PORSCHE CAYENNE HYBRID
Revised plug-in hybrid line-up brings fresh life to the Cayenne
On the Castelloli circuit near Barcelona, the 911 Turbo pace car has to give its all to pull away from the towering 729bhp Porsche Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid. Even though few owners will take their Cayenne to the racetrack, it’s comforting to know that the brakes can reel in the colossus again and again without crackling to pieces, that the air-sprung chassis provides traction and grip in abundance, and that ESP Sport setting promptly alters the cornering attitude from neutral to entertainingly tail-happy.
The steering is also a gem. Precise, quick enough, a tad on the heavy side and well damped, it puts the circuit straight into the driver’s palms. That’s the good news. The bad news is the enormous mass, which blurs the responses and adds a degree of indifference at the limit, where the tyres suffer long before the brakes might object.
But there’s more good news to be found by clicking one to the left on the Porsche website, and ditching the Turbo E-Hybrid in favour of the new S E-Hybrid. I reckon this is the real star of the current plug-in hybrid options among the facelifted Cayenne and Cayenne Coupe line-up.
‘Facelift’ is putting it quite mildly for a significant package of external, internal and down-low revisions to the Mk3 Cayenne, which has been with us since 2017.
The Cayenne line-up now starts at £70,400, with the least expensive plug-in, the E-Hybrid, adding £9400 to the bill. The S E-Hybrid is £87,100 and the Turbo E-Hybrid is a giddying £130,200. Going for the Coupe rather than SUV body adds around £3k. But if you go for the Coupe-only Turbo E-Hybrid with GT Package, your wallet will be lighter to the tune of £154k. That pack loses you 100kg and one-tenth of a second to 62mph. Hard to see the value, once you’ve got over the novelty of the in-gear acceleration like an afterburner fed with nitrous oxide, thanks to the 701lb ft peak torque.
And having driven them, it’s equally hard to see why you’d go for even the non-GT version of the V8-engined Turbo E-Hybrid over the V6-powered S E-Hybrid at a premium of more than £40k. Yes, there’s a one-second difference from zero to 62mph – 3.7 plays 4.7sec – and a higher top speed, but also a lot of weight.
Across the PHEV range, battery capacity has gone up by 8kWh to 25.9kWh, bringing useful extensions to the electric-only range – as much as 56 miles. The beefed-up e-motor is also more efficient and better tied in with the petr
