2024 Porsche Macan SUV: full details plus first ride review

On sale Summer 2024 | Price from £69,800

It’s often said that good things come to those who wait. And for the Porsche Macan, its patience is about to be rewarded. 

Indeed, after 10 years on sale, an all-new generation of the popular sports SUV is poised for launch. However, this latest model will be fighting a very different kind of war, because it will now be fully electric rather than petrol-powered.

That means the Macan will enter Porsche into the ever-growing electric SUV segment, with rivals including the Jaguar I-Pace, Mercedes EQE SUV and forthcoming Polestar 3.

More significantly, some friendly fire could be thrown into the mix, because the Macan will also rival the upcoming Audi Q6 e-tron, with which it shares its underpinnings.

Despite the family relation, it’s worth noting that the Macan will be aimed towards sports SUV buyers, whereas the Q6 e-tron will be more comfort orientated. 

The difference in character is evident by the Macan’s power figures, because while the dual electric motors in the range-topping Q6 produce a hefty 510bhp, the equivalent Macan – called the Macan Turbo – will produce up to 630bhp and 833lb ft of torque. That’s 196bhp and 428lb ft more than the most powerful version of the current petrol-powered Macan.

The result of those vast power figures is a 0-62mph sprint of just 3.3sec; that’s quicker than even the most powerful version of the Polestar 3, which can conquer the same sprint in 4.7sec.

If you don’t need quite so much power, there’s also the Macan 4. Like the Turbo, it’s powered by dual electric motors (with one powering the front wheels and the other the rears, making it four-wheel drive) that produce 402bhp and 479lb ft of torque. The 0-62mph time for that version is more leisurely, but by no means slow; it can achieve a 0-62mph dash in 5.1sec.

Powering both versions of the Macan is a 100kWh (gross) battery, which in the Macan 4 delivers a lengthy official range of 381 miles. In the Macan Turbo, that figure drops to 347 miles, but it’s still farther than the EQE SUV 350 (334 miles).

Like the Porsche Taycan, the Macan can top up its battery at a maximum charging rate of 270kW. This means a 10-80% top up should take around 21 minutes with a suitably powerful charger; figures which are close to the Polestar 3. 

The new Macan’s exterior design marks a dramatic change from the petrol-powered model, with inspiration drawn from the Taycan and recently revised Porsche Cayenne. That’s evident from its far sleeker silhouette, plus its rectangular LED headlights and LED rear light bar.

Inside, the new Macan gets the same three-screen setup as the new Cayenne and Porsche Panamera, which consists of a curved 12.6in digital instrument cluster, a 10.9in central infotainment touchscreen and, optionally, a separate 10.9in touchscreen for the front passenger. That passenger screen can display journey information or stream video from Netflix and other providers, but is tinted so that it can't be seen from the driver’s side.

There’s also an optional head-up display, which uses augmented reality technology to place some information, such as directions from the sat-nav, directly into your line of sight.

We’ve had the chance to test the system on the new Panamera, and found the system easy to get along with. We also appreciated that, like in the Macan, there are physical toggles to adjust the climate settings.

Having been for a passenger ride in the new Macan, which you can read more about below, we can confirm that the front seats provide lots of support through fast corners and should be comfortable on longer trips, and while fitting a third passenger onto the rear bench is likely to be a squeeze, two taller adults will find they have plenty of head and legroom. We liked that every surface we touched felt premium and built to last, too, even those lower down in the interior. 

With the new Macan being 103mm longer and 15mm wider than the petrol-powered model, it’s no surprise to hear that the boot is bigger at 540 litres (up from 488 litres). This means it should have no trouble fitting in a weekly shop or your holiday luggage. 

Unlike the EQE SUV, there’s also an 84-litre front boot under the bonnet of the new Macan for storing charging cables.

Prices for the new Macan will start from £69,800 for the Macan 4 and £95,000 for the Macan Turbo. That’s significantly less than the Polestar 3 Long Range (£79,900) and Mercedes EQE SUV (£90,560), but more than the petrol-powered Macan (£55,765). It’s worth noting that the petrol model will be sold alongside the electric version for the foreseeable future. 

When it goes on sale in the summer, the electric Macan will join the Taycan in a growing line-up of Porsche electric cars; a line-up which will expand even further with electric versions of the 718 Cayman and Boxster, the next-generation Cayenne, plus a new range-topping seven-seat SUV. All are due before 2030.

Porsche Macan prototype on track passenger review

We’ve ridden as a passenger in the new Macan at Porsche’s development track in Leipzig, Germany.

The track simulates many of the most famous corners from race tracks around the world, so should push the Macan further than most owners will reasonably ask of it.

Sure enough, the new Macan is grin-inducingly fast if you want it to be, especially when our driver engaged the launch control mode, and sent us hurtling from standstill to 125mph in less time than it took you to read this sentence. Indeed, despite its hefty weight and batteries, this Macan feels more agile than the previous car.

That agility is helped by the Macan’s new rear-wheel steering feature. At low speeds, the rear wheels turn at opposite angles to the fronts, shortening the car’s turning circle by more than a metre and making it easy to manoeuvre around car parks and city streets.

At higher speeds, the rear wheels turn in the same direction as the fronts, helping to improve stability. On our short test route, the car stayed remarkably flat through corners. 

Porsche Macan prototype off-road passenger review

Drivers will be able to select from Normal, Sport, Sport Plus and Off-Road driving modes, with the latter optimising the car’s systems for gravel, mud or snow.

While a Land Rover Defender or Mercedes G-Class will take you even further off the beaten track, witnessing the Macan tackle a 38-degree incline as if it was just another bump in the road left us under no illusions that, if the going got tough, the Macan would keep going.

Even on rutted gravel tracks, the ride wasn’t uncomfortable, despite the large alloy wheels of our test car – buyers will be able to order wheels up to 22in in diameter – thanks to the air suspension which will be fitted as standard on top-end versions.

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