Fast Hybrids

These ain't no Prii, tree huggers!



Gotta love the Stig reference.  To be precise, they're not really testing which car is faster; meaning that they would test both cars for top speed.  They're actually testing which car is quicker.

According to the post-jump press release, the M35h is "faster" than the hybrid Panamera from 0-100 (11.54 seconds) and in the quarter mile (13.41 seconds).

On top of that, the EPA says the Infinity gets the better gas mileage of the two.

[T]he EPA estimates that the M35h will manage 27 miles per gallon in the city and 32 on the highway, for a combined rating of 29. The Porsche Panamera S Hybrid is rated at 22 city, 30 highway and 25 combined. 

Not that 32 mpg or 30 mpg on the highway are all that stellar.  But, I guess if you're rich and feel guilty about your sins against Gaia,  you can buy one of these to soothe your pseudo-Druid sensibilities while doing absolutely nothing to actually reduce your environmental impact.

Porsche GT3 R Hybrid

The article should've specified that the Infinity is the quickest production, street legal hybrid, because they're certainly slower than the Porsche GT3 R Hybrid.  The Wall Street Journal describes it this way:

What you have here is an experimental, 670-horsepower, all-wheel-drive, 2,860-pound gas-electric cyclone...

[U]nlike battery-equipped hybrids, the Porsche stores its amperage mechanically, spooling up a 31-pound flywheel operating in a vacuum chamber in (one hopes) a crash-proof box beside the driver. Under acceleration, the flywheel's enormous kinetic energy is converted back to electrons and returned to the front-wheel motors, helping the car go farther and faster. There is also the not-inconsiderable thrust provided by the 4.0-liter, 470-hp flat-six in the back, churning the rear wheels through a six-speed sequential gearbox. This car can accelerate and decelerate at about 1 g and corner at nearly 2 g, which is pretty physical, let me tell you. 

Audi's all-conquering R18 TDI; their third generation
Diesel (not hybrid) race car.

Most importantly, it's winning.  Why would a race car use a hybrid drive system designed to improve efficiency?  For the same reason Audi built a Diesel-powered race car - endurance racing.  When you race for many hours straight (the pinnacle of endurance racing, Le Mans, is a 24-hour race), making fewer pit stops can mean victory.

At the American Le Mans Series' six-hour endurance race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in September, the GT3 R Hybrid walked away from the field, posting the fastest laps in the GT class and stopping only three times for fuel, compared with other competitors' five or more stops.

Check it out in action.



Not to be outdone, Toyota, the king of hybrids, will return to Le Mans this year with their own hybrid race car.



And now Audi may add a hybrid system to the R18 TDI.

Greenie weenies whine incessantly about racing.  It's wasteful and unnecessary, they say.  What they don't realize is that racing is like natural selection accelerated, thus the old saying; "racing improves the breed".  Nothing improves things more quickly or effectively than intense competition (keep that in mind, Socialists).  They also fail to realize that the same technologies that make a car faster - light weight materials, low-friction materials, direct injection, turbocharging - are easily modified to improve efficiency.

Face it, tree huggers; racing is the best thing to happen to hybrids.