just to throw off casual onlookers. According to our friends at Autoblog, there’s a good chance this is the electric car Porsche hopes to throw down against Tesla. Called Mission E in previous concepts, Porsche has talked about this car for several years though this is one of the first photos of the production car.
The photos show a car void of the radical design language found on the concept. Gone is the bulbous body with a distinctive cabin profile and low slung fenders. The car here looks more like an evolved Panamera instead of something completely new.
The car retains the widetrack Porsche stance and uses a different front end from its Panamera cousin. The headlights seem to be similar to those found on the concept.
These photos were captured outside of a Porsche facility in Stuttgart, Germany where the car was spied alongside several Tesla vehicles.
There’s no word on the powertrain inside this car though. Porsche has several options including putting an electric motor at each wheel like Mercedes did with the SLS AMG or using single motors at each axle like AWD Tesla models. Either way, Porsche is likely putting everything they have into this model. The Mission E is aimed directly at the aging Model S and Porsche says it will be priced similarly to the Panamera and hit the market by 2019. That’s a year or two before Tesla appears to be ready to update the Model S.
