Porsche Cayenne Electric Review & Prices

The Porsche Cayenne Electric is one of the most premium and desirable large EVs you can buy. It takes the sporty recipe perfected by the petrol Cayenne, combining a posh interior with sleek styling and a posh badge, but the all-or-nothing approach to performance means that range and efficiency aren’t up there with the best electric cars.

It’s a little bit like an asteroid - big, heavy, and threatening to make dinosaur-powered cars extinct. And, in the case of the range-topping Turbo, ballistically fast - as you’d expect from the most powerful road-going Porsche ever made.

Posh alternatives to the Cayenne Electric include the BMW iX, Lotus Eletre, Polestar 3, Volvo EX90 and Mercedes EQS SUV. The upcoming Range Rover Sport Electric and BMW iX5 will also provide strong competition.

There’s plenty of Porsche DNA in the Cayenne Electric’s styling. It’s much more curvaceous than the BMW iX or Polestar 3, with a rounded window line, smooth front end and sleek sides. Porsche has also kept the headlights in single units, rather than splitting them from the daytime running lights, which makes the front end look rather sleeker and more cohesive than the smaller Macan Electric.

Opt for the sportier models and you get some really cool touches, such as active vents at the front to help cool the motor, and a pair of fins which slide out of the lower bumper when you go into launch mode.

The Cayenne’s interior is almost as cool as the outside. The highlight of the dashboard is the curved infotainment screen - it’s not a gentle vertical curve, but quite a prominent fold halfway down, effectively separating the display a bit like a half-open foldable smartphone. That gives you the upper portion of the screen for navigation and media, and the lower portion as a control panel. Shame it’s not the easiest to use, though, with a lot of scrolling through menus.

Porsche Cayenne Electric: electric range, battery and charging data

Range: 383 - 403 miles
Efficiency: 2.8 - 3.2 miles per kWh
Battery size: 113kWh
Max charge speed: 390kW
Charge time AC: 11hrs, 0-100%, 11kw
Charge time DC: 26mins, 10-80%, 390kw
Charge port location: Left side rear, right side rear
Power outputs: 435hp - 1142hp (with overboost engaged)

There are screens on either side, too. The digital driver’s display is great - it’s designed to look like classic Porsche analogue dials, and is easy to read. The passenger screen, though, is pretty pointless - most people would rather use their smartphone. That’s one £1,600 option box you can leave unticked.

Interior quality is top-notch - as it is in any Porsche. Everything feels dense, solid and pleasingly premium, and you can make it even nicer with some additions from the extensive options list. Additional leather or Race-tex fabric, body-hugging sports seats and myriad options for decorative stitching or accents allow you to truly personalise your Cayenne Electric to your own taste.

The centre console has a lot of storage but it’s not all that well-designed. The cupholders are mounted right down under the armrest, so you have to reach in for your drink - and you’ll end up picking up your coffee cup by its lid, which can easily end in disaster. The door bins and glovebox are a good size, though.

The rear seats are also very capacious. They adjust electrically backwards and forwards letting you balance boot space with legroom, but regardless you’ll enjoy great headroom. Plus, there are cutouts in the footwells, so you can sit at a more natural angle than in some EVs which have very high floors. The tradeoff is that there’s a big hump for a potential middle passenger to straddle, so a Polestar 3 or BMW iX is much better for carrying three in the rear.

The Cayenne EV’s boot is 506 litres with the seats pushed all the way back, and it goes up to 781 litres with them pushed forward. That’s more space than you get in a BMW iX (500 litres) or Polestar 3 (484 litres) but the Lotus Eletre has a massive 688 litres of space and doesn’t need the seats pushed forward to achieve it.

The Cayenne does get a useful 90-litre front boot, too, ideal for storing charging cables - and instead of rooting around in the footwell for a release lever, you can open it by just swiping the front of the car with your hand.

When it comes to Porsche, though, one thing matters above all else and that’s the way it drives. The Cayenne Electric doesn’t disappoint. It manages to be both comfortable and forgiving over the worst bumps (though it’s not as cushioned as a Mercedes EQS SUV) while handling like a sports car in the corners. It hides its weight incredibly well.

Performance from the range-topping Turbo is biblical - it’s the most powerful road car Porsche has ever made, and that’s reflected in a 0-62mph time of just 2.5 seconds. In reality, it’s way too fast for all but the most dedicated speed freaks - the basic Cayenne and Cayenne S models are still very quick.

All that performance in the Turbo does affect the range, too. While on paper it can do 383 miles - not far behind the S model’s 403-mile figure - in the real world we found that to be more like 260. We’ll test a more basic model soon to see if that’s still the case.

Either way, the Cayenne’s maximum range is down from the 438 miles you can get from a Polestar 3 or the 436 miles of a BMW iX. The upcoming BMW iX5 promises more than 500 miles per charge, eclipsing all the alternatives.

Verdict

The Porsche Cayenne Electric is the EV you should buy if you simply must have the best of everything. It does require quite a lot of optional extras to live up to its fullest potential, though - our Turbo test car had over £70,000 of extra spec. This makes it rather an indulgence, when most alternatives come fully loaded for around the price of a basic Cayenne. If you can afford it, you’re unlikely to be disappointed.

Check out the latest Porsche Cayenne Electric deals on Carwow, as well as Cayenne Electric lease offers and a wide range of other used Porsches available through our trusted dealer network. Remember, Carwow can help you sell your current car when the time comes, too.

At a base level, the Porsche Cayenne Electric starts at just over £83,000 for the standard model, just under £100,000 for the Cayenne S, and about £131,000 for the Cayenne Turbo. That’s a bit pricier than the alternatives - the Polestar 3 range tops out at the price of a base Cayenne, and even the ultra-rapid BMW iX M70 costs from £114,000.

And the truth is, as with any Porsche, you’re not going to leave the dealership without perusing the options list. Much of what you might consider standard equipment on a £100,000+ car is not included on the Cayenne, including heated seats, privacy glass, a head-up display, 360-degree camera, or assisted driving features. If you’re opting for the high-performance Turbo, you might want some of the choicer performance upgrades, too, and they don’t come cheap - ‘Active Ride’ suspension is nearly £7,000, and ceramic brakes over £7,500.

In some ways this is great - you can tailor your Cayenne Electric to your exact liking, and not spend extra on items you’re not interested in. But it does mean you need to be realistic about how far away from the list price your eventual total is likely to be.