The 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS Hybrid Won't Ruin the 911
Just as electric power steering didn’t destroy the 911, neither will Porsche's new T-Hybrid powertrain. It's more Turbo than anything.
Car enthusiasts understand that electric cars are fast, but they also know the fastest ones are heavy. So, there’s been understandable resistance to electrifying iconic featherweights like Lotus sports cars and especially the beloved Porsche 911. The platform’s five wins in our various yearly best-handling and performance-vehicle-of-the-year competitions have all been earned on the merits of the 911’s telepathic ability to turn a driver’s instinct into a dynamic maneuver, absent any inertia, hysteresis, or other resistance. Surely a big battery pack would be ruinous. Well, save those fears for another day. Porsche’s new T-Hybrid brand of electrification, debuting in the 992.2-generation 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS hybrid, hews to all that the 911 faithful regard as holy.
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Electrical Stuff Adds 110 Pounds
Let’s address the elephant in the frunk right up top. This T-Hybrid system—our full technical dive is available here—is utterly unlike the plug-in E-Hybrid systems powering Porsche heavyweights like the Panamera and Cayenne. The 911 hybrid's 1.9kWh lithium-ion battery features chemistry like that used in Formula 1 hybrids, is sized like the starter battery in a typical new luxury car, and it weighs about 37 pounds. It sits right above the front axle. The traction motor, power electronics, orange wires, and stuff to keep it all safe add up to about another 73 pounds. Lightweighting efforts like deleting the rear seats (now a no-cost option) serve to offset the weight of new non-hybrid-related standard equipment (like rear-axle steering). All in, we’re promised the T-Hybrid system will add just 110 pounds.
New “Clean-Sheet” Engine
Porsche has developed a totally new 3.6-liter engine and will force-feed it with a new, larger single turbo. Sounds like a recipe for epic turbo lag, except for an electric motor that spools the turbine up to its 120,000-rpm top speed in 0.8 second—about a third of the time the twin turbos fitted to the 3.0-liter powering the present 911 GTS need to reach peak boost.
Bonus: Instead of a wastegate, when there’s surplus boost, that little motor regen-brakes the turbo, sending power back to the battery. Since we’re obsessing about weight, know that the motorized mono-turbo and plumbing weigh the same 59.5 pounds as the bi-turbo setup it’s replacing. By itself, the new engine produces 478 hp and 420 lb-ft—up handily from the 3.0-liter’s 450 hp/405 lb-ft.
Traction Motor in PDK
Another turbo-lag countermeasure is the permanent-magnet motor that attaches directly to the input shaft of the PDK transmission. It can produce a continuous 55 hp and 110 lb-ft of torque—65 hp in 10-second bursts. That’s obviously not enough oomph to propel even a lithe 911 all by itself, so there’s no EV mode. One thing to note is that there's no manual transmission option available for the T-Hybrid models.
T-Hybrid Power & Torque
All those inputs add up to 532 horsepower and 449 pound-feet—enough to drop the weight-to-power ratio from 7.2 pounds/hp to just 6.3, which Porsche claims will drop the 911 hybrid's 0-to-60-mph times over the outgoing GTS by 0.4 second, to 2.9. EPA fuel economy should improve very slightly (the WLTP-cycle bump is about 1 percent), but the engine no longer runs full-throttle enrichment, so track-day consumption should improve more significantly. And on a 20-percent-bigger engine making 18 percent more power, even this slight improvement makes the hybridization "juice" seem worth the squeeze.
Chassis Upgrades
The suspension of the 911 hybrid is lowered 0.4 inch, the active roll control and front-end lift systems now operate at the hybrid system’s voltage (400V) so they’re much quicker reacting, and of course, rear-axle steering is now standard. Wheels switch from 9.0 x 20 front/12.0 x 20 rear, to 8.5 x 20 front/11.5 x 21 rear, with the rears wearing wider rubber (315/30 vs 305/30). Oh, and the new wheels use center locks.
What Else is New?
All metal carries over, but most “soft” parts are redesigned. New 16,000-pixel headlamps incorporate all front lighting, freeing up space for larger outer air intakes that get active aerodynamics in the form of vertical aero shutters that close whenever practical. The rear fascia is also revised with a new Sport Design look and unique exhaust outlets. The drag coefficient has reportedly improved, but no numbers have been provided yet. Porsche says U.S.-bound 911 hybrids will get badging on the doors (though it will potentially be a delete option).
Inside, there’s a fully digital curved 12.6-inch reconfigurable cluster that can be programmed to show an old-style tach rotated so redline results in a vertical needle, and deeper CarPlay integration allows some of this info to appear on the center cluster. The big center display can show all manner of performance data, if anyone has the spare attention to study it while “on maneuvers.” And all 911 hybrid models get a new leather and “Race-Tex” suede interior.
How Does She Run?
We got a thrill ride around the Weissach handling circuit in a 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid prototype with multiple 24 Hours of Daytona winner Jörg Bergmeister at the helm. Even on cold tires (they warmed from to 109 to 162 degrees F during our session), the accelerative, braking, and cornering forces of the 911 hybrid felt every bit as violent as they might in a GT3 RS. Turbo lag? Not a whiff. Electric motor whine? None. Grinding understeer? Never. Brief glances at the center screen gauges showed power flowing into and out of the battery about as quickly a turbo boost gauge rises and falls. Nobody is going to regard this as the Prius of 911s.
When and How Much?
It’s unusual for Porsche not to save the GTS moniker for a mid-life spiff, but the T-Hybrid state of tune best aligns with GTS positioning—and the world has held its breath long enough waiting for the first electrified 911. The 2025 Porsche 911 Carrera GTS and Carrera 4 GTS T-Hybrids will be available in coupe, cabriolet, and Targa body styles. (For information on the also-new 992.2 Carrera models, head here.) The GTS T-Hybrid coupe starts at $166,895. Add $7,800 for all-wheel drive, or $13,300 to upgrade to the cabriolet. Add both to get the Targa 4. Simple math reveals the hybridized GTS to be $14–$15K pricier, but that difference shrinks to $4,600–$5,600 when subtracting options made standard for the new model.
Deliveries of the 911 hybrid begin (and whining about 911 electrification should pause) this fall.
I started critiquing cars at age 5 by bumming rides home from church in other parishioners’ new cars. At 16 I started running parts for an Oldsmobile dealership and got hooked on the car biz. Engineering seemed the best way to make a living in it, so with two mechanical engineering degrees I joined Chrysler to work on the Neon, LH cars, and 2nd-gen minivans. Then a friend mentioned an opening for a technical editor at another car magazine, and I did the car-biz equivalent of running off to join the circus. I loved that job too until the phone rang again with what turned out to be an even better opportunity with Motor Trend. It’s nearly impossible to imagine an even better job, but I still answer the phone…
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