Richard Buckley rekindles an old love affair when he gets behind the wheel of the new Porsche Cayenne Electric…..
Way back in the mists of time not long after the millennium, Porsche rattled more than a few of their purists’ cages when they decided to launch an SUV. What’s this, the faithful moaned, only to increase the volume when Porsche added a turbo diesel engine to the mix.
But the Cayenne has been a real winner for the sports car maker. It arrived at the right time for the SUV boom, it’s an out and out sports performance SUV and it comes with a Porsche badge in the middle of the steering wheel. Not a bad recipe for success.
I’m a former Cayenne owner so I thought I knew what to expect when I picked up the new car at Porsche Belfast. The body style has evolved, although not radically, but this is the brand new Cayenne Electric so just about everything else was very different indeed to my former runabout.
Here’s the SP. If you fancy a fully electric, up-market, high performance SUV, then the Cayenne Electric will be very, very hard to beat. Why? Because it combines stunning performance – even from the so-called ‘base’ version – with a really well thought out interior, plenty of executive toys, and some pin sharp handling.
And it’s a Porsche, for heaven’s sake. So, even in a rather lack lustre shade of moss green, it turns heads. Tip – you might not want to choose the colour our test car came in.
OK, first the facts. There are three versions of the car available:-
Cayenne Electric: 436 bhp, 0-62 mph 4.8 seconds, 148 mph top speed and official range of 399 miles.
Cayenne S Electric: 657 bhp, 0-62 mph 3.8 seconds, 155 mph and 405-mile range.
Cayenne Turbo Electric: 1140 bhp, 0-62 mph 2.5 seconds, 162 mph and 383-mile range.
The 2.5 second 0-62 time for the Turbo version might jump out at you, as it did to me, but you’ll pay a cool £140,600 for the top-end version. The Cayenne S comes in at just under the £100 grand mark while the car I drove is priced at £83,200.
For most of us, this car’s sub-five second sprint time will be more than enough. It certainly feels rapid, perhaps even rabid, and power delivery, of course, is instantaneous. As a self-confessed dinosaur still driving a big diesel car, that still takes a bit of getting used to. On our first few miles out of Belfast, we had to treat it with respect.
Oh, and apparently the electric power units are derived directly from Porsche’s involvement in Formula E racing.
But what impresses most, I reckon, is the way the Cayenne handles all of the power. It’s a great set-up – four big wide wheels, a solid stance on the road, precise steering with no hint of deviance and tight air suspension which manages to strike exactly the right balance. In fact, ‘tight’ is a pretty good adjective for the whole package.
Our own ageing Range Rover felt a bit like a ship on a stormy sea when we got back into it after a few days with the Cayenne.
The Cayenne’s range, as we’ve said, is very good – right up there with the best of the bunch – but the dealer admits that it will be a bit less than the published 399 miles. As for charging, 10 to 80% is possible, apparently, in 16 minutes. Providing you can find a charger able to do that.
Out on the open road, you can flick between Normal, Sport and Sport Plus settings, changing the steering and suspension settings as you wish. There are clear differences. I tended to leave it in Sport, to be honest. Old habits die hard.
The Cayenne Electric soaked up the worst that North Down’s country roads could throw at it, whilst ensuring a calm and quiet environment for the occupants. Corny though it might seem, there are even a couple of engine soundtracks to choose from. Once again, we stuck with Sport. Sport Plus was just a bit too throaty for our liking.
EV die hards will think the idea silly, but it certainly worked for me as a potential convert to electric car driving. I’d need to be slowly weaned off the beat of an old-fashioned engine. But give me one of the these, and the weaning process might not last long.
Other things I liked – the twin hump shape of the bonnet, giving the feeling that you could be behind the wheel of a Porsche sports car. And the fact that there is still a decent transmission tunnel between the front seats, a proper console and armrests with loads of storage and a built-in floor pad wireless phone charger.
I also loved the fascia, dashboard and cabin layout. All very well laid out, all very intuitive and all very logical. Germans will be Germans, after all.
There’s a lot of kit here, all accessible on a nifty curved screen – phone controls, an excellent climate control system which is unusually easy to master, an entertainment centre feeding the Bose speakers, a Google Earth style navigation system, mood lighting…..and so the list goes on. But all remarkably easy to a) get to know and b) use. That’s a real compliment to the Cayenne’s designers.
Verdicts aren’t always easy. They are for the Cayenne Electric. We loved it, and you will too if you’re in the market for an SUV with a premium badge and more power than you can shake a stick at.
