Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid Review

Range

Porsche claims you can eek out the pure electric range up to 22 miles, and it’s just about possible in the Cayenne E-Hybrid in perfect temperatures and ideal traffic conditions; although around 15 is more likely in the winter. Around 19 miles of range is possible in the Turbo S E-Hybrid – if you can trust yourself to drive it carefully. You can even run to 84mph in electric mode, too. Dive into the touchscreen and you can select Battery Hold – which keeps the battery’s power in reserve – or Battery Charge where you use the petrol engine to charge up the pack, in case you want to use it later in a city, for example. But this burns fuel of course, so the best thing is to plug in the car as much as possible. 

Battery

The Cayenne’s 17.9 kWh battery is a big step up from the earlier, previous model Cayenne S E-Hybrid and its 10.8kWh battery pack, and is a reasonable size for such a large SUV. However, it does look a bit weedy compared to the BMW X5 xDrive45’s 24kWh battery and that extra capacity allows the BMW to travel 51 miles on pure electric. Nevertheless, the Porsche’s battery doesn’t encroach on boot room which is a big plus point for a large SUV like this.

Charging

Porsche has put the charging flap on the rear wing of the Cayenne while the petrol cap is in the same place but on the other side of the car. While it looks neat it will probably involve some embarrassing moments at petrol stations and charging points while you get used to it. Embarrassment aside, when you flip open the charging flap you’ll find a Type 2 input and as standard the Cayenne charges up to speeds of 3.6kW. That means a full charge takes four hours. For £500 Porsche will increase the speed to 7.2kW, halving the charging time. You get a three-pin cable as standard but Porsche charges a whopping £300 for a Type 2 cable – yes, you read that right. There’s no DC rapid charging, either, but that’s fairly normal for a PHEV like this.