What's The Future Of Sports Cars? Porsche, Ferrari Looking To Challenge Tesla By Going Electric

Jaguar, BMW, Mercedes and Audi have joined the electric car market but the industry is now preparing itself for the sports car, as Ferrari (RACE) and Porsche (POANY) — among the most prominent luxury sports car brands — have recently unveiled electric models to try and challenge Tesla's (TSLA) share of the premium vehicle market.

Ferrari's plug-in hybrid SF90 Stradale promises to be its most powerful street-legal car ever. The vehicle has a 40-liter turbocharged V8 engine that generates 769 horsepower. It can accelerate to 62 mph in 2.5 seconds and can reach 211 mph.

The SF90 in the title is a tribute to Ferrari's 90 years of business and "Stradale" is the Italian word for "road." It will cost at least $1 million with deliveries expected in the beginning of 2020.

In September, German automaker Porsche will launch its first-ever fully electric vehicle (EV), the Taycan.

"Our new electric sports car is athletic and performance-oriented; a car that is capable of longer distances and represents freedom," said Oliver Blume, the CEO of Porsche AG.

Taycan is Turkish for "lively young horse," a reference to the horse in Porsche's logo. The price will be somewhere between Porsche's Cayenne model at $66,000 and its Panamera model at $85,000.

The company hopes to integrate new innovation in its vehicles, as the Porsche sportscar turned 70 in 2018.

"It’s no surprise, then, that a common question I hear about the new EVs coming to the U.S. is, 'Will anyone buy them?' I believe the answer is unequivocally yes," wrote Klaus Zellmer, North America president of Porsche, in a USA Today op-ed on June 17.

"Technology transitions are, by their nature, hard to forecast in advance. But with more than 20 years of automotive industry experience, I see clear market indicators that American consumers are about to embrace EVs as their daily drive."

Zellmer noted that Tesla made inroads but he expects more widespread adoption.

Tesla set the standard for the luxury electric car when it released its Tesla Roadster in 2008. In 2018, Tesla was responsible for more than 50% of all plug-in vehicle sales in the United States."

There were approximately 361,307 electric vehicles sold in total in the U.S. in 2018, an increase of 81% over the previous year. There are currently about 1 million electric cars on the road. Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden has pledged to build 500,000 charging stations for the increase of electric cars.

There are more than 260 million oil-based cars in the U.S. and over 17 million oil cars are sold each year.