As far as teaser campaigns go, Porsche is starting rather early with this one. The electric Porsche Macan is only due to hit world markets in 2023, but the German sports car specialist is already showing us pictures of it, albeit in disguised prototype form.
The Macan EV will not simply be a battery-powered version of the regular SUV that shares its name, it will be a whole new vehicle. But this electric Porsche Macan won’t replace its combustion-engined sibling, but rather serve as a parallel model, as Porsche is planning to launch a successor to the current Macan later in 2021.
Porsche is not releasing many technical details about the 2023 electric Macan just yet, but is promising that it will be the sportiest model in its segment.
According to executive board member Michael Steiner, Porsche is aiming for best-in-class performance figures and a decent long-distance range. The Porsche Taycan electric saloon currently offers a claimed range of up to 412 km, but with battery tech advancing so rapidly it’s certainly possible that this could be improved upon by the time the Macan EV hits the scene, although Porsche is not disclosing any range figures just yet.
Although the electric Porsche Macan will share its 800-volt technology with the Taycan, which allows for significantly faster charging times, the SUV will not be built on the same platform. Instead it will be formed around the Volkswagen Group’s new PPE architecture, which underpins the recently revealed Audi A6 E-tron.
Porsche is pulling out all the stops to ensure that the development process for the new electric Macan is as comprehensive as possible and the release of these pictures coincides with the prototypes leaving Porsche’s premises for the first time for testing in real-world environments. Steiner says that by the time the vehicle is launched onto the market, it would have covered around three million test kilometres in varying conditions around the world. But engineers already have a head start in the form of extensive kilometres driven in a ‘virtual’ space
“We regularly collate the data from the various departments and use it to build up a complete, virtual vehicle that is as detailed as possible,” Porsche’s head of digital prototypes Dr Andreas Huber said. “This allows previously undiscovered design conflicts to be swiftly identified and resolved.”
