► Longer range and lower price for new EV
► Claimed range of up to 398 miles
► Prices start from £67,200 for a RWD Macan
Porsche has expanded the line-up of its new electric Macan with a rear-wheel-drive version that lowers the price and increases the range.
Joining the existing Macan 4 and Turbo is the entry-level, efficiency-focused ‘Macan’ as well as a 4S model that is positioned as a sportier version.
The new rear-wheel-drive model lowers the Macan EV’s starting price by around £2,500 to £67,200, while the range increases to an impressive 398 miles. It still uses the 100kWh battery that’s shared with all Macan models, but gets a single rear-mounted 335bhp electric motor.
This can increase to 355bhp with launch control activated, and allows for 0-62mph time of 5.7 seconds. The single-motor also reduces the weight by 110kg compared to the Macan 4.
Macan 4S
Likely to be one of the most popular versions of the Macan is the newly introduced 4S model, which slots beneath the Turbo in the line-up. The twin-motor setup produces 442bhp, but 509bhp is available in short bursts courtesy of the launch control overboots function.
This reduces the 0-62mph time to 4.1 seconds, while still promising a claimed 376 miles from a charge. Prices for the Macan 4S start from £75,400.
Exterior and interior updates
Despite the first new Macan EVs not even being delivered in the UK yet, Porsche has already set about updating its electric SUV. A new Slate Grey Neo colour is available, along with a fresh set of 20-inch wheels.
Porsche is also offering a new ‘off-road design package’, which gets a redesigned bumper and a tweaked adaptive air suspension setup that gives the Macan EV a better approach angle and increases the ground clearance. We’re not quite sure who’s buying an Electric Porsche Macan to go off-roading, mind.
Porsche has also tweaked the Macan’s screens with new animations and greater ambient lighting features.
Read on to find out more about the new 2024 Porsche Macan electric.
Electric Porsche Macan: design and interior
A family resemblance eases the abrupt transition from an incumbent that doesn’t even offer mild hybridisation to a full EV future, but only inconsequential clips and fixings are shared between the two.
Despite the family look, dimensions are quite different between generations. Most significant is a total length stretched some 100mm to 4784mm, with the wheelbase some 86mm longer, but the new car is also 15mm wider and just 2mm lower. Fitted with the 22-inch alloys (20s are the minimum) Porsche has spec’d on the cars we’re poking around in a Stuttgart studio, it’s a longer, sleeker, more muscular look than before.
Frameless door glass, a more pronounced coupe profile and various active-aero devices (rear spoiler, front cooling flaps, flexible covers on a fully sealed underbody) all help drop the coefficient of drag to an elbows-in, head-below-handlebars 0.25Cd.
Naturally a larger body and more space-efficient EV powertrain affords more interior space than before – six-feet tall passengers have just enough kneeroom to perch behind a similarly tall driver, as well as surprisingly generous headroom given the aggressively raked roofline.
Luggage storage also increases, from today’s 497 to 540 litres in the case of the Macan 4 with the rear seats in their most upright position – the Turbo offers a little less due to its Bose subwoofer that goes all the way up to anti-social. In both cases there’s a further 84 litres of storage in the ‘froot.’
Given the 570kg battery under the floor, it’s surprising to learn occupants can sit some 28mm lower in the front, and 15mm lower in the rear than the previous Macan – gains reaped from attention-to-detail on the seat bases.
Like the exterior design, the ‘Porsche Driver Experience’ cockpit is similarly familiar. Clearly inspired by the Taycan’s layout and operating logic, PDE debuted last year in the facelifted Cayenne with a new Android Operating System.
A 12.6-inch curved instrument binnacle is shared between the two SUVs, and can switch from a digital representation of Porsche’s classic analogue dials to more modern layouts, while the touchscreen central display is proportionally smaller at 10.9 inches. An additional 10.9-inch screen is optional for front-seat passengers.
Thankfully climate-control functions are still controlled via a physical interface that’s easy to feel out on the move, and route planning contains easily accessed info on the charging points you’ll encounter along the way, including charging speeds, occupancy and payment methods – a decade of connected services keeps you up-to-date too.
Electric Porsche Macan: specs and performance
The new Macan moves away from the clean-sheet J1 architecture developed for Taycan and – unlike bet–hedging BMW and the collective Stellantis brands – leaves no provision for internal-combustion derivatives spun from the same building blocks.
Instead, a new PPE (Premium Platform Electric) platform co-developed with Audi lays foundations for the Macan, Audi Q6 e-tron and Porsche’s plan that more than 80 per cent of sales will be zero emissions by 2030. Some markets, not including the UK due to cybersecurity issues, will continue parallel sales of the existing Macan, probably for two or three more years.
Two Macan variants launched initially, both with one permanently excited synchronous e-motor per axle (the rear beefier and able to provide either most – the 4 – or all – the Turbo – of total system power in extreme situations). There is also a single-speed transmission rather than the Taycan’s two speeder.
Neither variant lacks go. The 4 is good for 402bhp (only a little below the current range-topping Macan GTS), with a 0-62mph time of 5.2 seconds and 138mph flat out. The Turbo, meanwhile, benefits from 630bhp, a 3.3 0-62mph time and 163mph top speed.
That leaves plenty of room for other derivatives in between, plus insiders draw our attention to the presence of a ‘4’ on the entry-level badge, leaving us to imagine a rear-drive 2 with a little extra range positioned below it.
In all cases, a 100kWh lithium-ion battery (of which 95kWh is useable) nestles between the axles, with 12 individually replaceable modules providing a maximum 383-mile range in the 4 – better than not only the max figures for the rather disappointing Taycan (316 miles) but also the Tesla Model Y (331 miles) and BMW’s iX3 (285 miles) and iX (up to 349 miles).
Electric Porsche Macan: technology and charging
Battery construction and power electronics are comparable to the Taycan, including an 800-volt architecture that opens the door to smaller cables for less weight, better packaging space and shorter charge times. With all your charging stars aligned, the Macan can charge at up to 270kW, enough for a 10-80 per cent battery boost in 21 minutes.
Rather than the Taycan’s more costly and bulkier charging booster, however, the Macan deploys ‘bank charging’, so when a charging station uses 400-volt technology, bank charging effectively tricks the station into thinking it’s charging two 400-volt batteries simultaneously. Charging is faster as a result, with 135kW your max.
Porsche is also keen to point out the battery contributes to a centre of gravity some 140mm lower, if less keen to note a kerbweight that increases by around 300kg compared with its predecessor at 2100-2200kg.
But our test drive of an early prototype tells us brilliance lurks here. It starts with new double-wishbone front suspension and a multi-link rear, with coil springs for the base model rising to full air suspension and two-valve shocks being optional for the 4 and standard for the range-topper.
The Turbo also gets an electronically controlled rear differential (aka Porsche Torque Vectoring Plus) and rear-wheel steering that can turn by up to 5 degrees.
Like the Taycan, all-wheel drive is also fully variable but the new electrical architecture makes response times even faster, responding to slip in just 10ms.