So Porsche unveils their 918 plug-in hybrid. Goes to show that performance and fuel economy is possible: 0-100 kph in 3.2 seconds and return 78.4 mpg?!?! That almost seems absurd. Makes you wonder why Toyota doesn't step up and make a high performance hybrid since they already have the technology... Porsche unveils 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid concept
yeah once toyota makes a high performance hybrid. I'll get it. But how does their lexus hybrids perform?
If I'm not mistaken, Lexus position their hybrids as cars offering the performance of a larger engine at the economy of the smaller counterpart (case in point, their LS600H is supposed to offer the performance of a V12 motor but with V8 fuel mileage). They haven't necessarily pursued the high performance hybrid route unless they decide to come out with a hybrid LFA (which was never part of the original intent as far as I know). If anything, and knowing Toyota, if they were to come out with a production-based performance hybrid, it'll probably be along these lines: Toyota Concept Vehicles -- FT-HS
It looks great. Toyota does not have porsche technology. They have luxury engine tech and hybrid tech, but are lacking sports car tech or anything that says they can build something with pure driver feel. Then again Nissan is building a super car so never say never. For those asking price, the 911 gt3 is around $110K. This bests it in acceleration, has a 8 instead of a 6 so likely even better engine note, and the ability to run silently (other than road and wind noise) in electric mode for 16 miles. It will also get better fuel economy than a prius (don't know the range that the 78mpg is from). I'm sure it will cost much more than a tesla, but it sure seems sexier too.
You've got to be careful with the fuel efficiency specifications of plug-in hybrids. They have a formula that they can use when quoting FE that takes into account the relative amount of "plugin full electric" miles and conventional hybrid/ICE miles that the vehicle would do under typical driving conditions. So if for example they assume the car can do 80% full electric then the FE economy figures will be fantastic, even given that they do take into account the equivalent gas of the cost of electricity to do the plugin charging. The problem is that I don't think they always account properly for the battery depreciation cost, which can be quite significant with the relatively deep cycle operation that plugin hybrids are likely to use. Take a hypothetical example of a plugin hybrid that can travel 7.5 km per kW-hour using LiPo batteries costing approx $1k per usable kW-h capacity and with a cycle life of approx 2000 cycles. That's 50 cents per kW-hr-cycle, or about 6.7 cents/km for battery depreciation alone. Add about 3 cents/km for the cost of electricity to charge it (figure includes losses in both charger and battery) and you're around 10 cents per km (16 cents per mile) for the full costs of running just in electric mode! Yes that example is hypothetical but honestly the numbers are not too far off the current situation. Now compare this to a reasonably efficient regular old ICE car (say just 30mpg) at $3.00 per gallon fuel price. That's only 10 cents per mile, over 30% less than an all electric when you include battery depreciation cost! The bottom line is that while all electric and plugin-hybrids have a great future, battery cost and/or cycle life has to get better and/or gas price increase a lot before they're really as economical as you might think. Not to worry though, because all of those things above will happen in the next few years for sure (that is, battery cycle life improve and gas prices rise significantly). Electric cars have a big future.
What ... an AWD & 438 hp hybrid Lexus isn't enough for you? It's been out a couple years now. LS-600h Although aesthetically a sleeper, if you got to have a $117K car with a lot of get-up & skoot (rather than looking at a never-put-into-production hybrid), here you go: Full Test: 2008 Lexus LS 600h L .
The article says it's the successor to the Carrera GT (and has a faster Nurburgring lap time), which had a starting MSRP of $440K in 2004. This likely will be a half million dollar+ car.
Thanks, I couldn't easily pull up the carrera GT price, so went to the closest thing porsche sold today. I wonder how much it will change on the way to production? I'm hoping that maybe they slow it down a little (3.5 seconds is fast enough for me;-) ) and price it under $200K . At half a million I'd be afraid to park it anywhere.
The Turbo MSRP starts at ~$140K (and you can easily get near $200K with options), and since this is the successor to the CGT, there's no way it's going to be under $200K. My guess is north of $500K.
WOW !!!!! Click on the "Start Web Special" button, and when you enter the Flash site, you can watch a video on the 918 Spider - WOW !!! They also have a video on the Carrera hybrid too!
