Monday 21st March 2011

Porsche 918 Spyder: Order Yours Now

Books open for hybrid supercar, with deliveries due in 2013

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Porsche has today opened the order book for its new 918 Spyder hybrid supercar - and set the price at 645,000 euros (£563k) plus VAT and local taxes.

The first cars will be delivered to customers in November 2013, and those lucky enough to be able to afford one will have netted themselves a supercar with a 200mph top speed and an ability to sprint from 0-62mph in 3.2secs, and yet that can also deliver 94mpg on the official combined cycle and emits just 70g/km of CO2.

These apparently contradictory achievements come courtesy of a 4.0-litre V8 (derived from the unit in the old RS Spyder LMP2 car) petrol engine that develops more than 500hp, and a pair of electric motors that supplement this with an extra 218hp.

Transmission to the rear wheels from the engine is via a seven-speed Doppelkupplungsgetriebe (PDK) gearbox, while one electric motor is connected to the front axle and one to the rear.

Unlike the concept car, the production version of the two-seater, based on a carbon fibre-reinforced plastic monocoque, features a manual roof system with removable roof panels that can be stowed in the front luggage compartment.

The liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery can be charged from a conventional domestic power socket, and delivers a range of around 16 miles on purely electric power. The charging time depends on the country-specific mains network, but is approximately three hours from a 230v domestic power supply. The top speed on purely electric power is 150 km/h (94 mph).

In other news...Porsche Turns 911 turbo into 918 Spyder (sort of):

In addition top the 918 918 Spyders planned for production Porsche is, bizarrely, offering every customer placing an order the 'exclusive opportunity' to acquire a 911 Turbo S '918 Spyder Edition'.

Also limited to 918 units, the new 911 Turbo S '918 Spyder Edition' is based on the 530hp 911 Turbo S, but is 'inspired' by the 918 Spyder. This includes acid green features such as part-embroidered model logos and upholstery seams, the instrument dial needles, unique PCM screen and illuminated door entry guards The badge on the glovebox bears the same number as the 918 Spyder the customer has ordered. The 911 Turbo S '918 Spyder Edition' can also be ordered in the same colour as the customer has chosen for their 918 Spyder.

911 Turbo S '918 Spyder Edition' is being offered to coincide with the start of orders for the 918 Spyder, with deliveries starting in June 2011. The Coupé version costs £125,865 and the Cabrioet £133,553.

[k-ink]

500 bhp & 94 mpg

[Scamper]

k-ink said:

500 bhp & 94 mpg

dont forget its also VED free!!

[nightflight]

Why can't all Porsches, except 928, look like that. I'll go and get my hard hat on now!

[oggy85]

Surely people ordering a 918 Spyder would already have a high end Porsche already? Why would you want a 911 Turbo S with some of the colour scheme of the 918 when you would already have a 918?? Honda did this with the Civic Jordan edition, but those owners were exclusively offered the motorbike, that kind of made sense! Porsche have gone Special Edition crazy!!

[[AJ]]

Actually it's 718 bhp.. and bucket loads of torque!

It will be interesting to see what the real world efficiency turns out to be. If it's even half of what the stated stats are, it's a phenomenal feat.

[peterg1955]

oggy85 said:

Surely people ordering a 918 Spyder would already have a high end Porsche already? Why would you want a 911 Turbo S with some of the colour scheme of the 918 when you would already have a 918?? Honda did this with the Civic Jordan edition, but those owners were exclusively offered the motorbike, that kind of made sense! Porsche have gone Special Edition crazy!!

But the 911 special edition is to be delivered in 2011 so you can show people you've ordered a 918 while waiting 2 years for it to be delivered

[A Scotsman]

This MPG figure is blatantly a load of old codswallop and I think it is disingenous of Porsche to use it.

[chazwozza]

I hope it does achieve the economy, or at very least somewhere near, signals a good future for supercar lovers, and hopefully the money they spend will trickle down to other models and give us something a bit more exzciting than the prius for us mainstream folk!!

[BMWill]

Piston Heads said:

The 911 Turbo S '918 Spyder Edition' can also be ordered in the same colour as the customer has chosen for their 918 Spyder.

Does this mean they are developing a new range of Blacks, Silvers and Whites for this car?

More importantly though, YET ANOTHER 'version' of a 911. Porsche seem to offer all these 'new versions' of the car, and market them as limited editions. THERE IS NOTHING SPECIAL ABOUT IT OR OTHER VERSIONS. Anyone can take a basic 911 and play around with the car configurator (a feature every manufacturer offers).
Credit to Porsche for being able to get away with it though...

= )

[Beefmeister]

[ptopman]

I expect the 918 Spyder will have an increased carbon print for being a hybrid given how few miles such vehicles typically cover.

It might have amazing acceleration and that's a more honest reason to have one than its never-to-be-fulfilled ecological promise.

[louismchuge]

No road tax and no congestion charge?! Nice! (Although I'm sure people who can afford to blow half a million quid on a car don't need to worry about these things...)

[Nightshade]

Are Porsche having a laugh with that 911?! Why would you want to buy a car which pays homage to a more expensive car you can't afford?

[FWDRacer]

Nightshade said:

Are Porsche having a laugh with that 911?! Why would you want to buy a car which pays homage to a more expensive car you can't afford?

Tacky $hit of the highest order

[Panayiotis]

Love the 918, hate the idea behind the turbo.

[toast boy]

nomex suit
It would be nice if Porsche continue with their usual styling laziness and in a few years time produce a smaller, lower powered version of this for an affordable price.
/nomex suit

Edited by toast boy on Monday 21st March 10:46

[E21_Ross]

it will be interesting to see if it performs better than the new macca! for those who can afford a car which will cost over £650k after taxes, a few MPG is hardly going to matter. granted it's certainly a looker!

so hang on, if it can do 16miles on just electric....for how long is it 700bhp and 90+ mpg....! hardly much is it. either way, if it gets in the lower tax brackets etc then hopefully more supercars will use this.

Edited by E21_Ross on Monday 21st March 10:26

[evile]

toast boy][nomex suit said:

It would be nice if Porsche continue with their usual styling laziness and in a few years time produce a smaller, lower powered version of this for an affordable price.
[/nomex suit]

Toasty,

You're too far off...take the nomex suit off. I agree. Porsche should offer a non-hybrid version of this car at a much lower price.

[Gizmo!]

I know this probably came from the press release, and of course the wonks of Weissach know more about these things than me, but can this actually be right?

article said:

The liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery can be charged from a conventional domestic power socket, and delivers a range of around 16 miles on purely electric power. The charging time depends on the country-specific mains network, but is approximately three hours from a 230v domestic power supply. The top speed on purely electric power is 150 km/h (94 mph).

I don't know the precise calculations (and have better things to do) but can someone work out how many joules of energy come out of a standard wall socket in three hours?

I also have difficulty believing that it can get to 150km/h on the same amount of juice as it can drive 16 miles, unless it's in a vacuum. The air resistance squares with speed so even if it's 16 miles at 10kph, it's 4 miles at 20kph, 1 mile at 40 kph? And you have to do the slow speeds first, so surely it'll run out of juice before the peak gets to 150?

[Dagnut]

Lets not get into another debate about whether or not it can do 94mpg...who gives a fiddlers w@nk? If it can achieve 94mpg on the batteries travelling at 25mph that's all it needs to do...it's playing them at their own gaming and exposing the flaw in their regulations. Fair play