Information on the Nissan Leaf and Chevy Volt may be coming fast and furious, but Porsche is doing its best to catch the EV/green car bandwagon. And, being Porsche, they’re coming up on it very fast.
“Porsche’s supervisory board has just approved the $600,000-plus 918 Spyder plug-in hybrid supercar concept for production,” writes Jalopnik.
Autoblog explains that the 918 Spyder concept “used a 500-horsepower V8 along with a pair of electric motors with 109 hp each and a lithium ion battery that can provide 16 miles of emissions-free driving from grid energy.”
If the powertrain stays the same, the 918 Spyder will have a combined 718 horsepower. While that’s more than the mass-market all-electric Nissan Leaf offers, for the price of one 918 Spyder, you could by a Leaf for yourself and 17 of your closest friends. Then again, the Nissan Leaf is set to start rolling out this year. Porsche has not said when the 918 Spyder may be available.
Kicking Tires says that putting the 918 Spyder into production “proves [Porsche] isn’t just paying lip service to electric vehicles, and Porsches already have pretty good fuel economy numbers compared with other performance makes. In the meantime, the automaker is preparing to launch its 2011 Cayenne S Hybrid, which will have a 23% improvement in fuel efficiency compared with the outgoing 2010 Cayenne S and can cruise at high speeds on electric power alone.”
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