Super sports cars and hypercars from Porsche are few and far between because the Zuffenhausen-based company has only brought three onto the market to date: the 959, the Carrera GT, and the 918 Spyder. If we’re being generous, we can consider the ultra-rare 911 GT1 street version, but overall there have been few special flagships over the years.
There won’t be a new one in the foreseeable future, because CEO Oliver Blume indicates that something like this won’t be on the market in the foreseeable future. Speaking to Car Magazine, the company boss said that a hypercar is always part of Porsche’s strategy “and a new model is only introduced when it’s time to bring it out”.
The 54-year-old manager said the model must earn its hypercar status by introducing new technologies to create a cutting-edge product. Blume added that “Hypercars will play a role for Porsche in the future. But that’s undecided.” He mentioned that it definitely won’t be until mid-decade.
There are more important things to do at the moment because Porsche is working flat out on the next generation of the all-electric Macan, which will not be launched until 2024 due to software problems. The 718 Boxster and Cayman will also become electric cars around 2025, while a larger zero-emission SUV on top of the Cayenne has been confirmed for the second half of the decade. A second generation of the Taycan is also planned and could be complemented by a larger electric model similar to the Panamera.
As the years go by, the likelihood of a large-displacement gasoline engine for a hypercar decreases. The 918 Spyder has launched with a plug-in hybrid drive almost a decade ago, so expect its successor to be heavily electrified as well. It remains to be seen whether it will continue to have a V8 or whether it will be reduced to a six-cylinder unless Porsche abandons the petrol engine altogether and develops an all-electric powertrain.
The good old internal combustion engine deserves a proper farewell from Porsche before it all goes electric, so let’s hope the next hypercar will still have tailpipes. If not, we can take comfort in the fact that the 911 won’t be losing its petrol engines any time soon. An electric version is out of the question for this decade, but a non-PHEV hybrid vehicle can be expected in the next few years.
Like it or not, the future is undoubtedly electric. Porsche estimates that by 2030 more than 80 percent of annual sales will be electric vehicles.
