Unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show 2010, the Porsche 911 GT3 R Hybrid race car is currently being displayed at the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club, Bukit Kiara until Nov 28.
After the Malaysian leg of its international tour, the car will be visiting Taiwan and South Korea before returning to its base in Weissach, Germany. The 911 GT3 Hybrid gets two 60kW electric motors at the front wheels to supplement the 480bhp 4.0-litre flat-six powering the rear wheels. However, this unique race car does not use nickel metal hydride batteries found in many production hybrid cars to store energy recovered from braking.
Instead, it has a flywheel generator similar to that used in Williams Formula 1 team’s Kinetic Energy Recover System. Once the flywheel generator is fully charged up, the driver can press a button to release power to the two electric motors for a 6 to 8 second burst of speed. Energy that was formerly wasted into heat upon every application of the brakes is now converted efficiently into additional drive power.
Depending on racing conditions, hybrid drive provided extra power and also saved fuel, thereby increasing the efficiency of the 911 GT3 R Hybrid by allowing a smaller fuel tank and fewer refuelling pit stops. At the 24 Hours Nürburgring on May 15 and 16, the 911 GT3 R Hybrid was a class above its competitors and served as a "racing laboratory" to gain know-how on the subsequent use of hybrid technology in road-going sports cars.
It has become the perfect example of the Porsche Intelligent Performance philosophy, a principle to be found in every Porsche - more power on less fuel, more efficiency and lower CO2 emissions – on the track and on the road. In fact, Porsche founder Ferdinand Porsche developed the world’s first car with hybrid drive - the Lohner Porsche Semper Vivus - exactly 110 years earlier.