Porsche Mission R: Electric Concept Race Car

Porsche has an extensive history in customer racing. The automaker's motorsports arm has churned out more 4400 Cup cars over the past three decades. This year at the IAA auto show in Munich, Porsche revealed the Mission R, a concept that hints at the all-electric direction of Porsche's future customer racing vehicles. Most of the Mission R is made from carbon fibre but Porsche has developed new technology to build race-spec splitters, side skirts and diffuser parts from natural fibres. These techniques could potentially be used to build parts for road cars in the future.

The Mission R is similar in size to the 718 Cayman, although it's quite a bit wider, and it puts out 671 horsepower in "race mode" and cranks that up to 1073 horses in “qualifying mode." Porsche claims a zero-to-62-mph time of less than 2.5 seconds and a top speed of over 186 mph, while the Mission R can also recharge from 5 to 80 percent in 15 minutes thanks to its 900-volt electrical architecture. The Mission R is currently a running prototype not scheduled for production, but its development will continue, with a fully realized version expected by 2025 or 2026.