German luxury carmaker Porsche in mid-September will provide the first details of plans to eventually build a hybrid version of its Cayenne sports utility vehicle, the company said on Monday.
The Stuttgart-based carmaker is holding talks with potential partners in the industry to develop a more fuel-efficient derivative of its best-selling model amid sinking sales of the Cayenne in the United States.
Hybrid cars, which trap and store brake energy to power an electric motor built alongside a conventional combustion engine, have enjoyed surprising success in the United States thanks to a painful rise in oil prices.
North American sales of the Cayenne dropped 27 percent to 4,424 units in the first four months of the year, a decline that Porsche has blamed on a strong base comparison and production bottlenecks.
A spokesman would not name companies with which Porsche is discussing the joint development of a hybrid powertrain, but the Handelsblatt newspaper reported on Monday that it was talking to Volkswagen, DaimlerChrysler and Toyota, citing company sources.
Porsche aims to introduce a hybrid Cayenne at the latest when the next generation of its SUV is launched in 2008/2009, the German business daily added.
Since the Cayenne is partly assembled at a VW plant together with the VW Touareg SUV, Porsche is leaning more towards choosing VW for technological and economic reasons, Handelsblatt reported.
Volkswagen declined comment.