LEIPZIG, Germany — Absolutely electrical, and electrical solely, the next-generation Porsche Macan will make its debut in 2024. Particulars concerning the mannequin are trickling out: the Stuttgart-based model unveiled the EV’s inside, offered extra powertrain particulars, and gave Autoblog a high-speed experience in a prototype.
Inside, the Macan EV seems acquainted if you happen to’ve seen different latest additions to the Porsche vary, like the brand new variations of the Panamera and the Cayenne. The driving force faces a 12.6-inch digital instrument cluster that may be configured to show a big selection of knowledge. There is a spherical begin button on the left aspect of the instrument cluster and the more and more acquainted razor-shaped shifter situated on the correct aspect of it.
The center a part of the dashboard homes a ten.9-inch touchscreen that shows a brand new, Android-powered infotainment system. The software program boots up as quickly because it detects that the motive force is approaching the automobile with the important thing, so it is able to go by the point you are buckled up, and it is suitable with third-party purposes reminiscent of Spotify, Amazon Music, and YouTube. Customers can obtain apps like on a smartphone. This perform will come in useful whereas charging, and the entrance passenger can stream movies on-the-move through an optionally available 10.9-inch touchscreen built-in into the correct aspect of the dashboard. I attempted this function within the Cayenne and could not inform the display screen was on from the motive force’s seat.
Android Auto and Apple CarPlay compatibility come commonplace, although Miriam Mohamad, the supervisor of infotainment and connectivity for the Macan line, tells me over 85% of Porsche homeowners are Apple customers. Smartphone integration goes past merely overlaying the touchscreen with a brand new interface: when utilizing Google Maps or Apple Maps, the motive force can ship the third-party map to the Macan’s instrument cluster.
When it goes on sale in a couple of months, the Macan EV will stand out as the primary Porsche mannequin supplied with an augmented-reality head-up show. The system makes use of interactive color-coded symbols, reminiscent of arrows, to offer navigation instructions and different info. Porsche notes its new head-up show initiatives knowledge roughly 33 toes forward of the motive force on what corresponds to a big 87-inch show.
As we have beforehand reported, the Macan EV will experience on the modular Premium Platform Electrical (PPE) structure developed collectively by Audi and Porsche. It’ll ship with a dual-motor all-wheel-drive powertrain configured to ship rear-biased dealing with, and engineers dialed in a 48-percent entrance and 52-percent rear weight distribution. It should not really feel like a 911, nevertheless it doubtless will not really feel like a front-heavy SUV, both.
Porsche hasn’t launched technical specs but. All we all know at this stage is that the highest variant supplied at launch will put about 603 horsepower and greater than 737 pound-feet of torque below the motive force’s proper foot. Whereas these figures will make it much more highly effective than any model of the current-generation Macan, which tops out at 434 horsepower in GTS trim, remember that going electrical provides an amazing quantity of weight. Driving vary stays up within the air as effectively, although the 800-volt electrical structure unlocks as much as 270-kilowatt charging.
From the passenger’s seat of a pre-production prototype, the Macan EV seems like a sports activities automobile. We’re on the check monitor subsequent to the Porsche manufacturing facility in Leipzig, Germany, and one of many model’s improvement drivers is on the wheel. He flooring it to exit the pit lane and the acceleration punches me within the intestine because it pins me to the seat. It does not cease, both: there are not any gears for the motive force to undergo, so the Macan builds up velocity with out pausing for a shift till the motive force hits the brakes. As soon as we’re on the monitor, which incorporates well-known sections of different race tracks reminiscent of Laguna Seca’s Corkscrew, the one indications that you simply’re sitting in an SUV are the comparatively spacious inside and the excessive seating place. In any other case, you could as effectively be in a low-slung coupe. It turns (and even four-wheel drifts!) with what seems like surgical precision.
It helps that the 100-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery, which is the heaviest a part of the automobile, lives beneath the passenger compartment, the place it lowers the middle of gravity. Utilizing the PPE platform additionally allowed Porsche so as to add extra expertise to the checklist of normal and optionally available options. There’s an accessible rear-wheel steering system (a primary for the Macan) and, on some trims, a height-adjustable air suspension system. Jörg Kerner, the vice chairman of the Macan line, tells me the event crew’s aim is to make the EV the sportiest mannequin in its section. He provides that the efficiency (together with what seems like a three-ish-second dash from zero to 60 mph) can be repeatable.
The brakes deliver the Macan to a cease with no fuss, even from triple-digit speeds on a straight a part of the monitor, however with out spending time behind the wheel I can not inform you whether or not the pedal feels synthetic like in lots of electrical and plug-in hybrid fashions or pure such as you’d anticipate finding in a Porsche. Kerner explains the electrical motors can recuperate at as much as 240 kilowatts, which represents round 14.1 toes per second.
Inbuilt Leipzig, Germany, the Macan EV will make its debut in some unspecified time in the future in 2024. It’ll doubtless go on sale as a 2025 mannequin. You are not out of luck fairly but if you happen to’re not occupied with going electrical: the current-generation Macan can be bought alongside its successor for a while.