YES, IT’S POSSIBLE. THESE FOUR CARS
PROVE ‘HYBRID FUN’ IS NOT AN OXYMORON.
Green is good
pinnacle of performance hybrids and
automotive complexity. Are they pricey?
Absolutely. But so is any high-end sports
car or grand tourer.
Together these four cars share four
turbochargers, a supercharger, 19
cylinders, eight transmissions, and nine
electric motors. They average 479 horse-
power, 496 lb-ft of torque, a 4.0-second
0–60 run, and a combined fuel economy
of 46 mpg.
Although I appreciate numbers, they
tell just half of the story. Only driving
these cars back to back can tell us
which one offers the best experience
and whether any can hold a candle to
the longstanding truth of displace-
ment-based horsepower machines.To find out, we took these four
sports cars on our favorite—and wild-
fire-scarred—driving roads that swerve
and dip in the hills above Malibu, then
to the test track. Do hybrids represent a
potential long-term powertrain solution,
or are they merely a brief waypoint on
our route to an all-electric future? We’re
about to find out.APRIL 2020 MOTORTREND.COM 31COMPARISON