This hybrid with its tiny battery is the most exciting car I’ve driven all year

When the 922-generation Porsche 911 arrived back in 2018, there were whispers that its platform was designed to accommodate a future hybrid system. It was thought Porsche had carved out space for a battery, an electric motor and all the other hardware needed to make its iconic sports car compliant with upcoming emissions regulations.

Would this be the end of the 911 as we knew it? Would the facelifted 992.2 model be forced to carry a big battery and a charging socket to silence its engine and drive as an EV for a few dozen miles?

As it turns out, the answer is no and no. I’ve just spent a week with the new 911 GTS and, in all honesty, you’d struggle to tell that it's a hybrid at all. The high-voltage battery is tiny, at just 1.9 kWh (compared to 97 kWh for an EV like the Porsche Taycan) and it sends power to two motors, one in the eight-speed gearbox and one inside the engine’s single turbocharger.

The motor fitted between the gearbox and the engine provides an extra 40 kW (54 PS) and 150 Nm of torque, on top of the engine’s own 357 kW (485 PS) and 570 Nm, and also acts as the starter motor and alternator. The second, smaller motor is fitted to the turbo, which now spools up instantly without any lag. Once spinning, the turbo also generates up to 11 kW of electrical power, which is then sent to the other motor or fed back into the battery.

The engine itself is all-new. It retains the 911’s flat-six configuration, but capacity is now 3.6 litres and there’s a single turbocharger in place of the twin-turbo system still used by other variants.

And the result of all this? The GTS hybrid is currently the quickest and most powerful 911 Porsche makes. It produces a combined 541 PS and even in two-wheel-drive form sprints to 60 mph in just 2.9 seconds, and 100 mph in 6.8 seconds. The hybrid system not only eliminates turbo lag, but also helps deliver extra power the moment the driver asks for it. In any gear, the GTS’s power response is both extraordinary and thoroughly addictive. The soundtrack of the sports exhaust helps, naturally.

As well as boosting performance, the hybrid system also improves efficiency. Despite the extra power – the GTS has an extra 147 PS over the base-level 911 Carrera – Porsche states an efficiency figure of up to 27.2 MPG. I actually saw over 28 on a motorway run, matching Porsche’s own best-case figure for the standard, far less powerful, Carrera.

Apart from the extra performance, the driver is mostly unaware of the hybrid trickery going on around them. There’s a new readout on the rev counter that shows when the battery is being used and charged, along with a dial showing current capacity. The system is almost constantly working to spend and generate electricity, but without the graphics you’d really have no idea.

It’s not as if the electric motor launches the car off the line like an EV, or that it somehow outshines the engine. Instead, the motor makes the engine feel even more potent, and with a far more linear power and torque delivery than you’d expect from a turbocharged 911. It doesn’t have the heavily boosted character of the previous generation 911 Turbo, yet feels every bit as quick.

For now, only the GTS variant of 992.2 is a hybrid. All the modes below it use twin-turbocharging, while the GT3 remains normally aspirated. The upcoming 992.2-generation Turbo and Turbo S will also use the T-hybrid system, but likely with a more powerful engine.

A week with the 911 GTS taught me that calling a car “a hybrid” is really only half the story.

Some hybrids have giant batteries and can go for dozens of miles without using their engine at all, while others combine both to be as efficient as possible, especially in town and city driving, with no need to plug in and charge. Others still, like the Porsche, demonstrate how hybrid tech can make a sports car quicker and more efficient.

The GTS T-hybrid suggests electrification is not necessarily a zero-sum game, and that with clever engineering, there’s still plenty of life in icons like the 911.