Porsche boss pulls the plug on all-electric 911 once again
"Our icon, the 911, will have a combustion engine for a long time to come"
Porsche 911 Turbo
An all-electric version of the Porsche 911 has once again been ruled out in spite of recent speculation that such a model could well be introduced based on the increasing global sales success of the Taycan.
Reaffirming comments made by the line head for the 718 Boxster/Cayman Frank-Steffen Walliser earlier this year, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume confirmed to Automotive News Europe that Stuttgart has no plans for the foreseeable to offer an all-battery powered 911 despite racing a hybrid GT3 at the Nürburgring 24 hours in 2011.
“Let me be clear, our icon, the 911, will have a combustion engine for a long time to come. The 911 is a concept of the car that is prepared for the combustion engine. It’s not useful to combine it with pure electric mobility. We believe in purpose-designed cars for electric mobility,” Blume was quoted as saying. “To stop combustion engines isn’t the right discussion. We come from both sides [electric mobility and e-fuels] to reduce C02”.
His comments comes after 911 GT divisional boss, Andreas Preuninger, told Britain’s Autocar last year that electrical assistance would never feature on the GT2 or GT3 as this would go against what the models represent.
“If we would decide to make all the racing cars electrified overnight, then we would have a reason to look into that but, as always, it has to be a connection between the cars we use on the track to the cars we sell with a numberplate attached,” Preuninger said.
Despite the all-electric stance, Blume, in contrast to additional remarks made by Walliser, stated that a hybrid 911 could present a far more realistic proposition, before stopping short of confirming it happening outright.
“In the future for the 911, there are good ideas for a special kind of hybrid, a very performance-oriented hybrid, where we use, for example, a 400-volt system for our electric engine. That’s more or less our idea of how to continue with the 911,” he said.
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