[ Music ]
^M00:00:06
>> Well, this one came out of nowhere. Nobody saw this car coming, which is kind of rare at big auto shows. This is Porsche's 918 Spyder. Yeah. It's a concept, but what's going on here is an audacious rethinking of one of their sports car platforms, but what's really interesting is the powertrain. This is a plug-in hybrid. Not quite like your Prius. Five hundred horsepower V8 mounted in the rear. Up front is a control unit, an electric motor for the front wheels. At midships, we've got a lithium ion battery pack where it should be, but behind the engine, another control unit and another electric motor for the rear wheels. The 500 horse up there combines with 218 horsepower total on the front wheels, you heard me right. Seven hundred and eighteen horsepower. That gets us zero to 62 miles an hour U.S. in about 3.2 seconds. You'll barely see that happen. Now, of course, the fuel efficiency on this car would be very high. Also the emissions would be very low, and it can go 16 miles in EV mode. So it's not just about performance. It's about having a car that can kind of go both ways but performance is always on tap. Evidence of that includes a drive mode selector that has both a normal mode, a sport mode, and not found on your Honda Insight, a racing mode. That's this kind of plug-in hybrid. A very different take on the traditional Porsche gauge layout. Again, it's a concept car, but you've got your classic center-mounted tachometer which you'll recognize, and then these two virtual displays on the pods on either side of it. Note the paddles on the wheel. This car would be envisioned as having Porsche's PDK. That's their dual-clutch automated manual, their version of a dual-clutch transmission, and thinking of the amount of power and torque that would come out of this powertrain, there'll need to be some development to get that kind of gearbox to handle this much shear brawn. Now, much of what you see here like side exhaust exits and much of the interior cabin is really concept car stuff, but the big takeaway here is that we're seeing Porsche along with many other supercar makers say, you know what, we can bring the hybrid thing in here and not have it go just green or just performance. It can play the two fields.
^M00:02:16
[ Music ]
