Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid Spanks Audi R8 in Drag Race

People said that plug-in hybrid Porsches would never work because nobody wants a tech-heavy sports car. Well, you put your foot down in the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid and the horizon rushes towards you in an exciting manner. So there's egg on their face!

We know the S E-Hybrid is among the fastest German luxury cars, but does that mean it can also race a supercar? Because that's the stuff legends are made off.

Overcoming weight is going to be its biggest hurdle. Sure, the 4-liter engine in the Panamera has a smaller displacement than the 5.2-liter V10 used by the Audi, but it's got a twin-turbo setup, a massive battery and lots of electric goodies which, as we all know, adds weight.

So, it's 2310 kg (!!!) versus 1,595 kg. Are we sure the Audi isn't the hatchback?

If you think the race is going to be very close, you are very wrong. Thanks to that magical thing called torque, which the Panamera has nearly twice as much, it violently pulls away from the line. Yeah, the R8 is just the base 540 HP model, but we doubt the full 610 HP version of the V10 engine would have made that much of a difference.

Autocar's timing gear suggests the Panamera is 0.25s faster to 60mph and 2 miles an hour quicker over the quarter mile, a lead which it maintains if this were a 1/2 mile race.

Last time we checked, the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid was absurdly expensive. But you do get what you pay for: performance to rival a supercar. We wonder if the new E63 S and M5 would do the same thing to the poor naturally aspirated R8.