Why electric cars need a grille (when they are stationary)

'Just let them run wild, they will get tired automatically.' That's what we thought about brand designers drawing exaggerated grilles on the current crop of cars. After all, everything will soon have to become electric and then grilles will be unnecessary. Just look at Tesla cars, they no longer have air intakes in the nose. The engine does not need to breathe, there is no radiator or intercooler that needs wind. Yet it seems that grilles will also grow again on electric cars.

At the bottom of the front bumper of the electric Porsche Macan (above the snow plow) is a grille like you would see on a petrol car. This is partly a style choice, admits Porsche design boss Peter Varga: “We wanted to close the car at the front, but not too much, because you need some elements for the sporty feeling.” The grille closes in motion, so the opening in the nose is not necessary for cooling while driving on Porsche EVs.

Modern electric cars must have a grille

Varga had also said goodbye to the air intakes in the nose in his mind. “A few years ago I thought we wouldn't need many air intakes for electric cars,” he says. Yet the grille is indispensable for the Macan. 'If you want to charge a car quickly, you need a lot of air supply. Perhaps even more than with a car with a large engine,” says the designer.

The Macan has an 800-volt electrical system that can charge at high speed and generates a lot of heat. That is why the grille opens during loading. The designer thinks that the grilles of electric cars will grow (again) because charging speeds increase. New owners of the Ford Mustang Mach-E also experienced that charging EVs need cooling. When that model was introduced, there were quite a few complaints about noise from the cooling system during charging.

Or will the openings come elsewhere?

Of course, an opening in the front bumper isn't the only option for engineers to provide ventilation when stationary. But we suspect that for many designers a grille in the bumper is a nice option. After all, it is also part of the design. For example, the current 4-series (with a petrol engine) already has much more grille than it actually needs. On the one hand, the grille will remain to cool things down, but also mainly because it is in many cases part of the brand identity.