Can this Porsche EV distinguish itself from the Audi Q6 e-tron?
The Porsche Macan will now have to make do without combustion engines, making the SUV the first Porsche model with a fully electric successor. Does it know how to distinguish itself enough from the Audi Q6 e-tron with which it shares its genes?
Will the new Porsche Macan also have combustion engines?
After ten years, Porsche is launching a completely new version of the Macan. Nowadays the life cycle of a model lasts seven to eight years at most. So ten years is quite a long time. Porsche has a good reason for this: the new Macan is only available as an EV. Combustion engines are no longer available. Porsche has teamed up with Audi to develop a new platform architecture. The end result is the PPE – Premium Platform Electric – a scalable basis on which Audi’s Q6 e-tron is the first and on which not only SUVs will be built, but also low models such as an Audi A6.
The Porsche Macan is a first cousin of the Audi Q6 e-tron, they share the same PPE platform.
What versions are there?
We kick off with the Macan 4 and the Macan Turbo, both four-wheel drive vehicles with a front engine and a rear engine. They both have a battery pack with a net capacity of 95 kWh that can be charged with a maximum of 270 kW at the DC fast charger. The engines in the Macan 4 together peak at 408 hp and 650 Nm, while the maximum in the Macan Turbo is no less than 639 hp and 1,130 Nm. According to specifications, the Macan Turbo should be able to travel up to 591 kilometers on a full battery and the Macan 4 even 613 km according to WLTP.
We kick off with the Macan 4 and the Macan Turbo, the latter of which is of course the party number.
How practical is the new Macan as an SUV?
With the Porsche Macan 4 you can easily store your belongings in the 540 liter trunk. With the Macan Turbo you have to give up 60 liters of luggage space, the rear engine is mounted differently on the Turbo and the power electronics take up more space, which is fair to say. For smaller items such as a dirty charging cable, both versions have an 84-liter frunk at the front. You can sit comfortably in both the front and the back, there is plenty of room under the roof that slopes towards the rear. The interior is designed in the same way as we know it from other modern Porsches, with materials that look neat and feel pleasant. Only when we knock on the door panels (that strange feature is also part of our job) it sounds like it comes from a Chinese online store, a cheap rattle. That is also the only dissonance in the otherwise beautiful interior.
The basic version fits 540 liters of luggage in the trunk, the Turbo 60 liters less.
Is the electric Macan easy to operate?
Right in front of you in the high dashboard is the slightly bean-shaped, digital instrument cluster, now a Porsche classic. It is easy to understand, clearly shows what you primarily need to know and also gives you the freedom to highlight additional information of your choice. The multimedia screen is located amidships, above the center console, and a little further to the right there is an optional infotainment screen for the co-driver. The infotainment system is not the most extensive on the market, but it does exactly what it should do without disappointing. It not only offers you every opportunity to set up and adjust the car completely to your wishes, but of course also to plot your route, whereby the system, if desired, selects the most logical charging stations for you along the way to get you to your destination as quickly and efficiently as possible. to bring. Below the multimedia screen you will find the air conditioning control panel, with only a few real buttons and only haptic keys. Buttons and switches have been reduced to an absolute minimum. But the most important button in a Porsche has remained and is still on the steering wheel: the driving mode selection. With this dial we can choose from left to right from four modes that are completely self-explanatory: ‘Off-road’ (it is an SUV after all), ‘Normal’, ‘Sport’ and ‘Sport Plus’ (it is a Porsche after all). ).
The interior is very similar to that of the Taycan, for example
How does the Macan 4 drive?
With their combined peak of 408 hp and 650 Nm, the engines take little effort to propel the Porsche Macan 4, weighing more than 2.3 tons. The battery pack in the floor ensures a favorable position of the center of gravity, a nice bonus for an SUV with Porsche badges. The Macan has 4 coil springs as standard, now we have the optional air suspension and the also optional four-wheel steering. This allows the chassis to control the driving forces very well, and the car can be steered in the desired direction without any grumbling and in a nice and stable manner. Only we don’t really get a Porsche feeling. It all just lacks the sharpness and directness we had hoped for. Really, it all inspires above-average confidence and we probably wouldn’t be surprised about it with an Audi, but with a car from the brand from Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen it’s different.
How does the Macan Turbo drive?
With the Macan Turbo, air suspension is standard, the rear axle has torque vectoring and the engines together peak at no less than 639 hp and a tree-uprooting 1,130 Nm. This makes it possible to sprint from zero to one hundred in 3.3 seconds with launch control. A few years ago you needed a limited edition of the 911 for such a fast time, and the previous generation Macan didn’t even come close. Welcome to the EV era with faster throttle responses than ever before. With its extra muscles, the Macan Turbo can be pushed along just a little faster than the Macan 4. It’s all easier and it seems to cost the car less effort. Nice. But what is especially striking is that the Macan Turbo does involve us in everything it does. Without sacrificing comfort, the chassis now has the sharpness we expect from Porsche, while the much more communicative steering ensures considerably more involvement. We now feel like we know what’s happening between the asphalt and the wide rubber. Everything seems to be right here, and not only in the Sport Plus driving mode, also in Sport and Normal the Turbo is the version with the most Porsche DNA.
The Porsche Macan Turbo is not only very fast but also very communicative.
And what about brakes?
Both versions of the Macan have little or no engine braking, at least less than on a combustion engine in high gear. At Porsche, the accelerator pedal is for acceleration. For deceleration you have the brake pedal. When you lightly press the brake pedal, regenerative braking occurs and if you continue to pedal, the disc brakes will apply. That transition is seamless and regardless of whether it is lightly regenerative or eagerly mechanical, the brakes are easy to dose. If the need arises, the car also has a battery of excellently functioning assistance systems available, but before they come into action, Porsche first gives you the necessary freedom.
Behind the front wheels of the Turbo are brake discs with a diameter of 40 centimeters.
Do you get value for your money?
In the long term, we expect more variants of the first fully electric Macan, just as Audi has announced for the Q6 e-tron with which the new Porsche shares its scalable PPE platform. But things are not that far yet, which makes the Macan 4 currently the cheapest Porsche in the price list. That price list starts at €88,900, but we are strongly considering saving some more until we have €121,000 together for the Turbo.
– Thanks for information from Autoweek.nl