New electric Porsche Boxster resurfaces, disproving rumours of its demise
Reports had suggested the all-electric Boxster and Cayman were going to happen, but it looks like they’re still on the way
It would appear that reports about the canning of the pure-electric Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman were, indeed, greatly exaggerated. A prototype of the petrol-free drop-top was spotted testing on the Nurburgring, with its brakes glowing red, giving us our best look yet at the hotly-debated next evolution of Porsche’s entry-level sports car.
The new Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman have been in development for several long years at this point, and were originally destined to be available exclusively with battery power. Then in 2025, Porsche announced that the most focused, top-tier versions of the twins – basically, the next GT4, Spyder or GT4 RS – would, in fact, now feature an old fashioned contraption called a combustion engine.
This was great news for die-hard fans who hadn’t been convinced by the brand’s plans to make its iconic entry-level sports cars electric. The traditionalists then probably rejoiced when it was reported that Porsche’s new CEO Michael Leiters was considering killing the electric 718 Boxster and Cayman project all together not long after taking the reins of the financially-challenged brand.
It’s not hard to see why with soaring development expenses, budget constraints, and market demand dwindling from high-end EVs. The pair have cost the company billions of euros to develop and their launch has been delayed due to numerous disruptions, such as the supplier of the high-performance battery cells, Northvolt, filing for bankruptcy.
Nevertheless, as these new images prove, Porsche has decided to stick to its guns, with the all-electric versions of the 718 Boxster and Cayman almost ready to hit the road. Don’t worry, we’re still getting the petrol-powered derivatives of both as well which will sit above the EVs, they’re just likely to arrive a little later.
We are hoping that Porsche will finally reveal the new 718 Boxster and Cayman, or at least lay out a timeline for the pair’s arrival, at its upcoming Capital Markets Day on 7 October after Leiters promised earlier this year, “We will clearly set out where we are heading.” We’ve marked our calendars, so should you.
What will the new Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman look like?
In the meantime, because this latest prototype of an electric Boxster we’ve spotted testing is wearing less camouflage and cladding, we can admire some of the design elements that should be making it onto the finished car. Such as the sharp, presumably active vertical air flaps in the flared nostrils, similar to the ones seen on the new 911 GTS and Turbo S.
The family resemblance with the Porsche Taycan, the brand’s original EV, is very clear from these pictures, with this 718 Boxster prototype featuring similar rectangular headlights and a sharp, pointed nose.
The alloy wheels with aeroblades this prototype is sporting are similar to ones available on the new Porsche Cayenne Electric, and hopefully optimise airflow and brake cooling while delivering as much traction as possible. The air intakes on the wide, sculpted rear haunches don’t appear to be real by the way, just decals to try and fool nosey onlookers.
At the back we can see a small spoiler rising from the rear deck and an ultra-thin light bar, also like the Taycan’s, that will stretch across the entire rear end. Below that appears to be the EV’s charging port, then continuing down is a big and very deep diffuser that will help maximise range and high-speed stability.
Of course, there are no exhaust pipes – in case you did think this could have an engine hidden somewhere in there – but we’re expecting there to be a sound generator providing an exciting audio accompaniment to the driving experience, like we heard on the Hyundai Ioniq 6 N and 5 N. A virtual gearbox like the Taycan just received would also help to make the EVs feel as engaging as possible.
Inside, like the Taycan, Macan Electric and 911, the new 718 Boxster and Cayman will have a fully digital instrument cluster, plus a large central touchscreen. This being a Porsche, there will be plenty of scope for customers to specify their car exactly to their liking, with a range of exterior and interior colour choices, not to mention lots of optional extras.
What EV powertrain will the electric Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman use?
While Porsche has managed to keep many details about its first electric sports cars under wraps, we know the pair are going to use a unique stacked mid-mounted battery architecture, enabling the firm to get closer to the feeling of a traditional low-slung two-seater, while also maximising range and minimising weight.
Speaking to Auto Express in 2025, Porsche’s head of safety systems, Dr. Simon Maurer, said: “It’s well known that we’re making an electric sports car and for that, an underfloor battery will be impossible – not only for the centre of gravity, but also for dimensions.”
So instead of having the battery run underneath the floor like most other EVs, the electric 718 Boxster and Cayman will adopt the same mid-mounted stacked battery arrangement as in 2021’s Mission R concept. This will give them a similar weight distribution to their petrol-powered ancestors, and allow for a much lower driving position than is the case in the Taycan.
Porsche is not the first to experiment with unique battery configurations; the Maserati Gran Turismo Folgore, for example, arranges its cells in a ‘T’ shape to enable driver and passenger to sit low on either side - a concept also expected to be mirrored by the upcoming electric Mazda MX-5.
Porsche has said the 718’s battery will be “smaller than that of the Macan or Taycan” in order to keep weight to a minimum. Otmar Bitsche, the Stuttgart-based firm’s expert on EV powertrains, described how the system will instead focus on high energy density, with “the relative power capability of [the] sports car’s cell [being] higher relative to that of the Macan’s – maybe about in the same range as the Taycan”.
This being the case, we could expect a battery similar in capacity to the Mission R’s 82kWh unit, but much smaller in terms of dimensions than the under-floor pack in the Macan. Porsche tells us that it’s aiming for an official range figure of over 300 miles, and that all of its future EVs, for the foreseeable future, will be powered by 800-volt technology, enabling lightning-fast charging.
And that’s not all, as vice president of energy systems, Heiko Mayer, told Auto Express that another focus for Porsche with its first electric sports car is to improve battery longevity.
Porsche already estimates its battery systems are good for 15 years and up to 300,000km (186,000 miles). Mayer said: “Our customers don’t just tend to have a [sports car] product for one or two years… they have it for seven, eight or even nine years.”
The boffins at Porsche say that a longer lifespan than a traditional EV battery should be expected from the new 718, despite a higher operating temperature to increase performance and the expectation that customers will drive their cars hard frequently.
Not that you’ll need to rag the electric 718 too much to get up to speed, as it’s expected to come in both single and dual-motor forms, with even the base model likely to improve on the petrol model’s 4.5-second 0-62mph time. However, we don’t quite expect the production car to match the Mission R, nor the subsequent Cayman GT4 ePerformance’s titanic 1,073bhp output.
What engine will the petrol Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman get?
Porsche is known around the world for its iconic flat-six engine, which it’s been using and perfecting for more than six decades, and it’s almost guaranteed that this will be the engine that makes it into the petrol-powered versions of the new 718 Boxster and Cayman that will follow the EVs.
Whatever direction Porsche goes in – which we very much hope is the flat-six – the engine will need to adhere to Euro 7 emissions standards, and some assistance such as Porsche’s T-Hybrid technology may be required in order to do that. Similarly, we don’t know yet if the petrol-powered models will be automatic-only, or if customers will be offered the option of a manual gearbox.
The already enormous bill for engineering the new 718 Boxster and Cayman will only be getting larger now Porsche’s top boffins are having to find a way to get an engine, gearbox, petrol tank and whatever else is required into cars they were never supposed to be in. Engineers are believed to be working on a new structural floor section that will bolts perfectly into the right points on the EV-tailored platform to restore the rigidity lost by removing the load-bearing battery pack.
Hopefully all that hard work pays off. But because that’s going to take some time, the electric versions of the new Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman will arrive first, most likely in 2027. Around the same time, Audi is going to launch its own electric sports car, previewed by the jaw-dropping Concept C and based on the new 718’s chassis. The range-topping petrol-powered models will join the party sometime after, potentially in 2028 or 2029.
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