Fully charged: Why Porsche’s all-electric Macan has the makings of a success
Australia's favourite Porsche just got a whole lot quieter - and quicker
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IT’S BEEN A decade since the world first laid eyes on the Macan, Porsche’s vision of a luxury crossover SUV that felt like a sports car in disguise. Macan arrived amid the mass crossover era of the early 2010s, when you couldn’t swing a set of keys without hitting a freshly-launched small SUV, now one of the most popular categories of passenger cars on our roads. But Macan had something special its competitors didn’t. Beyond the gold Stuttgart crest stamped onto its nose, that is.
It was a near-perfect blend of Porsche’s famed sports car-like feel, with the comfort of a smaller-sized SUV. At launch, Macan managed to silence the Cayenne grumps who still felt that the larger Porsche SUV didn’t have the spirit of the 911, despite that car’s huge success. Simultaneously, it opened doors for those with a more dynamic lifestyle, allowing them to experience the thrill of driving that came with the German marque’s icons of the past. Macan came to be that girl, etching itself into history as the Goldilocks blueprint of sports SUVs.
Ten years on, Macan continues to reign as one of the most popular Porsches worldwide, making up a near-third of all sales globally. Locally, Macan slid into the Australian lifestyle easily, speaking equally to our dynamic way of living and our storied penchant for high-performance machines, etching itself into our culture as the go-to Porsche.
Last year alone, it accounted for 48 per cent of all of Porsche’s sales in Australia, no less. To say a lot is riding on the Macan’s next generation is an understatement, as it’s now the first (existing) Porsche model to transition into a fully-electrified future. And while it’s one thing to create a brand new EV like the Porsche Taycan from ground zero, it’s entirely another to attempt to recreate the lightning strike of Macan’s past with a new model. Not to mention, match the reputation, adoration and legacy Porsche forged through Macan’s four and six-cylinder engines, with an entirely fresh, fully-electric powertrain.
As of this year, orders for the existing ICE-powered Macan have closed, in its place: four pure-electric Macan variants: Macan, Macan 4, Macan 4S and Macan Turbo, all powered by a 100kWh (96kWh usable) battery, which sends power to two motors at each axle (bar the single-motor, rear-wheel drive base-level Macan). Electrifying an iconic nameplate is a gamble, one we’ve seen many manufacturers lose out on in recent years, but Porsche is incredibly confident this one will pay off. Why? The short answer is, it’s a marque run by thrill-seeking perfectionists.
“This is really a typical Porsche engineer thing,” laughs Daniel Schmollinger, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Porsche Cars Australia, who sat down with us after our test drive. “Because, OK. You think the product is perfect, until you drive the next one and are left saying, ‘OK, how can this happen? How? How can you push the boundaries and the limits further?’” he adds. “This is the experience I had about a year and a half ago when we first test drove it at Porsche’s test track in Weissach [Germany].” He adds, “This was only the driving part. So in the agility, driving dynamics, acceleration, braking behaviour, turning in and all that, it was just like next, next level. Where we, myself and other CEOs, all felt, ‘OK, this product is right for every market, from a pure performance point of view.”
Esquire was lucky enough to get behind the wheel of the Macan at a test track in Queensland and put it through its paces on a dry track and wet skid pan. Like Schmollinger, we came out smiling.
Macan is fast. In the high-performance Macan Turbo variant, it sees a total output of 470kW (with overboost and launch control), 1,130 Nm of torque and a top speed of 260km/h, leading to a launch control boost of 0-100km/h in just 3.3 seconds. The battery in the bottom helps to keep it planted. Read: sporty, as does the aerodynamic slipperiness of the design, as well as Porsche’s Active Aerodynamics system (PAA), which includes things like adaptive rear spoiler and active cooling flaps on the front air intakes.
This too helps with electric range, which depending on variant, ranges from between 616km and 654km. In the real world that will get you from Sydney to Melbourne, with a 10-15min stop for a quick top up at a charging station for a few more kilometres. Should you find a DC fast charger on the way, Macan can charge from 10 to 80 per cent in just 21 minutes anyway.
Taycan showed the world that an EV can have feel and soul, as we’ve talked about previously in our Esquire review, so the feel element has certainly been replicated in Macan as well. The rear wheel steering is one highlight when it comes to agility and Porsche’s ability to transform and replicate its ICE drive modes to EV drive modes. Plus, steering, throttle and braking feel genuinely boggle the mind in how “Porsche-like” the marque’s electric cars feel. In saying all that, it’s also a fair assumption that any vehicle to emerge from the Stuttgart marque will raise the adrenaline and elicit driving joy. The new Macan has plenty of other tricks up its sleeve to please.
As we’ve seen across the entire luxury sphere, personalisation has become a massive factor in customer appeal. When it launched the new generation of Cayenne, Porsche noted this and released several fresh colour combinations and a new leather interior. We’re talking options on the table before you call up Porsche Exclusive Manufaktur for those extra special aesthetic needs. This fresh and more personalised approach has also been applied to Macan, including a new range of colour palettes, a total of 14 paints and four different colour schemes. There’s also a new off-road design package, which adds on things like inlays and diffusers around the lower end of the car, for those who like their Macan to look a bit tougher.
On offer within the interior are some contemporary and elegant combinations, many of which echo trends we’ve seen in fashion, particularly regarding the leather package options. These include a lush cricket ball red (Bordeaux Red), forest green (Night Green) and a lovely aubergine purple (Bramble). The latter matches the newest Porsche paint colour on Macan, Provence, a dynamic-looking lavender purple shade, inspired by the fields of the South of France, that transforms in different lights.
As a side, since Macan’s debut, this shade of purple has been popping up as a trend across the automotive industry. We saw it all over the Shanghai Motorshow and several marques have since released their versions of the colour as an option. Not the first time Porsche has led a trend in paint and interior colours, by the way, so watch this space, and remember who launched it first.
Macan has also gained a new optional infotainment system, which, when coupled with the car’s 12.6-inch, curved instrument cluster and 10.9-inch central display, adds an extra 10.9-inch display across the passenger dash. This allows the passenger to control things like music, navigation and phone connectivity features for a more social type of drive. And for the purists, there’s still a lovely mix of analogue and tactile elements in play across the dashboard and on the steering wheel.
It’s been six months since Macan’s arrival here, and the question remains whether Macan’s storied grip on car lovers down under will still hold in electric-only form. Many believe this will come down to our deeply ingrained car culture, high level of knowledge of what makes a car great, and our love of high-performance machines. Importantly, how those factors will transform alongside the incoming fully-electrified shift.
Schmollinger is confident it will.
“Australia is an enthusiast market,” says the CEO. “An enthusiast market basically means people understand cars. People understand what it means, what engineering art means.”
“They understand what driving dynamics mean for everyday usability and with the Macan electric, we not only have answers to all of that, but are setting a benchmark in driving dynamics. Which, for an Australian market, is actually perfect.”
An incredibly stylish, incredibly well-built, not-too-big-not-too-small small ride with a sportscar feel, plenty of driving range and dynamics, that you can take anywhere thrills are to be found and still handle the dog and a stack of suitcases in the back?
Frankly, we tend to agree.
Porsche Macan is priced from $128,000 to $184,400 (plus on-road costs), porsche.com/australia/
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