-If Porsche stands for performance and SUV stands for piggy, where hybrid fit in there.
Well, I guess, we'll find out as we drive the 211 Porsche Cayenne S Hybrid and check the tip.
The Cayenne is the cash cow at Porsche, outselling its second best seller, the Panamera, by double.
That means volume and that means important regulatory gains can be have by offering by volume leader as the hybrid.
You see, you didn't need to ask for this car for it could be made.
Now, inside the Cayenne Hybrid looks just like inside of a Cayenne non-hybrid.
In fact, I'm not even gonna detail of cabin check in such go CR video of the 2011 Cayenne S, the non hybrid is the same load of tech, optional and standard.
You can find that at CNET TV.
Just type in 2011 Cayenne when you get that.
Now, Porsche has now gone to an 8-speed automatic on their Cayenne.
It comes all the way back in normal fashion, goes over to the side for a gate, forward for an up shift, back for a down.
You've also got this metallize paddle thing on the wheel.
Here on the screen, this will show your hybrid energy flows, so what combination of power is going to the wheels and what's your battery state.
Now, down here behind our traditional suspension settings because you get Cayenne S with hub without a hybrid is the E-power button.
When you press E-power puts the car in a mode to by a store running on electric and of course deplete the battery more.
You can drive this guy for a few miles, depending on how you get into it as an electric vehicle.
You see here all the main tech coming right in front of a classic Porsche stuff, the big gauges, the tech.
You've got something new here, a radio range.
This car has auto start/stop.
Not just when you stop at a light, but also when you're driving and don't need mode to power.
You can go down the highway on this guy and the tact will rather unsettlingly
drop down to dead that's because it's free wheeling the motor.
There's a clutch that will let the engine disconnected and then turn itself off.
Now, when you move a Cayenne around as a hybrid, you change a lot of things, not just slap an electric motor on there.
I lift this cover off, you can see we've got a blower here.
There's the tell tail pulley going into that housing, supercharger on the top into this relatively small 3 L V6 as opposed to the standard Cayenne big bore V8.
Now, all in, this guy developed 380 horsepower, 428 foot pounds of torque, big numbers from a fairly small engine.
Gets this guy 0 to 60 in 6.1 seconds.
This is no lightweight vehicle while delivering 20/24 mpg through that one choice only, 8-speed Tiptronic automatic, but not this, 47 of those horsepower and 221 foot-pounds of that torque come from the electric motor, which is downstream a little bit, and there's a clutch
between this engine and the electric motor and transmission that allow it to be pretty much diverse drive train and that's greenest way to run, let the vehicle totally free wheel without any drag loss off the engine and do start/stop on a very ambitious way.
That's part of the formula to get pretty good mpg considering.
Now, interestingly, Porsche did not put a hybrid badge on the back of the car that's where most people see what in front of anywhere.
I'm kind of surprise by that just those small ones up on the side, but there is other stuff in the back of this car that does tell you it's a hybrid.
Back in the cargo bay, load flat floor, pick this guy up and well, well, well, look at that.
That is not a spare tire folks that's big, honking metal high drive battery.
It says right there.
Now, because that's there, the spare tire isn't.
There's isn't one on this car.
Pretty sure Cayenne has either may spare a full size right there.
Instead, you get this little concession to the modern world, this little took kit with little ranch and stuff like that, but the real give away is this.
Porsche [unk] in other words tire goop.
When you get a flat tire, you're ingloriously hunkered down on the side of the road squirting the stuff in there hoping it holds.
No spare.
You've also got little, very cool little Porsche air pump right here though.
Put the air back in once the goop is in there.
That's a big different from standard CAYENNE S.
Now, we got all these stuff back there; the battery, the sealant, the spare pump and all that, you have a little less cargo space.
3.2 cubic feet less cargo space
in the back of a hybrid.
It's not obvious, but it subtle that's kind of the size of once small to medium suitcase that you're not gonna in there.
Okay, underway, the Cayenne is shall we say complicated.
Think about it now.
You've got a V6 engine, which is under powered for this car and its displacement, but then you've got a supercharger that takes it well into the healthy range, but the supercharger can be embossed or not depending where you are in the accelerator curve.
That all goes to an electric motor
which can be in or out.
There is break regeneration when get yon the breaks depending on how hard you get on them.
You've got a clutch that can separate the engine from the rest of the drive train depending on whether you're free wheeling and the whole thing will auto start/stop.
Whether you come to a stop and sometimes when you're driving at high speeds and all of that equation gets pumped out through and 8-speed automatic that does a bit of thinking.
Now, if that doesn't sound complicated to you, you know what complicated it, and this car does drive complicatedly.
It's transitions
and it's overall very driving are just kind of bulky and clanky and back and forth.
Not [unk] so.
You know it's an expensive car, but it's just doing too much transitioning.
On the open road you're really getting into it that's fine.
It doesn't have those issues, but around town everyday commute, I found it to be kind of a tiring mess of sensations and transitions that I got tired of.
Time for the bottom line, let's put the Cayenne S up against the Cayenne S hybrid.
Average mpg, 18 for S, 21 for the hybrid, so you pick 3 miles per gallon average.
0 to 60, 5.6 versus 6.1.
The hybrid is half a second slower.
Curve weight, the hybrids is 380 pounds heavier.
Cargo space, the hybrids holds 3.3 cubit fit less.
Greenhouse gasses, here is the surprise, they hybrids are little dirtier.
Spare tire, well no, and the price.
You're paying 4000 dollars more for a Cayenne S Hybrid.
If you drive 15000 miles a year and pay 450 of gallon for gas,
You can ear back to hybrid premium in 7 and half years.
So, you can tell, I've got my doubts ** Cayenne Hybrid makes sense in your life or mind, but for the manufacturer, the Porsche, it definitely does.
Because of the increasingly tight standard for emission and fuel economy at the European market and in the US, hey need vehicles like this in their mix because this guy sell hand over 5th to make them a little bit more efficient,
helps their average numbers to get to what the government requires and that's [unk] Porsche that sell more sport cars then do what thy do [unk].
