500-Horsepower Plug-In Porsche Makes Us Swoon
My my my. The boys in Stuttgart have been mighty busy. It wasn’t enough that they built a super-sexy hybrid race car based on the 911 GT3 R. No, they had to build a plug-in hybrid supercar that might just displace the Audi e-tron as the object of our green car lust.
Porsche lifted the sheet on the 918 Spyder on the eve of the Geneva Motor Show and made some huge claims. A few things got our attention right off the bat — 500 horsepower, mid-engine V-8 and two electric motors. Oh … and 78.4 mpg.
We swoon.
As we said, Porsche’s making some big big claims with the 918 Spyder, saying it will do zero to 62 mph in 3.2 seconds, top out at 198 mph and lap the famed Nurburgring in 7.5 minutes, beating even the incredible Carrera GT. All that acceleration comes from the aforementioned V-8 and an electric motor at each end putting down a combined 218 horsepower. Porsche cites 500 horsepower for the car, and we’re guessing that includes the engine and motors combined. That engine, by the way, was pulled from the RS Spyder race-car parts bin and reworked for the 918.
Power from the engine and the rear motor hits the street through a seven-speed PDK gearbox. The front motor turns the front wheels through a fixed ratio. Juice for the motors is stored in a lithium-ion battery mounted behind the seats. No specs on the pack.
Porsche gave the car four modes. E-Drive is for tooling around under electricity alone, and you’ve got a range of 16 miles. Choose Hybrid Mode and you’re using gas and electricity as the circumstances dictate. Sport Hybrid mode tips the gas-electric equation in favor of performance, sending most of the power to the rear wheels and using torque vectoring to keep things under control. Flip the switch to Race Hybrid mode and everything is tuned to maximum performance. If the battery’s carrying enough juice, the motors provide a push-to-pass burst of energy at the touch of a button.
All the gadgetry sits in a carbon-composite monocoque, and Porsche made extensive use of magnesium and aluminum to keep things as light as possible – 3,285 pounds, which is impressive for a car hauling two electric motors, a battery and the related electronics.
People will either love the styling or hate it. We like the front three-quarter view, but the back end and wheels look better in the renderings than they do on the actual car. Whatever. Part of the point of a concept car is to get people talking, and this one definitely will.
A plug-in hybrid Porsche? A hybrid Ferrari? More electric Audis? An electric Mercedes AMG SLS? If this is the future of high-performance cars, we say bring it on.
Sneak Peek! Ferrari 599 Hybrid
Mama mia! The Ferrari 599 Hybrid is real!
Someone very brave or very stupid (unless it was a Ferrari flak looking to build buzz) surreptitiously snapped a couple of shots of the 599 Hybrid concept on the stand just days before it was to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show. They were posted at CarSpyShots.com earlier today.
A lot of people (coughJalopnikcough) are crapping all over the idea of a hybrid from Maranello, but we’ll withhold judgment until we’ve at least heard what Ferrari boss Luca di Montezemolo says in Geneva. This could be an impressive bit of kit. We are, after all, talking about Ferrari. These guys know how to build amazing automobiles.
Still not much in the way of details on the drivetrain, but the pic below and others at CarSpyShots confirm the car will have a V12 engine up front and an electric motor and related electronics mounted on the rear transaxle. The system is based on the kinetic energy recovery system Ferrari’s Formula 1 team developed.
As for the paint, it’s growing on us.
Source: autopia.com
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