Prius to Porsche: EVs dominate Frankfurt Auto Show

The Frankfurt International Auto Show kicked off in Germany this week, bringing together almost 1,100 manufacturers and suppliers and featuring 159 world premieres. But this year, hybrids and pure electric cars look like stealing the show, with a large number of the world-premier vehicles running on either pure battery power or hybrid gas-electric systems.

As Climate Progress reports, electric motors are proving especially popular with high-performance luxury cars – a shift that is not only due to increasingly stringent new car efficiency standards in the US and EU, but to the ability of electric cars to accelerate extremely quickly, and extremely quietly.

BMW, for example, has unveiled its i8 model – a plug-in hybrid racer (featured in the latest Mission Impossible movie) that will get more than 113 miles per gallon when sales start next year, versus 50 mpg for the average Prius plug-in. The i8 combines a 131-horsepower electric motor for the front wheels with a 231-horsepower, three-cylinder gasoline engine for the rear. It accelerates to 100kph in 4.5 seconds and can drive 35km solely on electric power.

BMW has also launched its new i3 – the Munich-based car maker’s first-ever fully electric model, with a range of between 130-300km – which is scheduled to hit Europe’s showrooms in November. Also joining the high-end EV ranks are Ferrari’s €1 million ($US1.32 million) LaFerrari and Mercedes’ 416,500-euro SLS AMG Coupe Electric Drive.

Porsche, meanwhile, has unveiled its brand new $US845,000 918 Spyder hybrid, which combines a gasoline engine with two electric motors for a total of 887-horsepower, to reach 100km/h in 2.8 seconds and a top speed of 198mph, while also achieving the equivalent of about 72 mpg, which also tops the Prius hybrid. The limited-run hybrid will be Porsche’s most expensive model ever when deliveries start at the end of this year.

Audi and Toyota, too, have introduced high-performance vehicles with electric engines, while Volkswagen – Europe’s biggest car maker – made its first foray into fully electric territory with the e-Golf and the e-Up! The e-Golf, with a range of 190 kilometers, should hit the roads in early 2014. The e-Up!, a four-seater with a starting price of €26,900 ($US35,490) and a range of 160km, will go on sale in Germany in October.

Also unveiled at Frankfurt was the Spark-Renault SRT_01E – a fully-electric car that will race in the first-ever Formula E competition intended to push electric cars into the mainstream.

Such “ultra-efficient sportsters” as these, notes Bloomberg, are not only helping automakers meet tougher emissions regulations without sacrificing power and performance, but are breaking the association between speed and pollution, as well as “shoring up the carmakers’ reputations for innovation, which have helped them sidestep a six-year decline in the European car market while underpinning their ability to charge premium prices and haul in above-average profits.”