Oil cooled and not a refrigerant in sight: inside the Porsche GT4 e-Performance

Believe it or not, there is a link between the Porsche GT4 e-Performance cover star of SightGlass edition 32 and the Hyundai Ioniq 5 N that graced edition 31 – less obvious that both are performance cars which likely borrowed heavily from technology developed by Croatian electric hypercar manufacturer Rimac in which both companies have a stake.

The mastermind of the Porsche on this page, Björn Förster, a race engineer for the fabled German car-maker, makes no secret about his admiration for the hot Hyundai. He didn’t say so, but you could safely put money on him having one on order – if not in his garage already.

However, apart from the fact no roads authority would issue rego plates for Porsche’s little electric racer and you can drive an Ioniq 5 N away from your nearest Hyundai showroom, the key difference is thermal management.

As we covered last edition, the Ioniq 5 N amps up the donor car’s sophisticated refrigerant- and glycol-based system while applying special temperature control modes for endurance on the circuit, optimal drag strip performance or just going as fast as possible.

By contrast, Förster says the GT4 e-Performance has no air-conditioning or even fans involved in its thermal management setup. Instead of glycol it uses a special oil formulated in conjunction with Mobil 1.

We don’t have any air-conditioning in the car … We don’t even have a fan.

Björn Förster

Förster and team borrowed battery modules from a Taycan road car, located them under the bonnet, in the passenger footwell and behind the seats, then turned up the wick from the Taycan’s 800 volts to more than 900.