New Battery Cells For Porsche Electric Race Cars 

Porsche will never give up its racing heritage. On the contrary, it invests effort in integrating electric technology in this area. Cellforce is a recently announced joint venture that will be in charge of projecting batteries fit for race cars and, why not, production vehicles inspired by them.

A racecar powered by an electric battery seems quite a challenge, as the latter adds some serious weight and requires some serious charging time. Seems this is not a problem for Porsche anymore, as it is about to make a huge discovery. The battery cells Porsche is talking about involves silicon as the anode material. This might allow the engineers to increase the battery’s power and reduce its dimensions and weight. The substance inside it is allegedly enabling the battery to charge faster and also resist higher temperatures, compared to the 2021 cars. 

However, don’t get too excited, as, according to Porsche, this battery cannot face the EV mainstream, because of its not so properly functioning at cold temperatures. Moreover, seems the battery isn’t able to deal with long-term usage. But these arguments don’t fit on the racing tracks, where the temperatures are rarely that cold, and the car parts are constantly replaced. 

And, despite some thinking that this is Porsche’s response to Tesla’s Gugafactories, Michael Steiner denies it, saying that this project is much smaller, meant for race cars mainly. The plant’s production capacity will cover approximately 100 megawatt-hours per year. Cellforce will direct its projecting efforts to race cars but there is the chance for the technology to be featured on high-performance Porsche cars, as well. Like a 911 GTS RS running on electric technology, for example. 

However, don’t hold your breath, as the production is planned to begin in 2024. The project includes Porsche collaborating with Customcells, which is a German company founded almost 10 years ago. Cellforce is 83.75% owned by Porsche and 16.25% - by Customcells. The project is supported by the German federal government and the state of Baden- Württemberg, which pitched in with an estimated sum of EUR 60 million (USD 71 million). The plant will be built in the South of Germany.

Cellforce is still in the research and pre-development phase, and the project might be later extended if everything goes well.