Porsche's Most Expensive Model Ever to Sell for $845,000

Porsche SE plans to sell the 918 Spyder hybrid sports car, its most expensive model ever, for $845,000 in North America. The German automaker said it will limit production of the auto, sure to become a collectible, to 918 vehicles, according to a report by Bloomberg.

Porsche started taking orders for the plug-in Spyder hybrid this week, with deliveries expected to begin by November 2013, the company said in a statement.

The plug-in hybrid is one of a host of new eco-friendly luxury cars being introduced, including Bayerische Motoren Werke AG’s i8, a hybrid that will have carbon-dioxide emissions similar to a compact vehicle; Daimler AG’s Mercedes-Benz’s planned battery- powered version of the SLS supercar; Ferrari’s concept car, the 599 HY-KERS; and Lamborghini’s lightweight Sesto Elemento concept car, so-named because it's made almost entirely from carbon.

“Performance green cars are a very necessary statement for the premium brands about what this technology means to them,” Christoph Stuermer, a Frankfurt-based analyst with IHS Automotive, told Bloomberg. While mass-market carmakers are concerned about the costs of owning electric cars, “the premium brands seem more worried about the fun part.”

The car’s 500-horsepower V-8 engine is derived from the RS Spyder racing engine used in Le Mans races over the last year, according to a New York Times blog. The car can go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.1 seconds, the auto maker claims, reaching a top speed of 199 mph. A liquid-cooled lithium-ion battery pack, which can be charged from a conventional power outlet in three hours, enables 16 miles of driving on electricity, and Porsche says that under purely electric power, the Spyder can reach 94 mph.

The Spyder hybrid is stylistically based on the Carrera GT, as well as the 917 and RS Spyder, Bloomberg reported.

“There’s certainly a number of collectors that have the means to buy a model that you know is going to be a classic of the future,” IHS’s Stuermer told Bloomberg, though he noted that the car’s six-figure selling price may be “a bit of a stretch.”