Porsche makes it clear: 911 won’t be electric this decade — at least not fully
Setting the record straight once and for all, Porsche confirmed the 911 will not join its growing range of EVs during the 2020s. The model won’t escape electrification, however, and it will gain a hybrid system in the coming years.
Rumors about a gasoline-free 911 have swirled around the internet for many years, and they’ve intensified as Porsche has increased its investments in electric technology. To learn more, Autoblog went straight to the source.
“The 911 is our icon, and we will continue to build it with combustion engines, that is very clear,” stressed company boss Oliver Blume. Staying true to tradition means keeping the flat-six alive. He added that, even if Porsche wanted to turn the 911 into an electric car, it would face significant packaging hurdles after removing the engine.
“The concept of the 911 doesn’t allow a fully electric car, because we have the engine in the rear, and to put the weight of the battery in the rear, you wouldn’t be able to drive the car,” Blume explained. “For this decade, I’m very clear: the 911 will be a combustion-engined car.” It’s too early to tell what will happen in the 2030s.
And yet, Blume also confirmed that his team already knows how to electrify the 911.
“We will continue to think on electrification, like very sporty hybridization, for the 911. Maybe for the next model range. We are already working on this concept. On this point, you can imagine that we will introduce a very sporty [system] like in the 919, where we used the hybrid engine to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans three times in a row.”
The 918 Spyder built from 2013 to 2015 and the gasoline-electric Turbo S E-Hybrid variants of the Panamera and the Cayenne also illustrate how to leverage hybrid technology in the name of performance. Porsche has time to fine-tune the system, too. It introduced the current 911 (called 992 internally; pictured) in 2018, so the next model range that Blume alluded to likely won’t make its debut until late in the 2020s. By that point, battery technology will likely have improved, so engineers will hopefully have the tools needed to build a lightweight hybrid system.
Until then, the 911 will keep its flat-six in the foreseeable future. May it live long.
