Autobayng News Team
Porsche is getting ready to launch an all-electric version of the Cayenne. That’s a big deal, because the Cayenne is arguably the most important modern Porsche. It was the company’s first SUV at the turn of the millennium, and it’s still the standard-bearer for Porsche’s SUV efforts. The Macan Electric may be good, but this is the king, and now it’s electric, too—with an asterisk.
Porsche will continue to sell the gas-powered Cayenne for the foreseeable future. But this “E4” electric Cayenne is emerging as a new tip-of-the-spear tech flagship that goes beyond even the Taycan in some ways. But I wanted to see if what is now Porsche’s biggest, heaviest EV could still be a range champ.
Along with Tom Molougney from State of Charge, Kyle Conner from Out Of Spec and a team of Porsche representatives, I hit the highway in an E4 Cayenne prototype. We headed into the California desert at 70 mph to see what this thing could do.
Porsche Cayenne Electric am Porsche Experience Center in Leipzig
Photo by: Porsche
The results were fantastic. But I’m going to make you watch the video above to see what they were. Here, I want to talk a bit about how the experience felt, and what we learned.
(Full Disclosure: Porsche invited me to Ontario, CA for this range test. The company provided a hotel, a prototype test car and access to its engineers for questions.)
The number on thing for me is that, at this point, I do not have range anxiety. My personal car goes 278 miles on a charge, and that is far enough that I pretty much always want to stop for lunch or to let my dog out before I get below 20%. Going [REDACTED] miles in the Cayenne took hours and hours, and I had to pull over about four hours in and water some grass along the way. A teaser shot of the upcoming Porsche Cayenne Electric. Photo by: Porsche
The fact is, in a modern EV, driving along interstates, range just isn’t much of a concern. That’s extra true with cutting-edge stuff like the Cayenne, which will be able to charge at around 400 kW. That means it should be even more of a charging champ than the facelifted Porsche Taycan, which did 15% to 70% in just 12 minutes during one of our recent tests. Related Stories
Going 300-plus miles between 15-minute stops is more than good enough, especially as I’ve seen infrastructure rapidly improve in just the last two years. We’ve solved this problem. In the end, I managed 352.9 miles with a few percent remaining.
Finally, I’ll add that the Cayenne was a highway champion. I didn’t get to do any dynamic driving, but at 70 mph it’s as quiet, calm and supple as you’d hope.
The real question is how much it’ll cost, and how it’ll hold up to more spirited driving. For that info, we’ll have to wait to drive a production car. In the meantime, I recommend watching the video for a closer look at the E4 Cayenne.
Contact the author: Mack.Hogan@insideevs.com.
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