2024 Porsche Macan Turbo | PH Review

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Starting a review of a 639hp, £95k electric SUV by talking about a largely forgotten budget French hatchback might seem like an unlikely direction. But, like the hard-bitten defence attorney in an American courtroom drama, I'm going to ask for a little leeway here. Because the fact that the all-new, all-electric Porsche Macan is going to be sold alongside its petrol-powered predecessor for an unspecified period of time raises the obvious question of whether this has happened before. The PH hive mind might be able to nominate a better example, but the one that struck me was the Renault Clio Campus. Which was a stripped-out bargain basement version of the second-gen Clio that was sold alongside its replacement for a couple of years. 

The comparison isn't meant to trivialise the technical achievement of the electric Macan, which is obviously a vastly more complex bit of kit than a re-grilled Clio. But the risk of confusion in allowing two effectively different models to share the same name is an obvious one. The EV Macan's official name doesn't even carry an 'Electric' suffix - this is the Macan 4 and Macan Turbo. As the combustion Macan is a heavily facelifted version of a car that was launched in 2014, it's as if Porsche was still selling the 991-generation 911 alongside the 992.

Porsche executives admit there were some doubtless heated internal debates about whether or not to give the 'leccy Macan a rebranding. The argument for not doing so was that the first Macan has already proved itself one of the company's greatest-ever hits, the company selling more than 800,000 in a decade. To put a bit more 911-based context around that, the combined sales total of the 964, 993, 996, 997 and 991 between 1989 and 2019 was just over 750,000. Something which does make keeping the Macan name more understandable.

We've already covered off the basics of the electric Macan in a technical story back in January. Edited highlights: it sits on the PPE platform jointly developed with Audi, and is therefore closely related to the Q6 e-tron and is a generation on from the J1 architecture that underpins the Taycan. Only one battery pack is offered, with a chunky 95kWh of capacity, with two versions available at launch. The Macan 4 and Macan Turbo will both have all-wheel drive with a motor at each end. The Turbo gets a more powerful rear motor, featuring one of those trick silicon carbide inverters, and can therefore deliver a system peak of 639hp - compared to the Macan 4's 408hp. The Turbo also gets standard air springs and dynamic torque vectoring. This being PH, we're going to start at the top of the tree, with a separate review on the Macan 4 later in the week.  

The electric Macan's basic shape is very close to the petrol version, although every detail is different. The EV is slightly longer and wider, with its narrow headlamp apertures drawing obvious inspiration from those of the Taycan. It looks more slippery because it is, the air-smoothed shape giving a 0.25 drag coefficient in contrast to the old car's 0.35. Achieving that number has required a full-length flat floor and an active rear spoiler that pops up at speed. 

The cabin feels very Taycan-inspired, with what is basically a slightly different take on the saloon's television shop dashboard. The Macan's 12.6-inch digital instrument pack and 10.9-inch central touchscreen are standard, with a second 10.9-inch passenger display being optional - as is a head-up display capable of projecting augmented reality instructions onto the windscreen. All this is being driven by Google's Android Automotive operating system, which was working much more cleanly and intuitively than when I've experienced it in Volvo and Polestar products. While the touchscreen controls most functions, Porsche has kept a separate panel for heating and ventilation, this combining haptic sensitivity with physical switches. Another usability bonus is that the Macan's dashboard air vents are adjusted by hand rather than through a three-deep dive into the UI. 

Despite the dimensional stretch over the petrol version, the electric Macan still isn't very big. Anybody presuming the Macan Turbo's near six-figure kick-off is going to bring family-hauling space is likely to be disappointed - rear legroom is poor, to the extent I couldn't sit comfortably behind a front seat adjusted for myself. Boot capacity with the seats up is nearly identical to the petrol Macan, and while there is now a second luggage compartment under the bonnet, the 84-litre frunk is only really sized for charging cables. 

Okay, enough sensibleness - how does it drive? The commonly expressed line that all EVs behave the same is busted very quickly, with the Macan feeling very different to the Taycan. 

Performance is almost similarly huge. When I drove the revised Taycan earlier in the month I wrote about the difference in describing the acceleration of the spikier versions: there are only so many adjectives you can reach for after 'painful', with the lack of noise and buzz creating a strange disconnect compared to the fury of a sharp end combustion car. On Porsche's numbers, the electric Macan Turbo is in a different league to any of its petrol sisters. Peak power is quoted at 584hp 'continuous' with the full 639hp in launch control overboost - numbers that put it between the Taycan 4S and Taycan Turbo in the company's EV hierarchy. The performance stats do as well - Porsche promising a 3.1-second 0-60mph, 7.4-second 0-100mph and 11.7-second 0-124mph times, figures that easily make this the fastest accelerating Macan of all time. 

But while the Taycan is low and hugs the ground - even when being flung around, or under full bore starts - the Macan Turbo has much more freedom of body movement. Suspension settings are surprisingly soft in Normal mode, with hard acceleration bringing a nose-up attitude and big stops a corresponding amount of dive. Cornering comes with discernible body roll, not something that afflicts the Taycan, even in the firmer Sport and Sport Plus modes. Unlike its saloon sister, the Macan doesn't have the option of a high-tech anti-roll system. 

This might sound like a criticism, yet it isn't meant as one. Compared to the Taycan, the Macan manages the neat trick of feeling quicker and more involving when it is actually travelling more slowly. And while I've no doubt that the Turbo EV would obliterate the 440hp V6-powered Macan GTS in terms of cross-country performance, the new car does share some dynamic DNA with its combustion sister. On a route that included a decent chunk of the Route Napoleon - one of the finest roads in Europe - it often felt like a really well-sorted, high-riding hot hatch. The speed at which torque can be shifted between each end, and side-to-side across the rear axle, means the new Turbo both finds huge traction and is quicker to react to any loss of grip. 

Physics still gets its say, of course. The new Turbo's 2,405kg kerbweight makes it 445kg heavier than the GTS, and although that is a relatively modest supplement over combustion by EV standards, it does have an obvious effect when demanding rapid direction changes - especially in tighter corners. The Turbo I drove in France had both the standard torque vectoring differential and the optional rear-wheel steering, which worked together aggressively at higher loads to get the car turned in. Too aggressively for my tastes, to be honest. I actually preferred the more natural, if duller, responses of the Macan 4 I drove afterwards without either system. 

My other criticism is another one shared with the Taycan - the lack of an aggressive regeneration mode. Put simply, Porsche doesn't believe in a one-pedal mode or anything close to it, but the single regen setting is so feeble it barely stopped the Macan from accelerating on downhill gradients. It could support at least a couple more without corrupting the driving experience. 

Porsche admits that the overlap between the two generations of Macan will likely not be all that long, certainly not in parts of the world that are moving quickly towards electrification. That raises the question as to whether the arrival of the EV will increase or decrease interest in the petrol versions, or whether the market will regard them as being entirely different. We're already planning to get both generations together as soon as we can for an intergenerational clash. 

Specification | Porsche Macan Turbo Electric

Engine: Electric motors (twin, front and rear)

Gearbox: Single-speed (both axles), all-wheel drive

Power: 639hp (total, with overboost)

Torque: 833lb ft (total, with overboost)

0-62mph: 3.3secs

Top speed: 161mph (limited)

Kerbweight: 2,405kg

Range: 367 miles (WLTP)

CO2: 0 g/km

Price: £95,000 (base price)