Currently a concept, the Mission X that Porsche revealed today is a hypercar with an electric powertrain. Porsche says that if it goes to production, the Mission X would be designed to claim the title of fastest road-legal car on the Nürburgring Nordschleife. Lightweight carbon-fiber design and aero elements make more downforce than a 911 GT3 RS.Summer is when the concept cars come out to play, and Porsche has a doozy in its Mission X, which the automaker unveiled at a celebration of 75 years of its sports cars. The Mission X is a look at how the next 75 years of great sports cars might unfold: fast, light, and electric. PorscheThe low-slung electric coupe-style concept looks like a hovercraft, with a lightweight glass-dome roof and doors that open forward like a beetle’s wings—although Porsche designers were probably thinking more of the famous 917 race car when they hung those hinges. “The Porsche Mission X . . . picks up the torch of iconic sports cars of decades past. Like the 959, the Carrera GT and the 918 Spyder before it, the Mission X provides critical impetus for the evolutionary development of future vehicle concepts,” according to Oliver Blume, chairman of the executive board of Porsche.PorscheFascinating LED LightingThis is no longtail. At 177.0 inches long, 78.7 inches wide, and 47.2 inches tall, the Mission X should fit nicely in your garage. It has a similar wheelbase—107.4 inches—to the Carrera GT and 918. Other racing callouts can be seen in the headlight shape, long and placed low on the nose. Unlike the old cars, the new lights are LED modules. During daytime running, just a slim element is visible, but when you turn on the headlights, the full module opens, “like an eye blinking open,” says Porsche. The modern version of a pop-up, say us. Elana Scherr|Car and DriverThe concept car is painted in Rocket Metallic, a color designed just for this car. Satin-finished carbon-fiber details highlight the car’s lightweight construction, and Porsche says its aero elements will make more downforce than a 911 GT3 RS. Staggered tires—20-inch wheels at the front and 21-inch wheels at the rear—make use of that downforce. In the center of the wheels is Porsche’s redesigned crest, which also can be found on the hood and steering wheel. Look closely: changes are subtle. More Porsche NewsContinuing Porsche’s current production car design trend, a full-length light floats across the rear of the Mission X, with Porsche spelled out across it, in case the freshly redesigned crest threw off your recognition. While charging, the “E” in the Porsche lettering gently pulses, to show something is happening. As it’s a concept, Porsche hasn’t given much detail on the propulsion, but this is an electric hypercar, with a battery installed behind the vehicle seats to center the mass and give it mid-engine dynamics. PorscheUltra-Fast ChargingThere is no information on the motors, but the Mission X is promised to have a power-to-weight ratio of roughly 1 hp per 2.2 pounds, and a 900-volt system that will allow it to charge at twice the speed of the Taycan Turbo S—which Porsche says can go from 5 to 80 percent in just over 20 minutes. In the cabin, the driver and passenger seats are different colors, the driver’s seat blending into the Kalahari Gray of the dash as if to say the pilot is part of the car. The passenger sits on Andalusia Brown, and what that says about Porsche’s expectations of your passenger’s experience, we don’t wish to guess at. Porsche’Ring-Ready SwitchgearBack to motorsports inspiration, the open-top steering wheel features mode switches and shift paddles—presumably for some sort of regenerative brake control. Lap recorders and a stopwatch module are also integrated into the cabin, so you can set your own Nürburgring time. Currently the production-car record is held by Mercedes, with the Mercedes AMG One running a 6:35.18 lap time set in 2022.Porsche is quick to declare the Mission X is a design study only, but we saw the Mission E become the Taycan, so we have hope that Mission X will find its way to dealerships in the future. Other Porsches of NoteSenior Editor, FeaturesLike a sleeper agent activated late in the game, Elana Scherr didn’t know her calling at a young age. Like many girls, she planned to be a vet-astronaut-artist, and came closest to that last one by attending UCLA art school. She painted images of cars, but did not own one. Elana reluctantly got a driver’s license at age 21 and discovered that she not only loved cars and wanted to drive them, but that other people loved cars and wanted to read about them, which meant somebody had to write about them. Since receiving activation codes, Elana has written for numerous car magazines and websites, covering classics, car culture, technology, motorsports, and new-car reviews. More
