Monday, October 13, 2008

RUF's Electric Porsche unveiled

RUF, the reputed 'modifier' of 'Porsche's only' from Germany had long tweaked Porsches to produce more horsepower, more torque, more drama and ultimately more CO2 emissions. Now for once, they've did the reverse, a slower, less powerful Porshce, but one that's gonna get more thumbs up as this is an all electric Porsche 911. With a slew of lithium iron phosphate batteries stuffed in whatever creases and space available they could find, this electric engine set up produces a massive 480 lbft of torque, however the 0-100km/h times were a rather un-Porsche-like sub 7 seconds, leaving us wondering they could be shopping for some serious lithium ion polymer suppliers soon for a more powerful, lighter package as these were not only slow to go, but takes 10 hours to charge as well. However, unlike meager 60 or 100 kilometers of maximum range of current crops of electric cars, the RUF 911 Erprobungsfahrt could travel upwards of 290km on a single charge. Luckily this RUF 911 is still in concept phase as we could the messy wire harnessing and the weight distribution of this thing is surely somewhat 'off' from the pictures itself, moreover we can't imagine the usual crop of Porsche owners going Cinderella during a Saturday night out, chasing time for that long 10 hour charge.