ATLANTA, July 26, 2007 --- Porsche, a company known for its high-performance sports cars and sport utility vehicles (SUV), demonstrated to the media this week in Stuttgart a Cayenne SUV hybrid prototype, that the company’s looking at offering to consumers by the end of the decade.
Porsche is targeting average fuel consumption figures of 9.8 liters/100 kilometers in the New European Driving Cycle and about 24 miles per gallon in the US for the Cayenne Hybrid. Future developments may allow Porsche engineers to push towards an average fuel consumption figure of 8.9 liters/kilometer (approximately 26 miles per gallon).
The Cayenne Hybrid will feature a full-hybrid design where the hybrid module (clutch and electric motor) is positioned between the gasoline engine and the transmission rather than having the hybrid drivetrain branching along various lines and in various directions via a planetary gear arrangement. Porsche says it selected this design because the in-line configuration of the hybrid components are more compatible with the existing Cayenne platform. The engineers found that after testing this system it’s more fuel efficient, and they feel this configuration provides a better fit for Porsche because it offers improved acceleration and engine flexibility compared to a conventional Cayenne.
Coordinating the car’s three main components – the combustion engine, the electric motor and the battery – is the Hybrid Manager, the heart of the Cayenne Hybrid. The Hybrid Manager, oversees some 20,000 data parameters as compared to only 6,000 data parameters for a conventional engine, is one of the most powerful technologies found in any hybrid vehicle.
Other features of the Cayenne Hybrid designed to decrease fuel consumption include the power steering and vacuum pump for the brakes, as well as the air conditioning, which operate on electric power. Technical components, such as the oil pump in the Cayenne’s automatic transmission, have been replaced by electrically powered units. The Cayenne Hybrid’s electro-hydraulic steering – a first for a vehicle of its kind, is there to make the Cayenne Hybrid drive like a Porsche with the same predictable, sold handling characteristics and agility that one expects from a Porsche SUV.
Porsche announced it also plans to introduce similar hybrid technology in a version of its Panamera four-door Gran Turismo. The Panamera will debut in 2009, with a hybrid to follow.
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