Porsche Cayenne Coupe Electric review

Turbo first. Even in the wet, with the diff trying in vain to find traction, 1,140bhp and 1,106lb ft makes a lasting impression. That you have to press a button on the wheel to unleash it all – making do with only 845bhp the rest of the time – is surely evidence that Porsche’s engineers have a sense of humour.

Forward thrust is unhinged, like Thor’s hammer has taken a swing at you from behind. There’s no curve, no progression to acceleration, it just goes – BANG. Nothing, everything. All at once. And for the merest amount of time before self-preservation and the confines of the law step in to end the madness.

Obviously no sane manufacturer would let someone out into the wild without a multitude of systems to tame that kind of power (customers only buy more cars if they come back alive), and so Porsche has lots. As a result the Cayenne Turbo is strictly managed, its every revolution and flex of the suspension done only with the express permission of the on-board brain, whose job it is to retain authoritarian control over every single component, lest one of them start an uprising and topple the whole regime.

Case in point: at full throttle you’d expect the weight to shift backwards and the nose to shoot up, but that’s not what happens. Instead the Porsche Active Ride (Hail Caesar!) drags the nose down against its will, keeping the whole car spookily level to the ground regardless of how eagerly you’ve jabbed the Push-to-Pass button. It just bullies external forces, fully shoving them into the dirt and laughing in their faces before stealing their lunch money and swanning off with the prom queen.

Is the S any more, um, sedate?

Somewhat, in the context of still having more power than an Aston Martin Vantage. The steering is certainly less febrile: just off centre the Turbo is twitchy and ready to pounce on corners like unsuspecting prey; the S is less highly strung, though obviously its turn of pace is still substantial. Arguably it’s the one to have: get rid of those Pirelli P-Zeros and road noise dies down considerably, but there’s still plenty of grip for the kind of driving you’re likely to be doing.

In other words, not track-style cornering. For two very good reasons. One, this is a two-and-a-half-tonne-plus SUV, so behind the performance facade this is at heart a family car. And two… this is a two-and-a-half-tonne-plus SUV. No amount of engineering – save maybe for retrofitting all the roads in western Europe with the rails from a rollercoaster – is going to make such a hefty thing want to dance through a sequence of turns.

And this is where we’re a bit cold on the Cayenne Electric: the more you push it the duller the feedback gets, so it becomes a game of how much blind faith you’re prepared to place in the grip and its ability to keep you out of the ditch. But more than that, the body control is so good, the steering so faithful to your inputs that it’s… quite dull. The Sport and Sport Plus modes inject a mock engine sound that seems to vibrate through the pedals, but when it’s not there you really notice it.

You haven’t mentioned the base car.

Good reason for that – we haven’t driven it yet. For all intents and purposes it’s the one most sensible folk will actually buy, so the full verdict on the Cayenne Coupe Electric is pending until further notice. So too the ride comfort: it felt more than decent to us but in several hours of driving in the bit between Munich and the Bavarian Alps, we didn’t encounter a single pothole. Because Germany has standards.

Silly question, but does the claimed range hold true?

Not a silly question by any means, just not the first thing that comes to mind on a car as potent as this. The Coupe is slippier than the SUV (0.23Cd plays 0.25) and so range is that bit better. During our test we saw between 2.3 and 2.8 mi/kWh depending on the road type, suggesting 300 miles of range is doable on a warm day with gentle throttle use.

Not that it matters, but at full chat on the autobahn, we witnessed the readout fall to very nearly 1.0 mi/kWh. 1.0! Would not recommend.