Porsche mulling over a plug-in 911

Elon Musk may be planning a colony on Mars, but the VW Group is planning to give him a good kicking in the electric car market before he gets there. VW-owned Porsche has confirmed that, following hot on the heels of the newly-turbocharged Porsche 911, that a plugin hybrid version of the long-lived sports car is in the works. Beyond that, noises are being made off stage about a full-electric model.

Head of 911 technical development August Achleitner told Australian website motoring.com that “it’s not yet decided, but I expect for sure in the next 10 years there will be at least one hybrid version of the 911 and maybe more.”

Achleitner said that the particular challenge was in keeping the 911’s unique rear-engined layout while finding batteries and electric motors that would fit within the space left by the flat-six petrol engine. “We are working and checking hybrid possibilities since years, but it’s completely dependent on the state of development of the batteries because they have to be very small as a package in the 911 to make it useable. Otherwise it would make sense.”

Porsche already has plug-in

Porsche of course already has plugin hybrid models on sale in the shape of the Panamera saloon and Cayenne SUV plugins and its plugin hybrid 918 Spyder supercar has only recently wrapped up production. The company is also working hard on its battery and electric motor technology for motorsport – Porsche won its 17th victory at the famous Le Mans 24hrs endurance race this year with its 919 Hybrid racing car. “If you have a look on the 919 racing car you can see we are working on hybrid technology and our connection between the racing department and our department is quite close,” Achleitner said.

While Tesla (a company that continues to lose money while nevertheless garnering plenty of publicity) doesn't currently have a sporting all-electric model that would be direct rival to the 911, its Model S saloon has been slaying all-comers on race tracks and drag strips with the colossal grunt from its all-wheel-drive electric drivetrain.

Model S rival

Porsche has had its eye on a direct rival to the Model S, based on its upcoming small saloon, powered entirely by batteries and matching the Model S' near-500km touring range. Porsche's sister company Audi claims to have already broken the 500km one-charge range with its upcoming Q6 quattro e-Tron crossover (which will be unveiled in concept form at the Frankfurt motor show this week) so it seems likely that Porsche will piggy-back its electric R&D plans with Audi's. If that's the case then Porsche would presumably also dovetail electric 911 development with work on Audi's all-electric R8 e-Tron quattro sports car.