Porsche is gearing up for the launch of the next-gen Macan, which has been confirmed to be offered in a fully-electric version. Ahead of the launch, the German company has now given members of the media a preview of the pre-production mule, alongside some preliminary information of the Macan Electric – which is reportedly its official name according to Jalopnik.
The main focus here is on the Macan’s Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture, which Porsche is co-developing together with Audi. While its set-up is broadly similar to the Taycan’s bespoke J1 Architecture, Porsche says that the PPE has been given a number of improvements to help give more power, better handling, and greater range.
Similar to the Taycan, the Macan’s PPE platform is built on the 800V architecture, featuring a battery pack of roughly 100 kWh in capacity across all variants, consisting of 12 battery modules. It’s slightly bigger than the Taycan’s optional 93.4 kWh battery pack, which should give it even more range than the 484 km offered on the longest-range Taycan, although Porsche says that the new batteries will give it the right balance between range and performance.
In terms of charging, Porsche is targetting a 5-80% charge in under 25 minutes, which should equate to over 270 kW (Taycan) on DC power. The Porsche Macan Electric will also support 400V chargers, like your run-off-the-mill home wallbox chargers, by effectively splitting the battery into two halves in order to boost charging speeds.
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The all-new Porsche Macan Electric will be built to support both all- and rear-wheel drive configurations, with the former giving up to a maximum output of 450 kW (612 hp) and 1,000 Nm of torque. Porsche says the electric motors have been improved with a new “double V” magnet arrangement, while the materials used are also specifically selected to increase efficiency.
The rear electric motors are placed as far back as possible to form what Porsche calls the “performance rear axle”, shifting the weight balance to a 48:52 split instead of a perfect 50:50. It’s a conscious design decision, and most of the power actually flows through here under normal conditions, hence the staggered wheel widths to better handle the torque and weight.
That said, thanks to the two-motor configuration, torque can still be infinitely variable between the front and rear, and the rear axle also comes with a fully-variable electronically controlled rear differential to further split the power to the rear-left and rear-right wheels. The front axle, meanwhile, gets a simpler brake-enabled torque vectoring system, similar to Mazda’s G-Vectoring Control.
Paired to the new rear-wheel steering (up to five degrees), as well as the new two-valve dampers for the Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) system, means that the Porsche Macan Electric should be a pretty nimble compact SUV to drive – much like its current iteration.
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The all-new Porsche Macan Electric only exists in a camouflaged, pre-production form for now. However, it shouldn’t be too long more of a wait for us to see the car in full. Porsche says deliveries for the new electric compact SUV will begin in early 2024, with a launch scheduled sometime next year – so keep your eyes peeled!
