Porsche is heavily revising its flagship sports car and the new line-up will include a four-wheel-drive hybrid
GREG KABLE
As Porsche reveals its most powerful EV yet (p4), the firm is preparing to electrify its longest-standing model line, the 911, with a hybrid due to join the line-up as part of a heavily updated 2025 car.
Nearing the end of its two-year development programme, the ‘992.2’-generation 911 receives a host of mid-life revisions, including subtly altered exterior styling, a reworked interior and updated six-cylinder petrol engines.
The changes are intended to sustain the 911’s appeal through to 2027, when an all-new ninth-generation model will join the increasingly electrified Porsche line-up.
The most significant change to the 911 in its sixth decade of production, however, is the adoption of a unique petrol-electric hybrid system.
Set to appear in a new four-wheel-drive model being revealed in the summer, it combines a tuned version of Porsche’s turbocharged six-cylinder engine with a specially designed electric motor housed within the front axle assembly. The petrol engine provides drive to the rear wheels, while the electric motor drives the front wheels.
A 48V integrated starter motor in the dual-clutch automatic gearbox will provide electric boosting properties and power for ancillary components.
The new 400V system is claimed to generate its own energy reserves using the engine as a generator – in a function similar to that of a range-extender drivetrain – as well as via brake regeneration, negating the need for external charging.
Electric energy is stored in a specially developed lightweight lithium ion battery. With an energy capacity well below the batteries used by Ferrari and Mercedes-AMG in their plug-in performance models, it has been configured specifically for rapid energy charge and discharge properties.
Secrecy surrounds the output of the new hybrid drivetrain, though Porsche is eventually expected to offer the new petrol-electric unit in a range of different performance levels. Both Turbo-E Hybrid and Turbo S E-Hybrid models have been mooted for introduction in line with the Cayenne and Panamera line-ups. Before the eighth-generation 911 bows out later this decade, Porsche is also set to launch an 800bhp-plus hybrid successor to the fearsome GT2 RS.
The new drivetrain has been developed via a technology transfer between Porsche’s
