Looking ahead to the launch of the Porsche Macan
After selling over 20,000 all-electric Taycans in 2020, Porsche are looking to further add to their EV line-up with the introduction of the fully electric Macan. The third fully-electric car in Porsche’s EV range, the new Macan will eventually replace the hugely popular petrol model which saw a facelift in the latter part of 2018.
After some leaked imagery of the new model at the tail-end of 2020, the German manufacturer has since confirmed that their new SUV will be released in the summer of 2022 and earmarked for delivery in 2023; sold alongside the conventionally powered model. Indeed, the plan is for the two SUVs to peacefully coexist for a number of years before Porsche eventually discontinue the petrol-fuelled variant.
The reason for this? Put simply, Porsche have recognised that some people are just not quite ready to take the step towards a fully-electric vehicle as of yet. Well, that, and the fact that they sold over 16500 of the family-favourite mid-sized SUV in 2020!
What we know:
Design
So far, Porsche have not released any official imagery of the new electric Macan, but upon inspection of 2020s leaked photos from November, we can see that it adopts an ever so slightly more coupe-style, with a lower roofline and slimmed-down headlights, as well as a lack of a physical grille. It doesn’t slope as much as the Cayenne Coupe does, but will have a notably different silhouette than its petrol predecessor. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any view of its rear as of yet.
What is PPE, and what does it do?
This Macan will be the first model based on the new Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture that Porsche are building in tandem with Audi. In addition to allowing air suspension and all-wheel drive steering, PPE is a new platform which essentially allows for larger vehicles such as the Macan (and in the future the likes of the Q5 E-Tron as well) to share the same 800V/350kW charging capabilities as the Taycan. To make a little sense of this, this means that we should see a rate of 62 miles being added in just four minutes, and close to 250 miles in less than 20. In addition to this, since there will be improved space for batteries under the SUV’s floor, it is fair for us to hope that we could see this Macan’s range top the 300 mile mark.
Porsche board member Dr. Michael Steiner has said that the electric Macan will initially be released as a high-performance model, and we’ll see the new SUV come in four variants: the entry level, S, GTS, and Turbo. Although the size and weight mean that this Macan will not hit 0-60 in the 3.5 seconds that the Taycan achieves, we can still confidently assume that it will hit this benchmark in sub-four seconds.
