Porsche to make hybrid versions of all models

The Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid - The first of many hybrid Porsches

Porsche is committed to introducing a hybrid version of every car in its range in an effort to reduce average CO2 emissions and improve economy across the range.

It’s become nothing more than a game. Meeting ever more stringent economy and emission targets set by Governments around the world, that is. And one way to hit those misguided targets is to ‘game’ the system. How? Smaller engines with forced induction and hybrid funtionality.

Because using a combination of those two elements will reduce average CO2 for a car maker and increase economy. At least as far as the official figures are concerned. Of course, economy and CO2 emissions change dramatically when a hybrid car is driven ‘enthusiastically’ or at high speed. Just ask a Prius driver. But as long as the figures that official tests produce hit targets, that’s all that matters.

All of which explains daft stuff like the Aston Martin Cygnet, and why Porsche are commited to producing a hybrid version of every model in their range. Not only that, they are looking at the possibility of using 4-pot engines. And all in the name of playing the game.

Porsche are also using one very sensible way of getting more performance for less energy – weight reduction. They are aiming – by using modern, lightweight materials – to reduce the weight of each subsequent Porsche model by 10%.

And Porsche is not alone in having to go this route. As mentioned, Aston Martin is introducing the toy-town Aston to drop average CO2 and emissions across their ranmge, Lamborghini is looking at weight reduction as one of the best ways forward (as they demonstarted with the Lamborghini Sesto Elemento at Paris) and Ferrari is also playing out with hybrids, which they confess is just to appease the regulations.

The shame is that we’re forcing car makers to reduce CO2 instead of what really matters – NOx and PM. We’ve also hamstrung them by making lean-burn petrol engines impossible because of the compulsion to fit catalytic convertors.

Which, paradoxically, are responsible for the majority of CO2 emissions from cars.