The last gas-powered Porsche will likely be its flagship
E-fuels boss talks gas-powered future
The Porsche 911 will be the last combustion car from the German automaker. As the company works to be 80 percent electric by the end of this decade, a top exec says the 911 will be the last to make that important leap.
“Our strategy in the first place is switching to electric mobility and … we will produce the 911 as long as possible with a combustion engine,” Porsche e-fuels team leader Karl Dums told Reuters.
The Porsche plan to go electric started with the Taycan. Up next is the Macan SUV, and it will be followed by the 718 Cayman and Boxster models. Then the Cayenne SUV and presumedly the Panamera sedan (though it wasn’t mentioned in the report).
Porsche’s plans for e-fuels, which use captured carbon dioxide and hydrogen to create liquid fuel, are not part of that 911 plan, Dums said. E-fuels, if they use hydrogen created from green energy, are said to be carbon neutral. The amount of carbon emitted when the fuel is burned should be equal to the amount that was removed from the environment to make it.
Dums said that its e-fuel investment with HIF Global is meant more for aviation and heavy vehicles. Passenger cars, he said, will almost all go electric.
Porsche, as well as Ferrari, have pushed for an e-fuels exception to be added to the EU’s electric vehicle regulations. No exception has been finalized.
In the meantime, rumours of a hybrid 911 continue to float around the industry. The latest suggests a hybrid 911 could arrive in the second half of the decade. Nothing has been confirmed officially by the automaker.
