Porsche Macan Electric Review & Prices

This is the Porsche Macan Electric, an all-electric SUV that’s usefully practical for everyday life, suitably posh inside, and great fun to drive on a twisty road.

It’s the first time the Macan is offered with purely electric power. It’s a bit like Lewis Hamilton – sporty, but environmentally conscious.

It’s not the only posh electric SUV you could consider – the Macan Electric is a similar price to the Mercedes EQE SUV and BMW iX, while the Tesla Model Y almost looks like a bargain by comparison. The Porsche shares mechanical bits with the Audi Q6 e-tron, too.

With tempting alternatives aplenty, the Macan Electric gets off to a good start by being a handsome thing to look at. The sporty, sloping roofline plunges into slim rear lights and new raised badging, while at the front you get narrow running lights similar to the look of the Taycan.

The cabin is lovely, with posh materials all over the place and perfectly straight stitching – it all just oozes quality. The twin-screen setup is familiar from the Taycan, with super-sharp graphics and quick responses to your touch on the central infotainment display. You can get a third screen that goes ahead of the passenger where they can watch videos, though this is obscured from the driver’s seat while on the move.

Storage is really good, with a deep, felt-lined cubby hole beneath the armrest and large door bins. The cupholders are recessed so your bottles don’t get in the way of controlling the climate settings, which is really well thought out.

Space in the back is decent, with headroom and legroom good for most, though those over six-feet-tall might find it’s a bit tight. There’s another climate panel between the seats, which is neat, but the vent controls feel a bit cheap.

Boot space is respectable – at 540 litres there’s more room than you get in the BMW iX, though if maximum capacity is required the Tesla Model Y has a massive 854 litres on offer. Annoyingly though, any models with the upgraded sound system lose 60 litres of underfloor storage, dropping capacity below the BMW, but all models do at least get 84 litres in the front boot.

Out on the road, the Porsche Macan Electric is a quiet and refined thing to cruise about in. The Turbo model’s air suspension smooths out all road imperfections, and there’s loads of sound deadening so it’s peaceful and refined in town, and there’s just a hint of tyre noise at motorway speeds.

It’s twisty roads where the Macan really impresses, though. With the suspension in its sporty setting there’s little body roll, so it doesn’t feel like it’s going to fall over in corners. The brakes are brilliant and the powerful motors catapult you forward out of bends. A Tesla Model Y is quick in a straight line, but the Macan Electric is much more fun and capable in corners.

It’s no surprise you feel like you’re entering warp speed out of corners, because the Macan Electric has an incredible 639hp available from its electric motors in Turbo guise, which is over 100hp more than the Model Y Performance. The result is a 3.3-second 0-60mph time.

It does mean you’ll be charging more often than in the regular model, though – official figures put the range of the Turbo at up to 367 miles, compared with 381 miles in the regular Macan Electric, and certainly less if you regularly enjoy all the performance on tap.

Regardless, the Porsche Macan Electric is a brilliant all-rounder – it’s not cheap, but for the cash you get a fast, refined electric SUV with a decent range and a lovely interior to spend your time in.

If it sounds like the car for you, check out the latest Porsche Macan Electric deals available through Carwow. You can also browse used Macans, as well as other used Porsches, from our network of trusted dealers. And when it’s time to sell your current car, Carwow can help with that, too.

The Porsche Macan Electric is actually very well priced. Okay, so the basic version is pricier than the Audi Q6 e-tron with which it shares a chassis, batteries, and electric motors — it would be something of a surprise if that wasn’t the case — but it’s not a big step up in price to get a Porsche badge rather than an Audi one. 

Equally, the Macan is actually slightly more affordable than the basic BMW iX, and significantly cheaper than the AMG versions of the Mercedes EQE SUV. Admittedly, a Tesla Model Y Performance is quite a lot cheaper than even the most basic Macan Electric, and you’d need the hugely expensive Macan Electric Turbo to match the Tesla’s performance, but then the Porsche is on another level entirely when it comes to quality and driver enjoyment. 

The Porsche Macan Electric is easy to drive around town, but blisteringly good fun on a twisty road, too. Visibility could be better, though

In town

The Porsche Macan Electric is a gentle car over bumps, especially if you spec it with the optional air suspension, which makes it positively cushion-like. There’s very good noise insulation, with both exterior noises and suspension thumps kept well under control, so it’s a very relaxing car to drive around town. 

With the driving mode switch set to ‘Normal’ the steering is light enough to make parking and tight turns easy enough, but still with that reassuring chunkiness that reminds you you’re in a Porsche. There is a limitation with one-pedal driving — the brake regeneration effect is quite gentle, so it’s hard to drive the Macan Electric around town without resorting to pressing the actual brake pedal.

The seating position in the Macan Electric is quite low, which is good for twisty roads, but you might want to bring the seat up a bit to give you a slightly better view out around town. Visibility is okay – there are quite thick roof pillars, but the pronounced front wheelarches — which have faint hints of the Porsche 911 about them — mean it’s easy to place the Macan accurately. The view out the rear window is quite poor, but at least there are decent door mirrors. The Macan Electric comes as standard with front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera, but a 360-degree parking camera costs extra as does a rear windscreen wiper, which can make for a lack of visibility at slow speeds on a winter’s morning. 

The turning circle is very tight, with excellent steering lock, so the Macan Electric can zip around mini-roundabouts with ease. 

On the motorway

Although tyre noise does make itself known at higher speeds, the Macan Electric does keep its refinement cool on long motorway runs, and it’s an exceptionally comfortable car, especially if it’s a version fitted with air suspension. 

For the ultimate in responsiveness when trying to merge with fast-flowing traffic, it helps to have the driving mode switched to Sport Plus, at which point any Macan Electric — but especially the super-rapid Turbo — will slam your head back into the seat with some proper venom when you accelerate hard. 

As standard, the Macan Electric gets regular cruise control, not radar-guided cruise, so if you’re constantly heading up and down the motorway, spending extra to get adaptive cruise might be a good idea. There is standard lane-keeping and lane-changing steering though, as well as driver awareness detection to make sure you’re staying alert on those longer drives. 

On a twisty road

Time to drop the Macan Electric’s driver’s seat back down to its lowest setting… Set the Macan Electric into Sport Plus mode and the suspension keeps it very level through corners, with almost no body lean at all. 

Unlike many other electric cars, the Macan Electric’s motors and battery have been set up to make it build its performance as you drive, rather than just dumping all the power onto the tarmac at once, so it feels more like a high-performance petrol car. The four-wheel drive Macan Electric models can actually send all of the car’s power to the rear electric motor, which makes this zero-emission SUV feel rather old-school with its rear-wheel drive, tail-happy character, making it much more adjustable and playful. It’s a neat trick. 

The brakes are astonishing, and also feel like traditional petrol-car brakes, as Porsche has done a terrific job of blending the brake energy recuperation with the actual physical squeezing of callipers onto discs. It feels totally natural, not something you can say for every EV. 

Speaking of which, compared to the (more affordable) Tesla Model Y Performance, the Tesla can give you thrills in a straight-line with its performance, but it can’t come close to matching the Macan’s fun factor around corners. The only downside for Porsche drivers is weight — with the big battery and all-wheel drive, the Macan Electric weighs 2.4 tonnes, so the weight will get the better of the handling eventually, but at normal road speeds it’s just not an issue. 

Interior storage and boot space are largely decent, but the BMW iX is roomier for those in the back seats

The Porsche Macan Electric has a deep storage box under the front seat armrest, which is lined with felt so anything left in there won’t rattle around. The cupholders on the centre console are not only backlit with ambient lighting, but they’re also usefully deep so if you stash a tall bottle of water or fizzy drink in there, it doesn’t get in the way of your elbow when you’re driving. 

There’s an open-sided storage area in front of the cupholders, below the climate control panel, and another small lidded storage area up top, which is home to the wireless phone charger. 

The glovebox is reasonably sized, and has a lovely damped action when you open it. The door bins are a good size too, and segmented so that a big bottle of water can be propped up and won’t fly around when you accelerate. 

Space in the back seats

The Macan Electric is definitely more spacious in the back seats than the old petrol-powered version. There’s generous knee-room even with a tall driver sitting in the front. Porsche shapes its battery so that there’s, theoretically, more space for your feet in the back (hilariously, this is known by Porsche as a ‘foot garage’…) but even so, the Macan’s rear seat does feel a bit low-set, so your knees do feel like they’re sticking up in the air a bit too much. There’s also not enough space under the front seats to tuck your feet unless those in the front have lifted them up a bit. Headroom in the back is okay, but if the car is fitted with the optional panoramic glass roof, it gets a bit tight. 

There’s a useful climate control panel in the back, but it’s in just the right spot for kids climbing across the back seat to catch it with their feet. You will then spend the rest of your journey trying to work out why the fan in the back won’t stop… The sliders for the rear air vents also feel terribly cheap. 

There are ISOFIX anchor points in the outer two rear seats, and the door bins are good, but annoyingly the rear windows don’t wind all the way down. There’s no getting away from the fact that a BMW iX is roomier in the back, either. 

Boot space

The 540 litres of boot capacity is a decent amount for the Macan Electric. That means it has more boot capacity than either the BMW iX or the Mercedes EQE SUV, and even slightly more than its cousin, the Audi Q6 e-tron. 

There’s a small load lip, but not enough to worry about, and there are chrome scuff plates to prevent scratches when loading in large objects. There are netted storage areas at each side of the boot, and stretchy bands which can be used to hold bags or shopping in place, as well as bag hooks and tie-down points. 

The rear seats split 40:20:40 with a load-through centre rear seat so you can carry long, narrow items and still have two rear seat passengers. The seats fold down by tugging handles inside the boot, and they do fold almost entirely flat. 

There’s no space to store the luggage cover under the boot floor, which is annoying, but there is a slot which allows you to store it upright against the back seats. 

There’s also an 84-litre storage area in the nose of the Macan Electric, which is perfect for stashing charging cables and which has an optional hands-free opening system where you just brush the badge on the bonnet to trigger the latch. 

The Porsche Macan Electric’s interior is modern, high-tech and well-built, but the black plastic can mark quite easily

The Porsche Macan Electric’s cabin has clearly been inspired by the Taycan electric saloon, and the whole effect is that it looks far more high-tech and modern than that of the old petrol Macan.

There’s a set of high-definition digital dials behind the wheel, on a gently curving 12.3-inch screen. There are plenty of options for the screen layout and what information is being displayed, all controlled by a simple switch on the steering wheel. 

The main infotainment screen is slick and responsive, with very sharp graphics. There are handy functions such as being able to modify the different driving modes so that they suit your needs. There’s also an optional passenger side screen, on which the person in the front passenger seat can set the sat-nav, pick music, or watch YouTube videos (including, of course, Carwow’s reviews…) but it seems a bit pointless when they could just use their own phone or tablet. 

Overall quality is excellent, especially with the ‘extended leather’ pack — the stitching of which is laser-straight — but the black plastic trim in the cabin marks really easily. Thankfully, Porsche does stick with proper physical controls for the heating and air conditioning, which takes a lot of the strain off the main infotainment screen — other car makers pay attention please. 

One of the big benefits to buying a Macan Electric instead of a petrol Macan is that there is no VED road tax charge, at least until 2025, which is just as well with a price tag well above the £40,000 cutoff, the Macan Electric would otherwise be liable for the extra expensive car VED levy in years two to six. 

With a 95kWh (net useable) battery, the Macan Electric has very good claimed range figures of up to 398 miles for the basic model, and that drops away progressively as you go up the the model range (and power output) through the Macan 4 (380 miles), the Macan 4S (377 miles) and finally to the Turbo (367 miles). Obviously, if you’re using all of the copious performance on offer, especially that of the Turbo, then the range is going to drop, but in mixed conditions at least 280 miles should be do-able even with long motorway runs, or 300 miles for the lower powered versions. 

The Macan can charge impressively quickly, at up to 270kW from a rapid DC charging point, but the optional electrically-powered charging flap seems like a needless extra expense and proves quite fiddly to operate. 

Why does Porsche charge extra for rear passenger side airbags in the Macan Electric? They’re not even an expensive option — less than £400 — so why not just fit them as standard? It seems like a baffling decision for a car which is already pretty expensive anyway. As standard, the Macan does come with traffic sign recognition, front and rear parking sensors and a reversing camera, lane-keeping assistance with emergency stop function, lane change assist, regular cruise control, ‘intersection assist’ which stops you turning across the path of another car, and driver awareness detection. 

Euro NCAP hasn’t crash-tested the Macan Electric yet, but the mechanically-similar Audi Q6 e-tron received a maximum five-star score, with a 91% rating for adult occupant protection, 92% for child protection, 81% for vulnerable road users, and 80% for the electronic safety systems. We’d expect the Macan Electric’s score to be broadly the same.

It’s a little too soon for us to get a handle on how reliable the Porsche Macan Electric will be, but the overall omens are good. Porsche has a strong reputation for reliability and solidity, and the fact that all of the platform and electric bits are shared with Audi will help. Electric cars are also mechanically more simple than petrol cars, which helps, although on the flip side they are electronically more complex, which can lead to issues. In the most recent Driver Power owner satisfaction survey, Porsche finished in fourth place as one of the best to own, which is an impressive result and speaks to strong customer satisfaction. The only thing that gives us pause is that a substantial 36% of owners reported problems with their car.