Cayenne Hybrid shown to press
 

http://autotelegraaf.nl/vanonzeredactie/?id=44026

rough translation :

Porsche, today is presenting it's Hybrid version of the Cayenne , ahead of schedule thanks to a cooperation with VW..

Also news via German press, Porsche wold also plan a Hybrid Panamera, the car has been designed keeping this technology in mind from the start, which wasn't the case for the Cayenne Hybrid. the idea was to implement this in a second generation of the Cayenne, but they managed to squeeze it into the current series.


This Cayenne hybrid was shown on tuesday to a small selection of Dutch press, and has the recently introduced 280 hp 3.6 Liter FSI gasoline engine under the hood, coupled to a 54 HP electrical drive and battery pack...
Porsche mentioned that the electric motor is active uptill 120 km/h and results in a lower fuel consumption
8.9 Liter per 100 km, vs 12.9 for the non hybrid Cayenne

The Cayenne hybrid is expected in showrooms in a year, as will a Touareg hybrid.

Porsche claims no hybrid version of either Boxster/Cayman or 911 will be made, since it's impossible to package the technology in such sportscars, they will implement a start/stop system, where the engine automatically cuts and restarts at a stoplight

Re: Cayenne Hybrid shown to press
 

Huh? I'm not an Einstein of Engines, but how the heck can you build an engine that automatically stops and restarts at stoplights?

Re: Re: Cayenne Hybrid shown to press
 

mine did that for a while when the timing was really messed up.:D

What are those figures in MPG?

Quickie math looks like 26mpg for the hybrid as opposed to 18mpg for the nonhybrid, or an improvement of like 40%. Not too bad, really.

The auto start/stop feature is interesting, and has been employed with success in Honda's hybrids. When the car slows below a certain speed (like 0.5mph), the engine shuts off and the car coasts down. When you hit the gas, the electric motor kicks in to get you off the line while the gas part is restarting to get you up to speed. It would be marginally more interesting with a gas only engine, as the start would have to happen on it's own when you hit the gas, and would take just a second longer to get started. My thought is that some brilliant Porsche engineer has come up with a way around that little "it takes a second to start the car" routine, so it comes off the line convincingly immediately after you hit the gas.

Or something like that. The trips (that I've seen) are a downward speed on the one side, then hitting the throttle on the other side. It isn't, maybe, a feature you'd want in your dragrace car ... but then, if you're planning on coming off a lot of stoplights real aggressively, maybe fuel consumption numbers aren't something you care about either?

In my neighborhood, traffic lights are like entropy--they keep increasing. That means more idle time and more gas wasted. The start-stop engine technology would save a lot of gas for sure at red lights. That's the biggest source of low gas mileage along with cold starts. Wish they could do something about the cold start fuel efficiency as well.

Hybrids are going to come on the market soon like an avalanche. All the SUVs will be hybrids. Good to see Porsche leading the way, as it often has. Once the auto people commit to solving a problem, you know they will.