Porsche awaits a 'go' for green

Porsche has benefited from big-dollar halo models like the late 1990s Carrera GT, but the sportscar stalwart may come to enjoy the same brand-building success with a hybrid roadster that has it all.

A thousand prospective buyers would be the tipping point for Porsche's 918 Spyder Hybrid to enter production, the company has told European media. So far, the unlikely hero for the German sportscar manufacturer has attracted around 900 serious expressions of buyer interest.

"I'm confident that we will soon reach the threshold of 1000," development chief, Wolfgang Duerheimer, told Bloomberg this week. "We need 1000 seriously interested people to make a sound business case."

Currently in negotiations over product strategy and platform sharing with new owner Volkswagen, the company needs to expand its lineup to reach an annual goal of 150,000 vehicle sales over the next few years -- an effective doubling of its current unit turnover.  The company expects a good deal of the hike to come from China, already its third biggest market after the US and Germany.

The two-seat 918 Spyder's combination of a 425 kW petrol V8 with electric drive systems appears to deliver it all: a claimed sub-4 second 0-100 km/h sprint, up to 25km on electric drive alone, fuel consumption figures down around the 3.0L/100km and a tiny 70g/km CO2 emissions.

As the Carsales Network reported earlier, should the 918 Spyder Hybrid go into production and be built in right-hand drive form, Porsche Australia will request to sell the car here -- but at an estimated purchase price of AUD $1 million, you'll need a lot of the folding green to go green.

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