Electric Porsche to hit the road

2008-10-11 21:26

Stuttgart, Germany - A powerful Porsche sports car, minus the marque's unmistakeable bad-boy engine roar, may go on the market next year, with a German company to install nearly silent electric motors in the cars, a magazine reported on Saturday.

The adapted Porsche 911 cars will be a product of the Alois Ruf customising company in Stuttgart, the weekly Wirtschaftswoche said.

While recharging the batteries will be a lot cheaper than filling up the tank of a regular fuel-guzzling Porsche, the price to drive the electric model out of a showroom will be a painful €150 000 to €180 000 (R1.9m to R2.3m).

Though the electric cars will weigh a leaden 1.9 tons - the lithium ion batteries alone will weigh 550 kilograms - the hush Porsche will have be able to reach 225 kilometres per hour on Germany's no-speed-limit superhighways.

Ruf also told the magazine the car would accelerate from standing to 100 kilometres per hour in less than seven seconds.

Luxury electric cars have attracted attention among the environmentally conscious rich, who wish to travel without carbon dioxide emissions.

- DPA