Porsche has launched the first 911 Hybrid. Launched with great fanfare, a sign of the times to come to the despair of purists.
It is not an attempt to gain power and acceleration, although this is a very salable side effect, but to reduce consumption and emissions, thus avoiding sanctions and even prohibitions for exceeding the limits set by the increasingly restrictive regulations.
It was only a matter of time for hybridization to arrive in the 911 and the time has come.
That the 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid is not Porsche’s first hybrid is clear and known. We have the current 963 Hybrid, we had the 919 Hybrid, winner of Le Mans, among those in competition. Among the series models some versions of the Cayenne or the Paramera. And, in reality, the first hybrid ‘street’ Porsche dates back 10 years ago, the Super 918 launched in 2013.
However, the 911 Hybrid, the T-Hybrid, is not the first 911 Hybrid. We are not referring, obviously, to test vehicles or prototypes made to give birth to this T-Hybrid, but to a competition 911 made exclusively to race at the Nürburgring, where it appeared in two seasons, 2010 and 2011.
It was a coup for the brand. They wanted to win the 24 Hours of Nürburgring. Already in 2010 they were very close to doing so; They were in charge with less than two hours to go when the thermal engine – not the electric one – suffered a breakdown. However, in May 2011, almost a year later, he won a 4-hour endurance championship race at the Nürburgring. Let’s say that, at the end of 2010 he raced by invitation in an American Le Mans Series event at Road America, and another at the ILMC in Zhuhai.
That 911 was tremendously different from the T-Hybrid. It had the typical 6-cylinder box engine with rear cantilever and 480 horsepower and two 60-kilowatt electric motors – 82 horsepower –, one coupled to each front wheel, so they had all-wheel drive, so the total power reached 640 horses.
But this difference is a trifle compared to the big difference in the energy storage system. That 911 RSR Hybrid did not have a ‘battery pack’. The recovered energy is stored in a mechanical system, a flywheel, and the pilot could download the energy in a ‘push-to-pass’ manner when he deemed it necessary with a small cam on the steering wheel.
Storing energy in a flywheel is something that all cars have, the famous ‘flywheel’, but for reasons other than propulsion.
Porsche used a system developed by Williams Advanced Technologies, then a subsidiary of the Williams Formula 1 team. It was studied for use in the premier class, but was abandoned because it was heavy, bulky and difficult to integrate. But Porsche adopted it and used it for this 2010 911.
The first GT3 RSR Hybrid thought 1,350 kilos. And the engine flywheel had been mounted in the copilot’s place. In this way, a good overall balance was achieved in the car. The rotor rotated at 40,000 revolutions per minute and the discs were apparently made of tungsten, a very heavy metal, to store maximum energy. It was mounted inside a carbon fiber casing, to protect the car and the driver from any eventual breakage.
At the 2011 Detroit Motor Show, Porsche presented a special version of the 918 RSR equipped with the hybrid system of the 911 GT3 RSR… but the ‘series’ version launched in 2013 used batteries and two electric motors, one at the front and one at the rear. , running in parallel with the thermal V8.
For the Nürburgring 24 Hours this hybrid 911 evolved. It reduced its weight by 50 kilos, received more powerful electric motors – 75 kilowatts each – but used the power supplement to reduce consumption. In addition, the system delivered operation automatically when the accelerator was fully pressed.
In 2011 the Hybrid came to lead the race, but shortly before the 6 hours were up it received a hit from behind by another participant that damaged a driveshaft, causing it to lose six laps in the pits.
Flywheel on the 918 RSR at the New York Show; the same as in the 911 GT3 RSR
