Porsche Macan Electric (2024 – ) review

The decision to go with electric power only makes living with this generation of the Macan far easier on your wallet than its predecessor, which liked to drink petrol at a ferocious rate. There are four models in the electric Macan line-up, all of which use a huge 95kWh battery and therefore promise substantially more than 350 miles of driving range by official figures … and quite a bit less if you indulge yourself in the huge performance the Turbo badge promises. Nevertheless, driven more realistically the Macan is reasonably efficient and should give useful real-world capabilities all year round. It also benefits from the latest in electric tech, which helps it charge faster than many rivals and see it go from 10-80 per cent if you can feed a charger powerful enough to satisfy its peak 270kW appetite.

This generation of Porsche Macan is too new for a full reliability picture to have formed as yet, but for an indicator of its dependability going forward it’s reasonable to look at how the similarly electrified Taycan has performed so far. And the news there isn’t great. Quite a few Taycan owners have reported issues with their air-conditioning systems and the infotainment software, so there could be similar problems with the Macan. That said, these issues seemed to afflict earlier Taycans and will hopefully have been ironed out completely for the Macan, plus there aren’t any reports of major failures of the electric-drive system on the Taycan. As added peace of mind, while Porsche might only offer three years of warranty cover, it is at least unlimited mileage – and the Macan’s battery is covered for up to eight years or 100,000 miles.

While Porsche’s company ethos is on making great-driving cars in the first instance, though this doesn’t come at the expense of safety. And that’s demonstrated by the electric Macan picking up the full five-star Euro NCAP safety rating, with high scores in each of the four sub-sections. It also has a separate, four-out-of-four (or ‘Very Good’) assisted driving grading for its Porsche InnoDrive with Active Lane Keeping technology. Finally, the Macan comes with a wealth of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) gear fitted from the off.

For something so sporty and good to drive in the corners, the Porsche Macan is brilliant to travel in full stop. A top-grade Turbo like the one we drove has adaptive air suspension, a set-up which does a terrific job of flattening even craggy road surfaces into non-events for the occupants. Naturally, due to the big wheels fitted on all models and the dynamic nature of parent company Porsche, we can’t ever say the ride quality on the Macan EV is floaty like the best luxury saloons, but it’s a lot better than you might have credited. Where the Macan really aces the comfort brief, though, is with its mechanical refinement – you don’t hear much wind or tyre noise from this Porsche, even at higher speeds.

We no longer live in an age where a new Porsche comes with barely any equipment fitted for the purchase price and even the base Macan comes with a healthy kit list including desirable 20-inch wheels, the excellent 10.9-inch infotainment system and 12.6-inch digital instrument cluster, a 15-watt wireless charging pad, electrically adjustable and heated front seats, and a 10-speaker, 150-watt sound system. The further up the Macan hierarchy you go (which runs Macan, Macan 4, Macan 4S and then Macan Turbo), the more luxurious standard equipment you gain – but you pay robust premiums to make each of these three steps. And, like any self-respecting Porsche, there is an extensive and often expensive list of optional extras, which could balloon a fully laden Turbo’s price tag well beyond the £100,000 marker if you’re not careful.

Every Porsche Macan has more than enough power and performance for any reasonable needs. There is one single-motor model at the base of the line-up, which makes it the first two-wheel-drive Macan in the variant’s history so far. The rest are dual-motor, and thus all-wheel drive. The lowliest Macan EV has 360 horsepower, which not far off what an Audi RS3 delivers these days. In the Turbo we drove then the straight-line performance is little short of obscene. With nearly 650 horsepower to play with, it covers 0-62mph in just 3.3 seconds. Truthfully, though, every Macan EV is quick and responsive to drive, and the supposedly ‘lesser’ variants will give you greater electrical efficiency than the mighty Turbo does, so they’ll make more sense for longer-distance journeys.