What is it?
The idea of buying yourself an imposing and highly capable Porsche four-door GT car for the thick end of £100k, yet deliberately denying yourself the two most stirring twin-turbo V8 applications in favour of a more economical electrified model, might look an odd decision to those who imagine using private funds on the purchase.
Why have a £101,690 Panamera 4S E-Hybrid, tested here, when for a mere £5500 more you can have the simpler, lighter, sportier, better-sounding and more agile Panamera GTS V8?
Concern for the environment is one big driver, Porsche reports, and tax is another. As a company car, the E-Hybrid attracts dramatically lower benefit-in-kind taxation because of its 51-67g/km official CO2 output, which less than a quarter of the CO2 figure of its nearest twin-turbo V8 counterpart.
No surprise, then, that 60% of British Panamera sales have been PHEVs, and the situation is expected to stay that way – or accelerate – when this revised Panamera generation hits the market next month. After all, you’re not giving away anything significant in performance: the PHEV sits comfortably between the two V8 twin-turbo models, offering a 3.7sec 0-62mph sprint time and a 185mph top speed against 3.9/186 for the GTS and 3.1/196 for the full-house Turbo S.
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78mpg, Statistics
Did you remember to add the charging of the battery to that cost.