Porsche tried (and seems to have succeeded) to take the Geneva Motor Show’s thunder by holding a pre-show party in which they debuted a supercar that’s.. wait for it.. a plug-in hybrid.  They then proceeded to make huge claims for the car all while a captivated audience swooned over the latest Spyder.

Image blatantly stolen from Wired.com

Even Wired was taken by the very, very hot-looking new 918 Spyder.  At least their camera man stopped drooling long enough to take the photo, which you see here after I blatantly robbed it.  They weren’t going to use it.  They’re too busy wetting themselves over the car to notice anyway.  Look closely, the car’s driver appears to have either a rose between his teeth or a mustache like Sean Connery’s in Wind and the Lion..

At any rate, here’s the big claims for this supercar:

• 500 horsepower,
• a V8 engine,
• two electric motors,
• and a whopping 78.4mpg.

That’s European miles per gallon, so it probably converts to like 69mpg American or something.  Now, of course, here are the obligatory Tesla-killing numbers.. it does 0-62mph in 3.2 seconds.  That’s a full second faster than Elon’s little electric Elise.  It’s top speed is 198mph, which is also faster than the Roadster.  No wonder Tesla is going to stop production of the Roadster in favor of a more sedate family sedan.

Now let’s look at what the folks over at Treehugger had to say.  They set their bicycles down long enough to look at this sexy beast from Porsche and probably would have liked it more if they hadn’t been introduced to it by Jalopnik, who saw what I’ve seen: how the hell do you get 78.4mpg with 500hp?  You don’t.  Exactly.

Here’s the deal: if this car ever sees production, they’ll be making some radical changes to the 918 Spyder and, in the process, “revising” their claims to something more sensible.  Like maybe 350hp and 70mpg.  Which will probably also destroy the Tesla-taming speeds it’s supposed to be capable of.

Now, I could be talking out my sphincter and these guys could be taking the new Porsche electric out on the track during the show this week.  In which case, I will gladly eat crow and ask for a test drive.  Of course, if they do let me drive it, they’ll never see it again.  I’ll have it in for new paint and plates faster than you can say “2Fast2Furious!”

Update: Porsche has released a video of this car.  See it here.

Related posts:

1. Porsche Taking Orders for the 918 Spyder PHEV

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