Porsche Cayenne Electric review

Porsche’s first modern foray into battery-electric drive was marked by the 2019 Taycan saloon, which had debuted as the Mission E concept four years earlier. Its second was the Macan Electric in 2024, based on the VW Group Premium Platform Electric 14 (PPE). It’s been a popular choice with customers, particularly anyone lucky enough to have one as a company car, or run the costs through the business where the fiscal benefits make it a much more cost-effective choice than petrol or hybrid alternatives.

Cayenne Electric is based on the next generation of PPE known as 14C and is aimed at exactly the same sort of business users as the Macan. Prices will start at £83,200 for the standard 436bhp, 399-mile-range version, rising to £130,900 for the 1140bhp, 383-mile-range Turbo model. It goes on sale late in June and existing Cayenne petrol and hybrid models will continue to be sold and will even be updated eventually, such is the need for EV manufacturers to spread their bets these days.

It’s a big old thing: 4985mm long, so 55mm longer than the petrol model (and bigger, incidentally, than the 4.8-metre-long standard council car park bay), 2027mm wide and 1674mm high. It runs on a 3023mm wheelbase all the better to incorporate the battery in the floor, and rides on air springs with the further options of the aforementioned active ride for the Turbo and rear steer for both. And unlike so many EV SUVs, it’ll tow up to 3.5 tonnes, but you’ll need to stump up for the electronic extending tow bar (£1041) and the off-road pack (£2036) to get the extra 500kg towing capacity over the 3-tonne standard towing weight.

To keep it on the ground, there’s an active spoiler at the rear and a set of fake radiator shutters for the battery-coolant radiators. Unlike the Taycan, however, there’s no two-speed transmission in the back axle, just a step-down transmission for the two electric motors.

You can spend a king’s ransom in the Configuration tab for the Cayenne, a few highlights I found were: dog transport box at £450; interior surface heating panels front and rear £763; any colour paint other than white or black at least £1507 and up to £2860. Artificial electric sound costs £408. And though we are told that over 95 per cent of the car’s slowing will be done through regeneration, if you must insist on ceramic brakes for your car, that’ll be another £7595 please.

You can’t see the battery which is a shame as, my days, it’s clever. The 192 LG pouch cells are mounted in 12 boxes, all liquid cooled. The cells are cooled via plates at the top and the bottom with different amounts of cooling vanes depending on where they sit in the car. The chemistry is lithium-ion Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC), with the nickel content up to 86 per cent, which not only increases the energy density, but also reduces the dependence on cobalt.

In addition there is aluminium in the NMC mix, which adds strength and longevity to the cathode, which is helpful when it is being charged in low state of charge conditions where the charge speeds are at their highest and excitable lithium ions wham into the cathode structure potentially damaging it.

The motors are all permanent magnet synchronous, though the Turbo gets its own special rear motor assembly, which develops more power all by itself than the 4.8-litre, twin-turbo V8 in the original petrol Cayenne Turbo. It’s cooled with oil, a non-conducting dielectric fluid developed by Mobil from Formula E racing – and it’s nice to see this hitherto wearisome race series finally paying back in technology to road cars.

Yet more Formula E tech is braking regeneration capacity on the Turbo model, capable of pouring up to 600kW of energy into the batteries. Bear in mind though that the car will charge at a maximum of 390kW DC (and 22kW AC).

One more recharging option that won’t be available at launch is inductive charging via plates on your garage floor and car underside. The car has to lower itself to give a ground clearance of 160mm to get the current flowing and it charges at up to 11kW, though is apparently compatible with the UK household rate of 7.4kW. While UK cars will come with the preparation wiring for this technology, the car and correspondent garage plate and wiring will be a rumoured £7000 when they become available later this year. Just don’t hold your breath as this tech has been demonstrated for a good decade in the hands of various German car makers but has never quite made the leap into production. Those concerned about cooking the cat with induction charging should know the system has heat and movement sensors to make sure that it remains cool for kitty.

As you might expect, there’re myriad upholstery and audio options costing progressively more and more. Our car was in some leather option, which seemed perfectly acceptable. The sports seats are comfortable and supportive and there’s a lot of spare head and leg room in the back with space for three adults across, and if you do happen to be enormously tall, the rear seat electrically adjusts fore and aft and the back reclines a little.

The boot is high off the ground, but spacious, with 781 litres with the rear seats up, 1588 litres with them (electrically) folded and a 90 litre ‘frunk’ under the bonnet.

The fascia consists of a couple of screens, one heavily curved with graphics for the traditional Porsche dials in front of the driver and a ‘flow’ touchscreen in the middle with a series of fixed tiles, which can be replaced with an extension of the main map or split into various sections. What at first appears quite gimmicky proves fairly practical and easy to use. You can switch off the lane keeping and speed-limit warning with a long push on two separate buttons.

Firmly in the ‘gimmick’ category is the passenger screen, which refused to show anything other than the radio station in our tenure even when tapped by a Porsche engineer. Apparently when fully operational it displays games to keep the children amused and even videos. Here we enter a knock-about debate over whether this is desirable or even safe…

And so to the ride and handling of this Bratislava-built bolide, which on the air suspension is firm, but positive and largely roll free. The softest Comfort mode is a little too soft on fine-surfaced Spanish roads, with too much free movement over undulations and a waggle at the back like a duck settling on her eggs. Dial in Normal or either of the two Sport settings and the system tightens up while, curiously, the ride becomes more comfortable for passengers. In addition the steering and major controls progressively gain weight and become more positive in action, while the artificial ‘engine’ note becomes noisier.

Even on these quiet roads, there are passingly few opportunities to truly let loose in a 1140bhp 2.5-tonne SUV and for the most part the Cayenne feels big, weighty and without a lot of steering feel – just like counterparts from Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW. But what it does, it does brilliantly and you search in vain for the trade-offs between comfort and agility, since the technology fills the gaps at the expense, perhaps, of some connection between machine and driver.

The Turbo’s long-distance capabilities, however, are bankable and when it comes to luxurious and refined peregrination, it has few peers. And if there’s something in front of you, a nudge on the throttle, perhaps a digit on the push-to-pass button on the steering wheel to release another 173bhp, and they’re in front of you no longer.

It’s a heady mix and for some this all-bells-and-whistles version will be the sine qua non of Cayenne ownership. Stop, however and think. The standard car can do 9/10ths of all this, at 90 per cent of the comfort, with another 16 miles of range, and save you £47,700. But neither car is particularly efficient, unsurprising given the performance. The Turbo has a claimed efficiency of 2.78m/kWh; using all the power it delivered 1.52m/kWh. More realistically we achieved 2.13m/kWh, which gives a real world range of about 240 miles.

Even Porsche admits the Cayenne Turbo Electric is ‘a beast’ and perhaps this is the trap into which Porsche has tumbled, where because of its reputation, it has to produce a beast to prove its worth for the Porschephiles, while proving to the rest of us that, sometimes, you really can have too much of a good thing.

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