Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid 2024 Review – International – carsales.com.au

The 2024 (MY25) Porsche 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid has launched in Europe ahead of first deliveries in Australia due early next year.

The Aussie order book has well and truly opened, however, with the Carrera GTS priced from $381,200 plus on-road costs – a price hike of $27,500 over the previous model.

If you want your GTS with all-wheel drive, the 911 Carrera 4 GTS starts at $401,300 plus ORCs, and if you’re into drop-top thrills, the 911 GTS Cabriolet opens at $417,400. Both the AWD convertible and the Targa version of the hybrid GTS start from $437,900 plus ORCs.

Of course, the significant performance boost helps justify the price rises (the electrified 911 is much quicker than the current GT3), although note that the eight-speed dual-clutch PDK transmission is fitted standard with the T-Hybrid system – there’s no longer the option of a seven-speed manual.

Among its rivals are $400K-plus sports cars like the new Aston Martin Vantage (from $410,000 plus ORCs), Mercedes-AMG GT 63 S E Performance (from $405,300) and the Maserati GranTurismo Trofeo (from $450,000).

As mentioned, the 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid comes equipped with more standard kit than ever before, starting with the eight-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission (the only gearbox available), rear-wheel steering, a sport chassis and sports exhaust.

Matrix LED headlights are included, along with a full-width tail-light strip that sits above PORSCHE lettering.

Other standard items include electric-folding mirrors (previously an option), keyless go, auto park, 360-degree surround-view camera, adaptive cruise control, dual-zone climate control, a configurable 12.6-inch digital instrument cluster, a 10.9-inch infotainment screen and 15W wireless phone charger located underneath the centre arm rest.

There’s also a wider choice of no-cost premium paint than ever before, including both the traditional Guards Red and retina-searing Cartagena Yellow metallic. If those aren’t enough, ‘Legends’ hues cost $7870 or, if you really want to push the boat out, a paint-to-sample shade is an eye-watering $21,970.

As standard, the new 911 GTS rides on centre-lock 20-inch alloy wheels on the front axle and large 21-inch rims at the rear.

Inside, there’s standard Race-Tex faux suede seats that can be swapped out for no-cost real leather, with a premium Race-Tex leather seat costing as much as $8400.

Four-way adjustable bucket seats are standard, but more comfort-biased 18-way adaptive armchairs are available for an extra $5900. If you plan on using your car on track, there’s also the option of carbon-fibre bucket seats – but they’re only available on the coupe and cost $11,250.

If you want to advertise you’ve bought a GTS, or highlight that you’ve got the T-Hybrid powertrain, Porsche will happily sell you exterior decals and charge you up to $1100 for the privilege.

A new aero kit is also available for $5700 and instantly provides the visual punch normally associated with the GT3. In carbon-fibre, the kit price goes up to $10,200.

Other cool options include a weight-saving carbon-fibre roof ($7470) and more powerful carbon-ceramic brakes that add a whopping $22,120.

An unusual option is lightweight noise-insulating glass that reduces wind and road noise while shaving off 4kg.

Options you might take or leave include yellow, red or blue seat belts ($900), a heated Race-Tex-wrapped steering wheel ($1300), aluminium pedals ($720) and a cabin air ioniser ($600).

If the standard 12-speaker 570W Bose audio system isn’t good enough for you, Porsche will replace it with a 915W Burmester 3D surround-sound unit for $6700.

As you can see, if you get a little carried away with the personalisation, you can inflate the price of your GTS by around $95,000 without trying too hard.

All models will be covered by Porsche’s three-year/unlimited-kilometre warranty in Australia.

Service intervals are spaced every 12 months/15,000km. Porsche doesn’t offer capped-price servicing.

The German sports car marque hasn’t volunteered a 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid for either Euro NCAP or local ANCAP crash testing, so we’ll never know if it would be awarded the full five stars for occupant protection.

That said, we don’t doubt the strength of the platform that lurks beneath, especially since the 911 is closely related to the race-spec 911 GT3 racers that compete globally.

Helping protect occupants, the latest 911 comes with front, side and head airbags, while driver assist tech includes autonomous emergency braking (AEB) with pedestrian detection, driver drowsiness detection, adaptive headlights and adaptive cruise.

Lane keep assist is listed as a $1190 option, but you do get lane change assist fitted standard, plus a 360-degree camera and active park assist.

The ‘992 II’ overhaul for the 2024 (MY25) Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid brings a 12.6-inch fully digital instrument panel that replaces the old display that included an analogue rev counter.

While some owners might miss the spectacle of a physical needle arcing round to its red line, the German car-maker said some drivers were calling out for a full-width display of the sat-nav ahead of them when cruising.

Available with seven different displays, the digital instrumentation has the option of a Classic five-dial view, with a central rev counter.

Accompanying the new digital dash is a revised 10.9-inch infotainment system that now features specific displays for the T-Hybrid powertrain, including charge level, battery temperature, energy flow and power output of the electric motor.

There’s also greater integration of Apple CarPlay that now allows drivers to use Siri to adjust ambient interior lighting, raise or lower the cabin temperature and change the radio station.

Despite courting controversy, in reality the 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid is a win-win for performance car buyers, helping the mid-level coupe produce epic power with a paltry weight increase of just 50kg.

Of course, we’re not saying it’s perfect. There’s no plug-in capability, for example, so there’s no pure-electric driving range for a zero-emissions commute. The advanced powertrain will also never work with a traditional manual transmission, which is sad for fans of DIY shifting.

But from then on there’s lots to love.

Borrowing nothing from the rest of the Volkswagen Group, Porsche engineers started from scratch – and that includes the new jewel of the T-Hybrid’s crown, its all-new 3.6-litre flat-six.

The smaller twin-turbo 3.0-litre couldn’t be used as its fuel enrichment process, whereby unburnt fuel is injected into the cylinders to chill hot gases when driving flat-out, is a big no-no under new Euro 7 emissions regulations.

Instead of two turbos, Porsche uses one enormous blower on the hybrid that looks like it’s been lifted off a Kenworth truck. Overcoming hideous turbo lag, there’s a small electric motor that lives in the space between the compressor and turbine wheel.

It’s the job of the small motor to spin up the turbo to provide maximum boost whenever needed. Cleverly, even when braking hard into a corner, the system can pre-load the turbo, meaning you get full boost as soon as you breathe on the throttle.

The beauty of the e-Turbo is it manages to recover energy, even when you think it shouldn’t. Even at its 312km/h top speed, the 911 GTS hybrid is able to claw back up to 11kW. The same motor also replicated the wastegate function.

The powertrain incorporates yet another e-motor within the casing of the dual-clutch PDK transmission that can boost the output by 40kW/150Nm.

Feeding both e-motors is a 400-volt, 1.9kWh lithium-ion battery that has been created to more quickly discharge and recoup energy.

Saving weight, there’s no belt-driven accessories, with the air-con compressor driven electrically.

Cheekily, the hybrid bits actually increase total weight by 60kg, not the 50kg disclosed, but the GTS now comes as a two-seater as standard with the rear seats (+10kg) added as a no-cost option.

Without electric assistance, the combustion engine produces 357kW and 570Nm of torque. Combined, those figures grow to 398kW and 610Nm.

That means the new 911 GTS musters 45kW more power than before, but both total power and torque are conservative figures and the system can exceed both.

It also explains why 0-100km/h takes just 3.0 seconds and 0-200km/h is reached in 10.5sec.

On the road, Porsche says the GTS is now as quick as a 911 Turbo S, such is the instant response of the new powerplant.

Efficiency was never the goal of the 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid, and if you don’t believe us, just look at the official numbers.

Despite electrification, the coupe version can only average 10.5L/100km, while emitting 239g/km of CO2 – almost identical to the 10.7L/100km and 245g/km the previous GTS managed.

That said, in real-world driving, the GTS hybrid should eclipse the non-electrified model.

A fast drive on road or track is something to savour with the new 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid.

Engineers say that the weight increase brought with the hybrid powertrain prompted a comprehensive chassis makeover designed to provide a larger gap between the T-Hybrid GTS variants and the softer entry-level 911 Carrera.

In Australia, the 992.2 GTS will be available with two suspension set-ups. A ‘Normal’ or comfort set-up that features 50 per cent stiffer springs front and rear compared to the base 911, and a GTS ‘Sport’ set-up that uses 70 per cent stiffer front springs and 100 per cent stiffer rears.

Whichever you choose, you get adaptive dampers, plus 310mm rear tyres that are 10mm wider than the Carrera’s.

As part of the chassis overhaul, rear-wheel steering becomes standard. There’s also the option of revised active anti-roll bars and new active aerodynamics that include variable cooling flaps up front, supported by two underbody flappers and the 911’s trademark rear spoiler.

The cars we drove also came with the carbon-ceramic brakes that used 911 Turbo S brakes up front and even larger rear discs.

Behind the wheel, few cars this side of million-dollar supercars sit you as low as a 911 and combine the perfect driving position with such great visibility.

For the first time ever, you fire-up the 911 GTS without a key, with Porsche finally offering a keyless go system a quarter of a century after it was first rolled out by Mercedes-Benz.

Better late than never – a phrase you don’t have to use when describing the power delivery – but before we get to that it’s important to mention the hard-edged barky sound of the new flat-six that sounds far angrier than the previous twin-turbo 3.0-litre.

Another interesting observation is in the coupe, aside from an occasional whistle, the big turbo rarely disturbs the 3.6-litre’s inspiring score.

Select Sport Plus, left foot on the brake and then flattening the throttle, the way the 911 GTS launches suggests our test car is quicker to 100km/h than the 3.0sec claim – and the way the electrified 911 builds big speeds is simply awe-inspiring.

Try third gear from 1500rpm and witness how quickly the Porsche will land you in jail, thanks to a maximum 610Nm torque peak kicking in shortly before there’s 2000rpm on the dial.

On track, keeping up with a 911 Turbo S driven by a Le Mans winner was easy, even with this goon behind the wheel.

Braking was also unquestionable, while the way the GTS confidently tackles even technical and challenging parts of a circuit suggests the hybrid Porsche has narrowed the gap between it and the hard-core 911 GT3 even further.

On road, the 911 GTS remains indecently quick and rewarding. The rear-steer helps the big coupe, which now weighs 1595kg, to pivot around your hips, reducing understeer and providing a neutral stance even when cornering hard.

Mid-gear punch is devastating, while the eight-speed dual-clutch transmission is smoother with the addition of the electric motor and rarely ever caught in the wrong gear.

Slow down and there’s an edge to the ride but the 911 GTS never crashes over bumps.

Try the Normal set-up if you’ll never venture out on track.

In a bid to cut more weight out of the 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid, the electrified coupe, cabriolet and Targa version all have less sound-deadening, but our test car felt noticeably quieter on the move and at highway speeds when cruising.

The lightweight noise-insulating glass may be a factor here, while the new Goodyear and Pirelli tyres are also said to produce less noise. In any case, the new 911 GTS is more useable for daily driving.

There’s not a lot of wow factor in the cabin, but it’s now a more useable environment, thanks to the upgrades to the infotainment and connectivity.

The tiny 135-litre front boot remains a source of irritation, unless you use soft bags or are a clever packer.

At least you can drop the rear seats and liberate a further 373 litres of space, but for large cases it’s not an ideal solution.

Time and time again, the GTS has been judged the sweet spot of the 911 line-up and it’s easy to argue that case once more with the new 2024 Porsche 911 GTS T-Hybrid.

Even with yet another price rise, the step-change in performance makes it almost irresistible.

On the road and even on some racetracks, you’ll question if you really need to go any faster.

But in its bid to dial-up the mid-rung 911’s sportiness, we think the GTS hybrid might prove a little too much for some – which is where the base 911 Carrera comes in, offering most of the above for about $100,000 less.

Of course, looking at it another way, the new Porsche 911 GTS democratises 911 Turbo S levels of pace – saving you around $150,000 in the process, and that must make it a bargain, right?

2024 (MY25) Porsche 911 Carrera GTS T-Hybrid at a glance:
Price: $381,200 (plus on-road costs)
Available: First quarter 2025
Engine: 3.6-litre six-cylinder turbo petrol-electric
Output: 398kW/610Nm
Transmission: Eight-speed PDK dual-clutch automatic
Fuel: 10.5L/100km (WLTP)
CO2: 239g/km (WLTP)
Safety rating: Not tested