A prototype of the electric Porsche 718 Boxster was photographed lapping the Nürburgring this week wearing almost nothing. No body cladding. No vinyl wrap distorting the lines. Just a small cover around the headlights and a set of fake taillights stuck over the real ones. After years of delays, false starts, and persistent rumors that the car had been killed entirely, this is the closest thing to a reveal Porsche has allowed without actually staging one.
The car looks ready. That is the unavoidable takeaway from the spy shots captured by KGP Photography.
Its silhouette tracks closely with the outgoing 718 generation, the car Porsche let die without a direct successor in 2024. But the details are new. The headlights appear sharper, more angular, and the taillights now stretch into the rear bodywork in a style borrowed from the current 911. The convertible top sits flush when raised, and the overall proportions suggest Porsche resisted the temptation to bloat the car with battery mass.
Specifics on the platform and powertrain remain unconfirmed, but expectations point to an 800-volt electrical architecture, with both single-motor rear-drive and dual-motor all-wheel-drive variants likely. Porsche has said nothing official about power output, battery capacity, or range. The company has been unusually tight-lipped for a program that dates back at least five years in public view.
That timeline itself tells a story. Porsche first teased an electric mid-engine sports car with the Mission R concept in 2021. Customer cars were originally targeted for 2025. That deadline came and went.
Then the whispers started. The project was dead. The business case didn’t work. Battery costs were too high, the sports car market too uncertain, Porsche too focused on the next Cayenne EV to bother.
CEO Michael Leiters stepped in last month and publicly denied the cancellation rumors. These photos back him up, but they also raise a question Porsche hasn’t answered: what took so long?
The broader EV landscape shifted underneath Porsche while the 718 project stalled. The Taycan, once a sales success, has seen declining volumes. Porsche recently sold its remaining stake in Bugatti to Rimac. Volvo just canceled its EX40 compact electric SUV.
The industry’s early EV euphoria has cooled into something more cautious and calculated. Launching an electric two-seat convertible into that environment takes either conviction or stubbornness. Porsche has historically possessed both in equal measure.
What makes the 718 EV’s survival interesting is that Porsche has also hinted at a combustion-powered version of the next-generation 718. That would make the new car a hedged bet, an electric sports car backed by a gasoline safety net. It is a strategy that looks less like bold commitment and more like an automaker reading the room.
The Nürburgring prototype suggests a reveal could come within months, with sales potentially beginning in 2027. Porsche has not confirmed any date. Given the project’s history of missed targets, skepticism is earned.
But the car exists. It runs. It corners hard enough around the Nordschleife to justify stripping off the camouflage and letting photographers do the rest. For a program that many had written off, that alone counts for something. Whether buyers show up for an electric Boxster with the same enthusiasm they once brought to the flat-six original is a different question, and one Porsche is still years from answering.
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