On Tuesday night, in the town of Ludwigsburg, Germany, a Porsche prototype with an “alternative drive” caught fire while parked in the garage of a Porsche employee. At this point what type of Porsche it was is unknown.
Here’s What We Know
A Porsche employee drove the prototype home after work and parked in his garage. Later that evening, noticing a fire in his garage, the employee called the authorities and then he and his wife attempted to put out the blaze while waiting for the fire department to respond. Unsuccessful in their attempts, 19 firefighters from four different companies arrived and were able to douse the flames. By then, the damage was done. The man and woman both suffered minor injuries in their attempt to put out the fire and local police estimate damages (presumably to both the car and home) to be near 3 million euros [Porsche has since updated the damage estimates to be closer to the 1.3 million euro range].
Official information from Porsche is expected in the next day or so. In the meantime a Porsche spokesperson has ruled out an electronic drive component (such as the battery) as the cause of the fire and placed the blame on the test and measurement equipment the prototype was outfitted with while confirming that it is a “vehicle not currently on the market”. We’ll update you with more info when we hear from Porsche.
Other Porsche Blog Posts You Should Read
Porsche 918 Spyder Prototype Approaching a Million Miles of Testing
Driving the new Porsche Panamera Sport Turismo
Porsche Family Loses Yachts and Memories in Devastating Fire
[Sources: Stuttgarter-Zeitung.de and DowJones]
