Porsche's four-door coupé now comes with hybrid technology, but is there any point to the Porsche Panamera S Hybrid?
So you gather up Germany's greatest vehicle engineers and designers. The brief? A four-door sports car capable of crossing continents – the epitome of sybaritic celerity. They toiled through the early part of this century and the first fuzzy spy shots were seen in early 2007. Two years later, the Panamera appeared at the Shanghai motor show and we all drew breath. Surely, they couldn't be serious?
Porsche design has always ploughed its own furrow, but this looked like the weary plod of the ploughman from Gray's Elegy. The front end overhung the wheels with all the charm of a tightly-belted beer gut. The rear coachwork was curved like a straining dog and the whole had a blocky, graceless appearance.
This was not an easy car to look at, far less to love. Yet the Panamera S Hybrid has been a success, with more than 43,000 sold around the world since launch. And it appears that Panamera owners actually use their cars, with a typical annual mileage of more than 18,500. Which is perhaps why they are looking for ways to reduce their annual fuel bills and why the company is producing both hybrid and diesel Panamera derivatives this year.
Yet however hard it is to love the Panamera's exterior, the cabin is a rather wonderful place, with beautifully upholstered seats and a five-dial instrument binnacle that looks like a collection of expensive German watches. Comfortable, cosseting and smelling of money, the Hybrid's cabin seats four (just) and there's a shallow boot, which is 110 litres smaller that the standard car's thanks to the 70kg, 1.7kWh capacity nickel-metal-hydride battery and its cooling system.
Ah yes, the hybrid technology. Developed in conjunction with Volkswagen ("No single company could have developed this on its own," says Michael Steiner, the project head, "because it was too expensive"), this is a fairly simple system comprising a 328bhp supercharged V6 Audi engine mated to a 46bhp electric motor/generator, which feeds power to the rear wheels via an eight-speed automatic transmission with overdriven ratios for the top two gears to allow high-speed parsimony. The electric motor can drive the car on its own for almost one mile, lend its shoulder to the engine's effort or act as a charger on overrun. It will also top up the battery when charge levels are low.
There are several modes of driving; electric only, coasting at speed, recouping energy on overrun and intelligent battery charging, either on the move or at a standstill. Frankly, the driver doesn't really have to worry because the machine does it all.
There is an electric-only override, but this won't work at high speed or when the battery charge is too low. It's a highly impressive, driver-based system, similar in concept to Honda's Integrated Motor Assist. It's also deceptively fast, especially in the mid-range when the motor's 221lb ft of torque makes its presence felt.
There are some drawbacks, however. The first is the engine; a bland, characterless unit that gets frantic at high revs. The second problem affects the brakes, which use a combined friction/recharge system that isn't as well devised as those of rivals. With constant pedal pressure the braking effort varies as the system switches between friction and recharging, plus it fails to release the anchors as you come off the pedal with a disconcerting half-second delay as the motor depowers itself. Worst of all, at low speeds the recharging system helps slow the car, but fails to hold it at a halt.
With standard air suspension and automatically adjustable damping, this 16ft 3in long, 1.94-ton car rides well, although you feel rather isolated from the road and the body heaves on long undulations. At speed the big Porsche copes with just about everything you can throw at it, the chassis balance is better than that of the standard car, but you can feel the extra weight, especially at the back where the tail bobs up and down on regular bumps.
A £62,134 diesel Panamera arrives in August and will be almost as fast and clean as this hybrid, so you might wonder if this is one four-door Porsche too many. But America, where diesel is regarded as the devil's work, is the primary market for this hybrid and more than a quarter of annual production will be sent there. Germany will take 13 per cent, with Japan, China and Britain following in descending order.
Diesel, of course, has the disadvantage of producing more tiny exhaust particulates than petrol. These are a particular hazard to urban lungs, but whether you should be driving around town in a 168mph, two-ton, four-door sports car is a matter for conjecture.
In summary, the Panamera S Hybrid looks like an expensive way for British customers to avoid paying the congestion charge.
Discuss.
THE FACTS : Porsche Panamera S Hybrid
Tested: Parallel hybrid system comprising 2,995cc supercharged V6 and an electric AC synchronous motor, eight-speed automatic transmission driving the rear wheels.
Price/on sale: From £86,227/now
Power/torque: Engine; 328bhp @ 5,500rpm/325lb ft @ 3,300rpm. Motor 46bhp @ 1,150rpm/221Nm @ 1,150rpm
Top speed: 168mph
Acceleration: 0-62mph in 6.0sec
Fuel economy: 41.5mpg (EU Combined)
CO2 emissions: 159g/km (on low rolling resistance tyres)
VED band: G (£165)
Verdict: Clever, with real fuel savings around town, this big luxurious Porsche is heavy and flawed, especially its braking system.
Telegraph verdict: Four out of five stars
source : The Telegraph
