Here's What Lamborghini’s Hybrid V8 Can Tell Us About The Upcoming Hybrid 911 Turbo S

Lamborghini goes for big power

For better or worse, most performance carmakers are participating in the horsepower wars. The Lamborghini Temerario now makes 907 horsepower, which is 276 horsepower more than the most powerful version of the Huracan it replaces. Lamborghini has ditched the V-10 engine in favor of a new, 4.0-liter, twin-turbo V-8 that revs to 10,000 RPM thanks to a flat-plane crankshaft.

The Temerario powertrain is vastly different than the 911’s T-Hybrid, in terms of making power. Lamborghini went with three electric motors – 150 horsepower each – and a 3.8 kWh battery, that offers six miles of all-electric drive. The V-8 and one of the e-motors power the rear while each front wheel has an independent e-motor, allowing for e-torque vectoring and all-wheel-drive capabilities. There is no driveshaft connecting the internal combustion engine to the front axle.

Porsche is not joining the horsepower wars

Porsche’s T-Hybrid powertrain proved you don’t need enormous power to make a car go faster. The new 992.2 Carrera 4 GTS is not just 8.7 seconds quicker around Nordschleife than the outgoing, 992.1 GTS, but is also marginally quicker than the 992.2 Turbo S, which packs more power.

Porsche’s iconic boxer engine is a staple in the company’s sports car lineup. To make sure the first hybrid 911 is more than a match for its rivals, Porsche developed an all-new 3.6-liter flat-six. So far, everything points to the 992.2 Turbo S packing a more powerful version of the same 9A3 engine. The predicted output is around 710 horsepower, with around 655 horsepower coming from the internal combustion engine.

The rest should come from the e-motor, which is also expected to be a more powerful variant of the one found in the 992.2 Carrera 4 GTS. Porsche’s T-Hybrid system weighs just 110 pounds over the equivalent, non-hybrid 992.1 variants, so we can expect the 992.2 Turbo S to weigh around 3,725 pounds, which is identical to the Lamborghini Temerario.

The Porsche 992.2 Turbo S should continue to punch above its weight

We know that no other car launches like the Porsche 911. The engineers have been perfecting the formula of "putting the engine in the wrong place” for decades, and with a potent engine weighing over the rear axle, each Porsche sports car rockets off the line like no other. Car and Driver even managed to achieve 2.2 seconds to 60 mph in a Porsche 911 (992.1) Turbo S, making it one of the quickest-accelerating vehicles on the planet. Even with 907 horsepower, the Lamborghini Temerario needs 2.6 seconds to get to 60 mph, and the Italians are not known for under-reporting their figures (unlike Porsche).

Unlike Lamborghini’s 900-plus-horsepower Temererio, the Porsche 992.2 Turbo S will not pursue big power, because it doesn’t need to. Porsche engineers will make much-needed tweaks in all the right places to extract more performance out of the T-Hybrid powertrain. We already know the 9A3 engine is conservatively tuned in the 992.2 Carrera 4 GTS and can produce a lot more power.

That extra power from the flat-six should be accompanied by a more powerful e-motor, to reach the aforementioned 710 (estimated) horsepower figure. Also, unlike the Temerario, we do not expect the Turbo S to be able to drive on electricity alone as this is not what the T-Hybrid powertrain is about. Even in the heaviest Porsche 911, we already see some impressive figures from the hybrid setup, so we can expect the upcoming Porsche Turbo range to destroy anything in its path, just like the 992.1 Turbo did.