All-new luxury car is set to blend performance, comfort and efficiency On sale Spring 2024 Price from £80,000 (est)
Darren Moss darren.moss@haymarket.com
WHETHER YOUR IDEA of family fun is a trip to the cinema or to St Tropez, the new Porsche Panamera is here to make sure that getting to and from your destination can be just as much fun as the destination itself.
Key to that fun will be the new car’s engines, and while details are still to be announced, it’s expected that V6 and V8 petrols will be offered, alongside up to four plug-in hybrid options. There won’t be a fully electric Panamera, though; that position in Porsche’s line-up is occupied by the Taycan, which is our reigning Performance Car of the Year.
The Turbo E-Hybrid is likely to be the range-topping Panamera; it combines a 4.0-litre V8 petrol engine with an electric motor and a 25.9kWh (gross capacity) battery that yields an official electric-only range of around 53 miles. While that means the potential for remarkably small petrol bills if you charge the battery at every opportunity and do mostly short journeys, a low benefit-in-kind (BIK) company car tax rating is likely to be a bigger draw for those who can take advantage.
Really, though, efficiency is merely a welcome by-product of what the Panamera Turbo E-Hybrid is all about: performance. Figures have yet to be released, but with more than 650bhp on tap, it’s likely to be rapid.
As a four-seat grand tourer, the new Panamera has been built with long-distance comfort in mind and, to that end, it’s expected to be offered with an evolved version of the current Panamera’s air suspension set-up.
The only part of the Panamera to be officially revealed so far is its interior, which borrows much of the technology we’ve already experienced on the larger Cayenne luxury SUV. In particular, that means a 12.6in digital instrument cluster, plus a central infotainment screen and a separate (likely optional) screen that enables the front passenger to look after music duties while the driver sets a route on the sat-nav. And if the driver wants to see those directions right in front of them, there’s also a head-up display.
Meanwhile, it’s pleasing to see that the new Panamera gains physical controls for interior temperature adjustment; there are toggles on the lower dashboard, alongside touch-sensitive icons for other functions – likely to include seat heating and ventilation.
Porsche says the new Panamera will have more ambient lighting
