The narrative around the electric Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman has lurched in every direction over the past two years. First it was EV-only. Then reports surfaced that the whole plan was collapsing. Now a senior Porsche executive says he has already driven the electric Boxster, and it is “amazing.” That is not the language of a canceled program.

The Fact: Porsche Cars Australia managing director Daniel Schmollinger confirmed he has driven the electric 718 Boxster, describing it as delivering a “very go-kart-y feeling” on track.
The Delta: A regional CEO having seat time in a prototype strongly suggests the car is well into development, not on the chopping block.
The Ambiguity: Schmollinger declined to say whether combustion variants are also coming, and did not specify whether he drove the electric prototype or a combustion development mule. Porsche has made no official announcement either way.
The Buyer Reality: The electric 718 is still targeting an early 2027 debut, but no timeline has been confirmed publicly.

A Porsche Executive Has Driven the Electric Boxster

Porsche Cars Australia managing director and CEO Daniel Schmollinger told Carsales that the electric Boxster project is alive and he has experienced it firsthand. “We can’t say yet when it’s coming, but I had the chance to drive it, and it is actually amazing,” he said, adding that the car felt “very go-kart-y” during a track session. That detail matters. Regional executives don’t typically get prototype drives on programs that have been shelved.

The comments arrive amid genuine confusion about where Porsche stands. Bloomberg reported earlier this year that the automaker was reconsidering its EV-only approach for the 718. We covered the engineering fallout in December when Porsche confirmed it was reverse-engineering the PPE Sport platform to accept combustion engines, a platform it had spent billions designing specifically to exclude them. And back in October, camouflaged electric 718 Cayman prototypes were spotted at the Nürburgring, wearing fake 911 bodywork and featuring Taycan-style headlights with active aerodynamic louvers.

Motor Trend, which reported on the Carsales interview, said it reached out to Porsche North America for comment and had not received a response at time of publication. Schmollinger pulled back when pressed on whether a gas-powered 718 is also coming: “This is still very early and we can’t speculate. There’s no official announcement. Headquarters is constantly evaluating where the opportunities are. Every six months they look at what we can do and what we don’t want to do.”

The 718’s Complicated Path to 2027

The electric 718’s road has been anything but straight. Porsche announced the EV-only plan roughly four years ago, when market momentum and regulatory pressure both pointed the same direction. Since then, both shifted. The Northvolt bankruptcy in late 2024 forced Porsche to delay the electric 718’s debut from a 2025-2026 window to early 2027. Battery cell sourcing for a compact mid-engine sports car that needs high energy density in a tight package was already a technical challenge before the supplier collapsed.

Meanwhile, Porsche’s broader EV strategy has been under severe pressure. CEO Oliver Blume abandoned the 80% EV sales target by 2030 in July, after Taycan deliveries fell 6% in the first half of the year. The company then reported its first quarterly loss since going public in October. Porsche launched the $165,000 electric Cayenne weeks after Blume declared the luxury EV pricing model broken, which tells you everything about how committed the company is to EV momentum even as it questions whether the market will follow.

Gas-powered 718 Boxster and Cayman production ended in October 2025. That gap is real. Buyers who want a new combustion mid-engine Porsche under six figures are out of options for now, with PPE-based combustion variants not expected until 2028 or 2029 at the earliest.

What Schmollinger’s Comments Actually Confirm

The specific value of Schmollinger’s statement is what it implies about development stage. Senior regional executives don’t typically get track time in prototypes during early feasibility studies. They get it when a vehicle is approaching production readiness. If the electric Boxster were canceled or frozen, this conversation almost certainly wouldn’t have happened, and Porsche’s Australia CEO wouldn’t be telling journalists the car is “amazing.”

What it doesn’t confirm: launch timing, whether a combustion 718 will sell alongside the EV, or pricing. Schmollinger was direct about all three unknowns. Notably, he also didn’t specify whether the car he drove was the electric prototype or a combustion development mule. Given that Porsche is actively developing both, the distinction matters. The go-kart description reads differently depending on the answer.

The go-kart reference is worth noting regardless. That is the same word Porsche uses internally when describing the handling character of its lightest, most focused cars. The current gas 718 GT4 RS earns that description. If the electric successor genuinely replicates that feel, it would be a meaningful achievement given how much battery weight typically corrupts steering feedback and rotational agility in small sports cars.

EVXL’s Take

Schmollinger’s comments are the most concrete sign in months that the electric 718 is still a real product. But be careful about reading too much into the enthusiasm. Regional executives are brand ambassadors, not product strategists. “I drove it and it’s amazing” is exactly what a managing director is supposed to say about a prototype, whether the car ships in 2027 or 2030 or never reaches production at all.

The more telling detail is that he’s driven it at all. That places the program somewhere past paper studies and into physical prototypes capable of track use. That’s real. The go-kart feeling? I’ll believe it when I’m in the seat. Electric torque delivery can feel urgent without feeling nimble, and the Taycan (a genuinely good car) is not a sports car in the traditional sense. Replicating the 718’s mid-engine balance in something battery-powered is a harder problem than adding range to a sedan.

My expectation: the electric 718 launches in early 2027 as planned, sells modestly, and gets quietly repositioned when the combustion variants arrive near the end of the decade. The real question is pricing. Current estimates put the electric 718 starting around $78,000-$80,000, against a base 911 Carrera at $129,950. That’s a $50,000 gap today. If that gap closes to $20,000 or less by the time combustion 718s arrive, the EV version has a problem that no amount of go-kart feel will fix. Buyers cross-shopping a $110,000 electric 718 against a base 911 will pick the 911 every time.

Editorial Note: AI tools were used to assist with research and archive retrieval for this article. All reporting, analysis, and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo.