The Porsche Panamera S Hybrid - on sale 2011
Porsche has confirmed that the Porsche Panamera S Hybrid will hit the roads in 2011, making it the fifth version of the Panamera on sale.
A day or two ago we reported that Porsche were going to go playing with a trio of electric Porsche Boxsters with the aim of finding out how practical or problematical an electric car is in the real world.
Buried in the press release about the electric Boxsters (buried is a bit strong; more a passing mention) was confirmation that the Porsche Panamera S Hybrid is ready to roll and will be with us in 2011. Not news of course – we were expecting it – but the first real confirmation of when.
So is it a big deal that we’re getting a Panamera Hybrid? Well, in many ways it is. The Panamera, as the news that Porsche has already produced 25,000 Panameras proves, is a runaway sales success. So there is a very good chance that the Panamera Hybrid wills sell equally as well as its siblings, and as well as the Cayenne S Hybrid.
Which goes to show that modern hybrid technology doesn’t need to exist just to polish the green halo of pompous Prius drivers; it can be used to give V8 performance with V6 economy – surely something far more sensible than an over-engineered small family car – the Prius – completely overshadowed by comparable high-efficiency petrol and diesel cars for far less money.
In the Cayenne the hybrid drivetrain offer a 0-60mph within ½ second of the 4.8 litre V8, but with combined fuel economy of 34.4 mpg – almost 50% better than the V8. Figures like that are hard to argue with and show the true benefits to motoring of modern hybrid technology.
Our kind of hybrid.
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