Talk about an electric Porsche 911 has been circulating for the better part of a decade, and back in late 2017, Porsche’s CEO, Oliver Blume, straight up told us that it wouldn’t happen in the next 10 years. In 2020, Frank-Steffen Walliser – the head of Porsche’s sports car line – said that the 911 would be the brand’s last car to go electric. The 992-gen 911 has since been ruled out to feature any form of electrification, which was backed up by the fact that Porsche was struggling to electrify the 911 without ruining its iconic nature. Now, however, it looks like Porsche might be onto something, and we could still see an electrified 911 before the end of this decade.

Porsche’s Unexpected Partner and an Unsatiable Hunger

Of course, Porsche is hesitant to abandon the heritage of cars like the Cayenne, 911 Turbo, and the Boxster, but these combustion-powered cars are slowly becoming obsolete in terms of sales. Not immediately, of course, but Porsche has finally realized just how EVs can bolster its sales, During one of the brand’s recent financial reports, we learned that it delivered just over 300,000 vehicles globally in 2021. 41,296 of them were the all-electric Taycan. Doesn’t sound like much? Well, it is for Porsche, and the truth is that the Taycan outsold the legendary 911!

So, following the brand’s early success with EVs, Porsche’s CEO has changed the brand’s short-term goals and now expected 80-percent of its vehicles to be electrified by the end of this decade. “In 2025, half of all new Porsche sales are expected to come from the sale of electric vehicles – i.e. all-electric or plug-in hybrid. In 2030, the share of all new vehicles with an all-electric drive should be more than 80 percent.”

This means that Porsche will have to dive even deeper into electrification because the Taycan can’t pull that much weight. It looks, however, that the booming EV market might have changed the brand’s take on a 911 and, thanks to the help of Volkswagen Group and Quantumscape, it’s possible the 911 will go electric much sooner than anyone expected.

The Porsche 911 EV with Solid State Batteries

Not that long ago, we caught a Porsche 911 Hybrid being put through the paces on the Nürburgring, and now it looks like we might know why. A new report from Manager Magazin in Germany claims that Porsche is, in fact, developing an electric version of the 911 that will be powered by some kind of solid-state batteries. The company has been working directly with U.S.-based manufacturer Quantumscape on integrating this new technology into vehicles. Could it be that the aforementioned hybrid was actually a test mule for that project?

Even better yet, Volkswagen Group, the parent company of Porsche, claims that the electrified 911 is actually scheduled to launch sometime this decade. That’s still a range of about eight years, but it’s quite possibly sooner than we were honestly hoping at this point. It’s worth noting that Volkswagen is also the largest shareholder in Quantumscape and apparently invested some $100 million in 2018, then another $200 million in 2020. Quantumscape also brought in some $1 billion in financing following a SPAC merger in 2020, and it is now very close to scaling its solid-state battery technology. If you’re not aware, this tech will completely rewrite the rules for electric cars in terms of available range, charging speed, safety, and even weight.

Now, if Porsche can manage to work solid-state battery tech into the 911 as it stands now, it’s quite possible the hybrid model could launch within a few years. I wouldn’t expect an EV to happen for the next-gen model comes around, but hey, these days, anything is possible.