Right on schedule, it seems that the Type 991 Porsche 911, the one we have right now, will live out a lifespan of about 7 years as an all-new version will be arriving to replace it in 2019, meaning that it could (and probably will) break cover at next year’s Geneva Motor Show in March or as early as this year’s Frankfurt Motor Show in September if Stuttgart feels confident enough.
Porsche is planning an even more potentially divisive change to the 911 formula, more so than the sweeping move to turbocharged engines even in base Carrera models done over the 991's mid-cycle refresh in 2015. There have been rumblings of electrification encroaching on the iconic sports car for years now, but a recent Autocar report seems to confirm this following last year’s exchange with engineers who revealed that they were indeed working to package hybrid tech into a compact sports car body for deployment in a 911.
A prototype has been seen lapping the Nurburgring in recent months, wearing layer upon layer of camouflage to obscure the finer points of its design from prying eyes, but even that could not hide the markedly wider stance this new car seems to adopt. A larger footprint could indicate at the practical measures taken to store the electric motor and battery needed for such a powertrain.
This, of course, wouldn’t be new to Porsche as they have already introduced (plug-in) hybrids into the Cayenne and Panamera range, even positioning it as their most athletic variant with regard to their four-door luxury sedan. They were one of the first sports car makers to highlight the performance potential of merging a combustion engine with a high output electric motor, in a project that culminated in their 918 Spyder hypercar.
Once the next 911 does premiere, it seems likely that the baser variants of the car will still be powered exclusively by a turbocharged flat-six petrol engine, but will shift to hybrids to achieve higher performance the further up the hierarchy we climb. Additionally, the report indicates that Porsche is also mulling an all-electric 911 as an engineering exercise much akin to the Audi R8 e-tron. That could follow some years after this ‘Type 992’ hits the market, in which case will coincide with the rollout of Porsche’s first full EV, the Mission E.
In a broader sense, the quick moves toward electrification are in line with the intentions of parent company Volkswagen to become a leader in electric vehicles in the coming years, and clearly they intend to put their best foot forward in both the mainstream (with the VW brand) and luxury markets (with Audi, Porsche, and Bentley).
Also while undergoing testing at the Nurburgring, spy shots managed to capture some of the prototype’s interior, which showed a curious bit of plastic used to cover up the gauge binnacle. In a change that could again break convention, Autocar suggests that the 2019 Porsche 911 will feature an all-digital instrument cluster powered by similar technology to Audi’s acclaimed Virtual Cockpit.
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