► The latest on Porsche’s e-718 Cayman and Boxster
► Delays, development and moving goalposts
► Launch could be either end of 2025, or early 2026
Porsche R&D boss Michael Steiner should have known better. Once bitten, twice shy. It’s not long ago that he was set back by about 18 months when Varta, the battery supplier for the hybrid 911 GTS, had to be saved from insolvency by a last-minute cash infusion courtesy of Porsche. And now history is in the process of repeating itself, as Northvolt – the exclusive provider of batteries for the electric Boxster/Cayman twins – has spent months in crisis mode, scrambling for fresh capital and going into bankruptcy.
Efforts are being made to stop this second battery train from derailing, but the damage is already done: the new sports cars, codenamed 983, were originally due to go into production in February 2023, but are now slated for October 2025 at the earliest.
CAR’s vision of how the electric Porsche Boxster could look, illustrated by Lars Sältzer
Had it stuck to the original schedule, the electric Boxster roadster and identically engineered Cayman coupe would have had the D segment of the electric sports car market all to themselves. Now they must share the terrain with newcomers led by the MG Cyberster, priced between £55k-£60k – aggressive numbers Porsche cannot possibly match. We don’t know how much exactly the two-seaters from Stuttgart will cost, but they are not going to be less expensive than the outgoing range.
That said, the electric twins will come with a significant power boost. The combustion cars’ outputs are in the 300-500bhp bracket, whereas the electric S models will develop around 380bhp and 440lb ft; GTS spec will be a twin-motor affair with around 490bhp and 550lb ft available. Like the Taycan and electric Macan, there will be versions badged Turbo, too, with one source claiming around 600bhp and 650lb ft.
CAR’s vision of how the electric Porsche Cayman could look, illustrated by Lars Sältzer
S and GTS are said to feature 89kWh batteries; only the Turbo is claimed to use a more potent 99kWh energy pack. While the rear-wheel-drive model reportedly features two e-motors – one for each rear wheel – the all-wheel-drive derivatives add a third motor that drives the front wheels. According to a Scandinavian colleague who has spoken to a couple of factory test drivers, the rear axle is dynamically remarkable, offering extreme torque vectoring for rapid cornering and real slideability.
We know that the twins run an 800-volt electrical system for ultra-rapid charging, extended driving range and exceptional efficiency, but we know very little about that new battery except that the cell format is prismatic, not round, which is one reason why BMW pulled out of the Northvolt deal and struck an agreement with China’s CATL and EVE instead. Apparently Steiner was particularly impressed by the Northvolt cell chemistry and the scalable design, reportedly highly space-efficient thanks to its compact, light and slim packaging.
The battery performance apparently combines high repeatability and low degradation, 15-minute fast charging and an official WLTP range of over 325 miles. It’s also, we hear, good at coping with wide temperature variations.
CAR’s vision of how the electric Porsche Cayman could look, illustrated by Lars Sältzer
But there are rumblings of discontent about the consistency of the quality of the Northvolt batteries, and the battery company’s worsening financial situation means it’s not yet clear where exactly the Porsche energy packs will be built. There are also unanswered questions about what, if any, input there has been into the 983 from the Croatian EV and software wizards at Rimac, who contributed to both the Taycan and the 911 GTS T-Hybrid.
What precisely are the underpinnings? The original plan had been to base the 983 on SSP Sport, the lighter, stiffer, sportier derivative of the VW Group’s upcoming Scalable Systems Platform masterminded by Porsche and Audi. But then SSP got pushed back to 2028 or even 2029, dragging the Volkswagen brand’s prestige Trinity project along with it. Frustrated by the slow pace of this group-wide project, Porsche broke ranks and created its own architecture named Mission R after the 2021 concept.
Until quite recently it looked likely that these same underpinnings could be used in cars wearing VW, Cupra and Audi badges. VW was toying with a modern successor to classics such as the Karmann Ghia and Scirocco, and Cupra pitched the DarkRebel as its new halo car. But those plans have now been rejected. New Audi boss Gernot Döllner apparently received the green light to use the Mission R for a sports car project – an electric heir to the Quattro, TT and R8 – but that now looks less certain, given the current business woes at Ingolstadt. So for now, it will be just the Boxster and Cayman.
Spy shots of the electric Boxster and Cayman show familiar design cues and evolutionary proportions. The wheelbase seems to have grown by 10-15cm to make room for the T-shaped battery stack, which occupies the space between and behind the seats, not under them.
The considerably wider rear track can accommodate bigger tyres, while the higher and longer rear deck should be able to compensate for the loss of luggage space in the frunk. Those spy shots show a charging port positioned in the centre of the rear end, like a futuristic counterpart to the mid-mounted exhaust tailpipe. We expect wheel and tyre options to go up to 911-spec sizes for those customers willing to pay extra.
The front is slightly longer and a little more pointed than before, and sits closer to the road. It houses three automatically adjusted air intakes, suggesting a mix of low drag resistance and strong cooling performance. The four-point LED-matrix headlamps used throughout the Porsche family appear here, and at the back the light runs the full width of the car; pay extra and you can have the word ‘Porsche’ illuminated. Images also show a vertical third brake light.
Staying entirely true to Porsche tradition, the 983 interior is functional rather than sexy. There are three round instruments, which can be personalised with whichever combination of information you favour, the same as in the Taycan. Thumbs up to the modified switchgear, which brings back physical climate controls, a real knob to adjust the volume, two programmable diamond rocker switches high up on the dashboard, the traditional rotary drive mode device on the steering wheel and an optional passenger display.
The gear selector – forward, neutral, reverse – is a short upright stub in the centre console next to the parking brake (as illustrated by spy photographer images above), itself a button rather than a lever. Most of the switchgear will look familiar to anyone who’s driven any Porsche recently. You can, as before, specify the Chrono pack complete with stopwatch. The sound system is scalable to the depth of your pockets. Massage seats are not on offer, and nor is a more compliant Touring suspension system.
Perhaps not at first, but at some point during the 983’s early life it should be possible to buy a lightweight Weissach pack, 3D bodyform seats, ceramic composite brakes and an aero kit that should enable some combination of going farther and faster.
In a way, Porsche will not perhaps be terribly upset by the lateness of the electric Boxster and Cayman’s arrival. A wait of 32 months might sound bad, and it might seem as though a lot of potential sales been missed, although the reality is that there are still no direct competitors on sale if you exclude the softer Cyberster. No electric replacement for the BMW Z4 or Toyota Supra, and no sight yet of the much-discussed electric sports cars from Lotus and Alpine. The market might in fact be more ready for the Porsche duo in October 2025 than it would have been in February 2023.
After all, EVs still are not an easy sell, and this experience is rocking premium brands more profoundly than volume manufacturers. Innovations are happening so fast that any investment in expensive yet fast-dating high-end products is increasingly risky rather than a smart buy.
The Taycan proved Porsche can make an excellent EV, and it’s still highly impressive today. But there has been a brutal drop in the used values of Mk1 Taycans, and demand for the Mk2 has not been as strong as Porsche had hoped, despite positive reviews. Through no fault of Porsche’s, the appetite for EVs just isn’t so strong as it was back in early 2023, when the Boxster and Cayman were originally due, not least because there are growing doubts, fed by the US election result among many other factors, that the combustion engine may be around for longer than was previously thought.
The only way Porsche can break this negative downward spiral is by offering more sustainable and more emotionally appealing EVs that have strong statistics to back up the undoubted dynamic excellence. Charging times need to be quick and the distances between stops need to be long. They also, being Porsches, need to be able to stand up to the intense demands of trackdays.
Can the 983 meet these targets using the hardware and software currently available to Porsche? Potential game-changers such as solid-state batteries, smarter software and significant weight-reduction measures will have to wait. Given Porsche’s strong record and high standards, it’s probably safe to assume that the 983 will make excellent use of today’s technology. But many of the target buyers remain firmly attached to engines, so the Cayman and Boxster are unlikely to find them a pushover.