The latest issue of the German car magazine auto motor und sport (issue #2, 1/8/2015) features an interview with Porsche's head of development, Wolfgang Hatz, about the future of Porsche cars. About the 911 he says that the successor to the 991 will have hybrid six-cylinder boxers. There are no plans for four-cylinder engines for the 911. However, the Boxter and Cayman will get them for their next generation to be introduced this year. The 991-2 will have turbocharged six-cylinder engines.


He also says that he doesn't want future 911s to get any bigger than the 991.


In the same magazine there is a test of the new Ferrari California T, with its turbocharged V8. The tester writes that this engine has by far the best throttle response of any turbocharged car he's ever driven. He writes further that there is only the slightest softness when opening the throttle, feeling like a somewhat soft throttle response and not like the typical turbo lag. I guess there is hope that the reluctant and unpleasant turbo throttle response problem will eventually be solved. Porsche will not let Ferrari out-engineer it.

 

A little of topic, but can anyone tell me in terms of driving experience, the difference in driving a Turbo charged car vs a Naturally Aspirated car?

I'm guessing the throttle response is much quicker with the Turbo?

 

Throttle response in an NA car is very quick. Turbo cars suffer from a slight lag during full throttle as the turbos spool. This has been greatly reduced in modern cars to very slight lag. This is also helped with some tuning programs. Once spooled the turbo rush is amazing. My last turbo was a 997 TT with a tuned ecu that had very little lag and huge rush of power.

 

The opposite.

 

Thanks for the heads up! Is the article clear that the the 991.2 will be a model year 2016 car? Any indication it might be pushed to MY 2017? I'm asking because MY 2016 cars should be starting production during the summer or fall of 2015... and that's not very far away.

 

The purpose of twin turbos (and I think most are configured small and large) is to smooth-out the response lag experience concerns, and has been quite effective in modern cars.

 

Now that Porsche uses two smaller impeller turbos rather than one large one, there is little lag and a lot more torque earlier and for longer duration across the rev range. That can be confused with throttle response; it can't be confused with slow.

 

Maybe they need to add a small electric motor to spin up the turbos quicker for 'Torque Fill' like the P1 is doing....

 

I am sure they don't want the 911 to become any larger, if it is going to retain any sports car characteristics. Aside from making the 9991 a smoother ride for Porsche's new 911 market, they primarily made the 991 wheelbase larger to help meet the increasingly stringent CAFE requirements. The larger wheelbase also makes it easier to fit upcoming hybrid power-trains into the car, which again helps to meet CAFE requirements.

 

My PTT has virtually zero turbo lag. I expect the flat sixes to have even less. My only complaint is redline...I wish it was about 500 rpm higher.

 

I didn't know 991 turbos suffered from turbo lag, that would be news to me.

 

Yea, I think it's about a 2.9 second delay- to 60

ChuckJ

 

Yeah, exactly.

 

This article doesn't mention explicitly when the 991-2 will be introduced. An article in an earlier issue stated that it would be at this years IAA in Frankfurt, Germany (September) -- as a 2016 model.

 

This has been greatly reduced in modern cars to very slight lag. This is also helped with some tuning programs.