Porsche 918 RSR: Have Flywheel, Will Race
By LAWRENCE ULRICH
Introduced on Monday: Porsche 918 RSR
Is it real? A hybrid racing car would have seemed a joke or hoax just a few years ago, but Porsche is among several automakers seeking a performance edge by harnessing electricity. The RSR is a motorsports version of the company’s fanciful 918 Spyder hybrid, a roughly $600,000, gas-electric supercar that’s bound for showrooms.
What they said: Matthias Müller, chief executive of Porsche AG, said that even the company’s racecars were being designed to trim fuel consumption and pollution. He said that 2010 was a banner year for Porsche, with worldwide sales up 30 percent to more than 95,000 cars.
What they didn’t say: Whether a flywheel-based hybrid system has any potential real-world application for production models.
What makes it tick? A racing V-8 with 563 horsepower and a 10,300 r.p.m. redline is mated to dual electric motors that drive the front wheels, for a combined, crushing 767 horsepower. The Porsche soaks up kinetic energy from its rotating wheels and converts it to electricity in a flywheel accumulator, an evil-looking contraption that sits next to the driver and spins at more than 36,000 r.p.m. The pilot pushes a button to call up the stored energy, providing up to eight seconds of electric boost for acceleration or passing; consider it a hot-rodder’s nitrous-oxide system, but on a billionaire’s budget.
How much? How soon? Porsche won’t say when or where the car will race, or even what class it might enter. But Porsche clearly expects the car to compete and uphold the brand’s peerless reputation in endurance events like the 24 Hours of LeMans.
How’s it look? Like the fastest car at Cobo Center — and unusually prettified for a racecar: “Liquid metal chrome blue” paint with a wedge of orange down the center, a cocoa-leather and metal interior instead of the stripped-bare tubs usually seen in the pits.
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