By Karin Zeitvogel
Agence France-Presse
She stood motionless on the pavement near Washington's National Mall, beams of late summer sun caressing her sleek body as dozens of men ogled her and made secret wishes.
“She,†German luxury carmaker
Porsche's new 911 GT3 R Hybrid, is the world's first hybrid GT racing car, and it was in the United States to compete in the American Le Mans Series, a proven ground for green technology race cars.
At a Washington event, it showed off sleek lines and the ground-breaking new hybrid technology, developed for racing but which Porsche ultimately wants to incorporate into its normal cars—not that Porsche does any normal cars.
"This car shows that being environmentally efficient doesn't have to be boring. It can be fast, it can be sexy, it can be competitive," says Patrick Long, a 29-year-old Porsche factory driver and one of a handful of men to have gripped the wheel and shifted the gears of the new Porsche GT hybrid.
"Hybrids don't have to make no noise and drive slowly down the road. They can be loud, exciting race cars," he said.
The car has the body of a 2010 Porsche 911 GT3 R with a four-liter, flat-six, 480 horsepower combustion engine in the rear.
Up front, its unique hybrid system harnesses two electric motors and a flywheel to generate, store, and release power. The Porsche is the first car to use an electromechanical flywheel as the battery, said Christoph Michalik, Porsche's director of motorsports strategy and planning.
When a driver brakes on one of the many curves on a race course, the electric motors, which are coupled to the wheels, generate an electric current that powers up the flywheel, located in the front passenger seat.
Energy is released from the flywheel during normal acceleration and automatically delivered to the front wheels to support the combustion engine and reduce fuel consumption.
Linkback:
https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=32511.0
