Porsche's latest hybrid is ready for the e-fuel future

[SOUND] Porsche has been lightly refreshing its Panamera range, and this particular one remains the pinnacle of the pricing structure. It is the 142,000 pound Panamera Turbo S e hybrid sport terrorismo here in volcano great. Metallic paint. The changes are subtle, but they include slightly different C shapes daytime running lights, a new continuous light bar on the rear, an additional 19 brake horsepower and 15 pounds foot from the 4 liter twin turbo V8 under the bonnet. A higher capacity battery beneath the boot floor. New wheel designs New ties, tweaked suspension settings, a higher resolution for the PCM display and sport kronos is standard, but is it any different to drive? Well, let's start with the electric only E power mode. On battery power line. We've got 134 brake horsepower and 295 pounds for the talk, which is well. Pretty ample for most of the sort of journeys you want to do on electric power. I feel like since I drove the last iteration of this car hybrids have become more pertinent, certainly in the UK where obviously we've had announced that they want to ban all new petrol and diesel cars by 2030. So I read like this will still be allowable. But also we've had quite a few friends who don't feel like they're ready for a full electric car as their next new car, but still want to be conscious of their sort of journeys around town perhaps they'd like to be zero emission So a hybrid like this actually makes quite a lot of sense. The battery in here is now gone from a 14.1 kilowatt hour battery to a 17.9 kilowatt hour batteries. So the range has increased by up to 30% across the various hybrid Panamera so you can get to those four four s or the Turbo S Hybrid that we've got here because well we'll get to the performance but later on hat new battery gives a 50 kilometer or 31 mile maximum electric only range according to W LTP figures, but that equates to 59 kilometers or just over 36 and a half miles under the old NEDC testing procedures Dropping thrown it just feels like The Electric is more resolved, it doesn't feel like it wants to jump in and use the internal combustion engine quite as much as it did before. Maximum Torque arrives when you've got 50% of the acceleration pedal depressed, and then the internal combustion engine will kick in. If you're an e power mode. When you reach 60% of the throttle, you've got a little bit of leeway there. Just because otherwise you want to be sort of trying to accelerate as hard as you can but fearful of kicking in with the engine. And I think overall, it works very well actually. Porsche has also worked hard with this model to improve the well, the way that it recharges the batteries. So when you're on the go. Got a couple of options here. You got what you got a charge down here. That will charge it up to just over seven kilowatts when you're going along or 12. Actually, we're in Sport Plus, Porsche has actually revised the target charge level of the battery down from 100% to 80%. So that it doesn't waste energy trying to charge that reluctantly, last 20%. You've also got E-HOLD so that means you can conserve what battery room power you've got. So if you say you're about to go into a city and you don't want to be using it up on the way there, just use a combustion engine. And then when you get to a low emission zone, use the battery when you get there. So E-HOLD works quite well for that. The other benefit obviously, of having a hybrid and having a relatively small battery is that it's much easier or makes much more sense charging it. And at home. You don't have to rely on the perhaps slightly unreliable, wider charging network. Obviously also got night vision on here. I'm not really sure when you use night vision but it's quite fun. Anyway, as cool and Blade Runner esque as it is moving silently through a city on a foggy night I actually think that the future might not consist purely of electric cars. There is you might say light at the end of the tunnel, or a new dawn on the horizon for the internal combustion engine. [SOUND] That's a bit lighter, I suppose. You see in the press release for the Panamera Turbo S e hybrid sport tourism a mouthful, isn't it? There was two and a half pages devoted to E fuels. Now, he feels sort of nothing nearly as the concept of them but this is the first time that I've seen a manufacturer Rarely say they're gonna investigate and invest in eFuels. What are eFuels? Well, the brief version is that you take water, preferably diesel ionized seawater so that you don't affect sources used for drinking, then you subject it to electrolysis. This means passing electrical current through H2O to separate out the hydrogen. Obviously the electricity used for this should be from a local renewable source. You then combine the hydrogen with carbon dioxide, which can be captured from the air or industry. And in the process you create ethanol, which can then be converted into very pure forms of petrol or diesel or kerosene for the aviation industry. These can then go straight into a conventional combustion engine. And of course, while they will then emit CO2, it's only equivalent to the CO2 that was used. To produce the fuel in the first place, so it's what's known as a closed loop. The other advantage, of course, is that you can use the existing infrastructure to distribute these liquid fuels. Brilliant. You might think, let's crack on with this. Well, there are a few problems. Obviously, you're still expanding co2. So in low emission zones, the battery electric vehicles, certainly, They have their place. Also, the process for extracting the hydrogen is complicated and expensive. So at the moment they're racking the fuels, it probably cost three to four times what they do at the moment, however, as a solution, to be able to keep things like gt threes, going on motorsport, Things like, rallying obviously, close to my heart, where you need a car, making some noise going through a forest, because it'd be not safe. Otherwise, he feels, really do, presents, a golden opportunity, all those classic cars, that we'd love to be able to keep going. Things like the Goodwood revival, me. Will you take that could still exist using ear fuels. Anyway, back to this specific car, what's it like to drive? Well, as you might expect very much like the old one low power and talk of any crept up just incrementally ready. We've now got 691 brake horsepower available. And that number is sort of significant because it now puts it on a par with the 991 GT two RS [LAUGH]. Is madness to about 642 pounds of torque So that's 90 pounds, but more than the GT 2 RS. Yes, I know it's a lot heavier. But still, I mean, for a sort of luxury car that can cruise around on electric power only. That's quite a lot of performance. Porsche says it's made tweaks to the software and the steering. So it's taken experience from the 911 Carrera. Moment two, and the tie can and the steering is better. Actually, it's still not a sort of a really interactive car, obviously going to always feel a little bit removed. But as you go through the corners, there's definitely just a bit more tactility to the steering and with all assistance he really feel like it's a much A smaller car, a car that you are happy to chuck around in a way that you just wouldn't think. The front wheels are not the only wheels doing some steering, because rear axles steering now comes as standard on this car as do PDCC. That's Porsche dynamic, chassis control and Porsche torque veteran, plus all of which, no doubt, partially accounts for the 40 kilos increase in the official EU curb weight to a mighty hefty 2,440 kilos, through the corners. It does obviously feel like it. Big carpet, it, shrinks around you and actually, it's surprisingly accurate, and fun down the road. [SOUND] It also sounds, really good, in sport class this, turbocharged, four liter VA, which. Geez. Let's see somewhat ubiquitous across the VIG range. But, not sure it assigns better anywhere than in here this because part of it has to be it's launch control. Case you find a quiet piece of road and [BLANK_AUDIO] [SOUND] [LAUGH] It's just bonkers. I've never experienced a steam catapult launching A jetting off an aircraft carrier. But I imagine that's bakin to what it would feel like. The massive thump is you come off the brakes. It's quite fun. And yet weirdly, you don't get the same Slightly uncomfortable feeling that you do when you launch an electric car, or the actual nought to 60 mile now time by the way has dropped by naught point two seconds to just 3.2 seconds of top speed has gone up from 193 to 196 miles an hour. So there we are. That is the new New ish Panamera Turbo S e hybrid sport tour is no, not a lot has changed, but what it represents or perhaps what the press release for this car represents. It's actually quite encouraging. [MUSIC]