BMWs are sporting designs which no longer make the cars look mean, Ferraris are going hybrid and Porsches are making sedans. Time changes everything, well, it doesn’t! Dont come to conclusion so soon. BMWs are still fun to drive, Ferraris are still sporty and Porsches are still great when it comes to handling. So there is actually nothing wrong in Porsche making sedans.
But when you trade your sports car for a little more practical sports sedan, its OK. But then if your fuel economy is still as bad as the one you had in the sports car, does it actually make sense in buying that ‘thirsty’ sedan?
So when Porsche came to know about this, they started working hard in order to make the Panamera a little more efficient without losing the power figures. According to a press release by the Stuttgart based car maker, the MY2011 Panamera in its 500bhp avatar consumes 11.3 litres of high octane petrol to cover a total of 100kms, an improvement of 0.9 litre per 100 kms compared to the outgoing model. Its ‘S’ and ‘4S’ sibllings now manage to go 100kms in 10.3litres and 10.6litres respectively. Please note that these figures are based on European driving cycle.
And the car gets greener too. The 500 bhp model now exhales 21g/km of CO2 less than what it used to, while the other two models show an improvement of around 11g lesser than the outgoing model.
Porsche claims that its the brake energy recuperation technology along with the new 19” wheels helps the car achieve better fuel economy figures. A new rubber compound has been used to reduce the rolling resistance and increase the life of tyres.
To aid the car’s handling, Porsche has introduced Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus (PTV Plus) along with the Porsche Dynamic Chassis Control (PDCC). The PTV Plus helps the car in achieving better stability and higher cornerning speeds. It controls the power delivery during bends. It sends more power to the outer wheel, thus reducing understeer. It improves the traction on rear wheels at the exit of the corner, in order to make it more predictable and manageable and thus reduce oversteer too.
The feature list also got heavier. A three-spoke steering wheel with paddle shift is available for cars with PDK(I hope you know what that means. Porsche Doppelkupplungsgetriebe- is the double clutch mechanism Porsche uses in its cars). 3 dimensional maps and traffic lane info(in select markets) will also be present on the car. It had 3D maps earlier too but now satellite images too ( Phaeton inspired?) have been embedded in the car’s GPS.
Other details coming soon. The Green Hell awaits, anyone going to set the new record there?
Congrats Thilak!!!!:)