When it hits the market in 2023, the Porsche Macan EV is poised to become Porsche’s best-selling model. Before that date, we have been able to see some prototypes during tests in extremely cold conditions.
Porsche forecasts that by 2030, 80% of its sales will be fully electric cars. Something that will be impossible without the Macan, the best-selling model of the German brand. For this reason, after the Taycan, the next battery Porsche will be the electric Porsche Macan, of whose prototypes we have received images that show it from practically all angles.
The Porsche Macan EV will become the next cornerstone of Porsche’s electrification strategy. The company is immersed in the development of this model, whose presentation is scheduled for the end of this year to be able to launch on the market as early as 2023. There are still a few months to wait, which will be used to fine-tune the set-up of this electric SUV, which bears the responsibility of being as dynamically good, if not better, than its predecessor.
The new images give us some new clues about the design of the Porsche Macan EV that we were unaware of until now. You can see, for example, a noticeably different rear end compared to the current Macan, with a somewhat steeper and continuous roof drop at the rear, in the style of the Cayenne Coupé. It also has a tailgate with a more defined edge between the plane of the rear window and the vertical plane of the tailgate, and everything indicates that it will have a retractable rear spoiler just above the taillights.
Precisely another of the differences found in the absence of a fixed rear spoiler at the top, as the current model does, something that may have its justification to achieve greater aerodynamic efficiency. The false “exhausts” that appear in the prototypes of the images are nothing more than a trick of Porsche to play the mistake.
As for the front, there are fewer novelties that we did not know previously. The first images of these prototypes, published by Porsche itself, already showed us the division of the front light groups: on the one hand, the four-point LED headlights, characteristic of Porsche; below them, well apart, the main headlights.
In addition, the images also show us an active shutter in the lower part of the bumper (closed at the time of taking the image) that will allow the passage of air to ventilate certain components only when necessary. For the rest, it is most likely that the Porsche Macan EV does not have a front grille to use with an air intake -as is the case with the Taycan and many other electric cars on the market-, and unlike the current combustion model.
The prototypes that have been seen in northern Sweden are being tested in extremely cold conditions, where the battery and other electrical components suffer particularly. It also serves to optimize traction and calibrate power delivery on poorly adherent surfaces. In addition to the real cars, there are another twenty digital prototypes to simulate aerodynamics, energy management, operation, and acoustics. When it is launched on the market, the prototypes of the Porsche Macan EV will have covered a total of three million kilometers of tests around the world in different conditions.
The electric Macan will be built on the Volkswagen Group’s PPE (Premium Platform Electric) platform, which will also be used in the Audi Q6 e-Tron, with an 800-volt electrical system. We know that it will be offered with two different options for the battery, although the capacity of each of them and the autonomy are still a mystery. Of course, Porsche has already confirmed that it will have more autonomy than the Taycan, so it is not unreasonable to think of a figure around 600 kilometers of WLTP autonomy. Nor are data regarding the power of each version known, although all will have two electric motors and an all-wheel drive.
Unlike models like the Panamera or the Cayenne, the current Macan does not have a plug-in hybrid version. The smallest SUV of the German brand will go directly from combustion engines to electric drives and batteries. Of course, Porsche has confirmed that the model with a combustion engine and the electric one will coexist at least until the end of 2024 so that customers can compare and choose.
