kevin993

Bob - Thanks very much for this. One of the comments made by Chris Harris (among others) is that they appreciate the engineering exercise, but they really wish that they could see a 918 version without all of the complicated electrical gizmos and additional weight. Did you come away with the same wonder?

heynow

@DreamCarreera,

At the event I asked them about this, and they said that they had Bosch, Samsung, and one other german tech company (can't remember the name) working on the battery. In terms of battery tech those companies are pretty good.

Bob Rouleau

Kevin,
I guess you mean something like a RWD V8 only version. Maybe we'll see something like that in the 961? The combination of electric drive - fuel economy to make the EPA happy and torque to make us happy given that the V8 must be high strung made a big impression on me. I can only imagine how the car will perform when the V8 is not limited to 6,000 RPM. The perfect weight distribution is also a result of the battery location and the electric motors. So is it complicated, yes. OTOH, it's not complexity for the sake of complexity, rather for performance. So in the end it makes sense. Now if the price was a more affordable ......

DRPM

Bob,
Did they say how many units Porsche plans to build ?

I kinda like Kevin's idea of a vanilla RWD V8 mentioned above.

kevin993

Thanks much for your thoughts. A RWD V8 is EXACTLY what I was thinking of. I'm guessing that the driving experience would be pretty compelling and the car would be less complex - both of which might make it cheaper and easier to race.

Seems like a long shot, but did you hear noise about taking the car to the track? Would love to see it at the Nurburgring 24!

Bob Rouleau

There was no talk about racing it, I doubt it fits any sanctioning body's rules. Perhaps a demo race at the 24 hours of the 'ring? They did that with the hybrid GT3 after all. The car is certainly fast enough!

My intuition is that Porsche is getting ready for EPA economy rules which will pretty much wipe out high powered sports cars unless high tech solutions are applied. Porsche is screwed by the looming 54 MPG fleet average requirements in 2025 otherwise. I'd rather see 918 type technology than a fleet of Porsche Smart cars.

Best,

Kevinmacd

At over $800K its past my pocketbook! lol

heynow

Porsche is building a maximum 918 (1 and 918 go to Porsche) cars, or less if they can't generate 916 deposits.

kevin993

I'll be very impressed if Porsche sells 918 units at $1m+. It may be an impressive piece of kit, but $1m+ is a steep price - especially with competition like the McLaren P1, Ferrari F70 and Audi R20.

On the racing side, I have to believe that the N24 organizers would find a way to balance performance if Porsche wanted to race it. As much as I'd love to see the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 in battle on a race track, I'm skeptical that it will happen. Same goes for the LeMans organizers - would be great to get a revival of the GT1 days, but I don't see it happening.

heynow

Well the Ferrari is going to be impossible to get, and will also be in the $1 million dollar price range. The P1 is supposedly 700,000 pounds (1.1 million dollars) but should be easier to get. I agree it seems like a stretch for Porsche getting 900+ sold units and would be mighty impressed if they do.

Sherpa23

Yes but the one thing that you're leaving out is whatever the Ferrari costs, it will be worth more than that from the very beginning. My biggest hesitation with the 918, which I know others share with me, is that I am not a fan of turning $1mm into $600k (or less?) virtually overnight, which is exactly what I think will happen (happy to be proven wrong on this). I know, I know, but it still is a lot of money to kiss goodbye. That therein lies Porsche's problem with selling their projected 900+ cars and that is also what's going to make McLaren's job hard with the P1, too. When you're talking about throwing away that kind of money ( the delta between purchase price and value) you go from rarified air of wealthy people to ridiculously wealthy people. You shrink your marketplace by tenfold, at least. That said, I think that the 961, if it's what I'm hearing at the cost I'm hearing, will be a winner.

Sorry, it's not my intention to turn this thread into a marketplace discussion. Carry on.

kevin993

Maybe the 960 will be the way to go if you don't want all the fancy hybrid gizmos but you want four turbos:

http://www.automobilemag.com/feature...rrari_fighter/

Thinking that the 960 referred to here is what was called the 961 previously, but not sure at this point.

netfirstweb

what a beauty!