Porsche Cayenne Electric review: New 1,140bhp SUV is the tipping point for too much power in a family car

I’ve just returned from Barcelona having driven the latest Porsche.

It’s a vehicle that can hit 62mph from a standstill in 2.5 seconds and generates an almighty 1,140bhp.

But for a brand steeped in almost a century of sports car heritage, its new fastest-accelerating and most powerful production car isn’t a souped-up, stripped-back iteration of its iconic 911 – it’s a two-and-a-half-tonne SUV with five seats, a boot big enough for a Labrador and four dedicated off-road driving modes.

That’s right, the ‘Turbo’ version of the new Cayenne Electric is the marque’s most potent car EVER. Sacrilege, surely?

And barnstorming it is to drive too, with organ-rearranging acceleration, phenomenal cornering ability and impeccable ride comfort on just about any terrain.

Yet I can’t help but feel that it’s the tipping point for family cars with too much grunt…

What is it?

When the original Cayenne debuted in 2002, it courted plenty of controversy.

At the time, Porsche’s decision to add an SUV to its ranks, to many, seemed unfathomable.

But fast-forward to present day and three in five Porsches sold are SUVs, with the Macan (84,300 units) and Cayenne (80,900) the German firm’s most delivered motors in 2025.

And every prestige supercar maker has followed in its tyre tracks: Aston Martin, Ferrari and Lamborghini all now have a sports utility model in their lineups that deliver performance defying their dimensions.

But the first all-electric iteration of the Cayenne, which is coming to showrooms this summer, arrives with the promise of taking SUVs into a new stratosphere while still being a jack of all trades suitable for the school run.

The battery-powered family wagon is vowed to dish out supercar-beating acceleration while still being roomy enough for five adults, easy and comfortable to manoeuvre in town, cover 400 miles between charges, and provide some incredibly convenient charging solutions like we’ve not seen before.

Porsche has dubbed it a ‘technological milestone’.

Just how powerful is the electric Cayenne?

It launches in three guises: the standard Cayenne Electric is for those looking for a large luxury EV with ample power, performance and practicality for prices starting from £83,200; a warner Cayenne S Electric costs a shade under £100,000; and finally the Cayenne Turbo Electric – a car for customers seeking face-lifting acceleration for £131,000.

At the International launch in Spain, I drove the bookend versions.

Despite being the least potent, the standard Cayenne Electric is by no means a slouch.

It produces 402bhp (300kW) during normal operation. Select launch control – which allows drivers to pin the throttle before releasing the brakes for maximum take-off speed – and for a brief spell it will deliver 436 horses (325kW) to all four wheels.

This translates to a 0-to-62mph time of 4.8 seconds, with the electronically limited top speed clipped to a licence-losing 143mph.

But the Cayenne Turbo Electric is an entirely different beast.

It has been rubberstamped the ‘most powerful production Porsche of all time’, boasting potency from a family SUV that’s in arm’s reach of £2million Bugatti hypercars.

On paper, it can deliver a staggering 1,140bhp (850kW). But that ferocity is only available in short bursts.

During normal driving, the Turbo puts out 845bhp. However, a ‘Push-to-Pass’ function – pinched from its motorsport division – provides an additional 174bhp in 10 second instalments to make overtaking about as easy as breathing.

Yet those two numbers still don’t add up to 1,140bhp, do they?

That’s because the absolute output quoted by Porsche is – like the standard Cayenne Electric – only accessible with launch control.

Using this face-altering function (which provides 1,500 Nm of torque) delivers brand-topping acceleration figures; only the £200,000 911 Turbo S can match the Cayenne Turbo Electric’s 62mph drag time of 2.5 seconds.

From standstill to 124mph takes a mere 7.4 seconds and the Cayenne Turbo Electric’s top speed of 162mph is more than twice the national motorway limit.

No matter if you’re amazed or outraged by these figures, you must admit it’s a monumental feat for a vehicle that tips the scale at a stocky 2,645kg. Four up with luggage, it’s knocking on three tonnes.

So, what’s it like to drive?

I’ll start with the standard Cayenne Electric.

Despite its abundant capabilities, drive in Comfort or Normal modes – two of the four adaptable settings – and it’s relatively civilised.

With no synthetic sound pumped through the speakers, only a slight tyre rumble from its massive 22-inch wheels and a low hum of electric motor whine seeps into the cabin for what is a nicely cocooned environment on the move. That said, our test cars had the £1,250 optional double-glazed glass, which effectively eradicates outside noise.

In these driving modes, power delivery through the pedal feels linear without being overwhelming, even when being a little more enthusiastic with my right foot. The steering’s slightly assisted by still feels nicely weighty throughout its rotation.

Put the mode toggle into Sport and the near-silence is replaced by a surprising – but familiar – rumble of a synthesised V8 that’s being electronically beamed into the cockpit. Even at idle, it ticks over with a deep purr like a tiger enjoying being petted moments before ripping your hand clean off. It feels like a smart choice of fake soundtrack for a brand backed by petrolheads.

Response through the accelerator now feels that little more urgent as the Cayenne becomes more eager to get into its stride, hunkering down and putting additional resistance into the steering.

Wind up to Sport+ and the fabricated note of eight cylinders is pumped into the car more vigorously to match an intensified delivery of power through the throttle. Yet it’s still very easy to modulate.

Taking on some of Northern Spain’s most tantalisingly twisty – and quiet – roads in the most aggressive driving mode, I naturally found myself linking corners in a way I’d normally not dare in a hefty SUV.

This is in part thanks to the Cayenne’s standard-fit dual-chamber air suspension and adaptive dampers, as well as the rear-axle steering feature – a £1,389 option at my disposal in both the Electric and Turbo Electric.

The combination of impeccable chassis control and up to five degrees of rear wheel turning assistance nullifies body roll in the corners as the Cayenne feels unwaveringly flat, while also providing a sensation of operating a vehicle half its true scale.

Feather the throttle mid-corner at a lick and you can feel the electronics assisting with the rotation of the car, then dip the pedal to unleash a rush of torque to surge into the next sequence of bends.

It’s a thoroughly intoxicating and rewarding car in this environment. Though it is just as pleasing when navigating far steadier speed limits and challenging scenarios in town, where it is equally competent when driven in a decorous manner.

I fully expect the Cayenne Electric to deliver class-leading levels of ride quality on Britain’s pothole-riddled roads, with the chassis communicating undulations and joins in the very worst (but comparatively carpet-like) Spanish highways, while all the time tempering unwanted harshness from breaching the cabin.

Even during a brief – but taxing – stint of off-roading, where the Cayenne mastered incredibly muddy stretches, steep elevations and descents, and narrow, tree-flanked riverbeds, it barely jolted me out of my seat.

Such a level of ride comfort is testament to the painstaking work that’s gone into its chassis-bolstering software.

In fact, it feels almost criminal knowing the extent of development and fine-tuning that’s gone into the off-road driving systems – which include Mud, Gravel, Sand and Rocks – when the only non-tarmac excursion a Cayenne will likely make is mounting a verge outside rural school gates.

Then it was time to swap into the tuned-up Cayenne ‘Turbo’ Electric – a nameplate that guarantees to enrage enthusiasts for its lack of its namesake.

But while there is no turbocharging of the powertrain, there is certainly a turbocharging of your senses.

Like the standard Electric, potter around in Comfort and Normal modes and the Turbo can be courteous and well-mannered. Not all that intimidating when input into the controls is delicate.

But choose either Sport or Sport+ mode – the latter extending the dramatic drag-reduction ‘aeroblades’ from the rear haunches – and drive with a modicum of eagerness and the power delivery is borderline terrifying.

Never has a car of such mass hurried at such blistering pace.

It doesn’t accelerate; this thing surges.

The Turbo cars laid on by Porsche had the optional Active Ride suspension installed – a whopping £6,799 addition. This aids the chassis to transfer such an abundance of power into the road without the Cayenne becoming an unwieldy 2.6-tonne ditch finder. And it does a magnificent job of it too.

But when attempting to tackle the same twisting roads with a similar degree of enthusiasm that I’d enjoyed so much in the standard Cayenne Electric, I quickly gave up for fear of being reintroduced to my continental breakfast from a few hours earlier.

How this thing blasts out of corners I can only describe as nauseating.

In my 20-odd years of driving – and riding – some of the most powerful vehicles on the road, I can comfortably say I’ve not experienced a thrust-to-size ratio like the Cayenne Turbo Electric delivers.

Coincidentally, a week before our test drive was the international launch (also in Northern Spain) of Aston Martin’s £850,000 Valhalla – a missile-shaped, two-seat, 217mph plug-in hybrid hypercar that’s powered by a thunderous 4.0-litre twin turbo V8 petrol engine married to three e-motors. 

It too has over 1,000bhp (1,064bhp to be exact) but – thanks to its carbon tub – weighs a tonne less than the Cayenne Turbo Electric. 

What’s its 0-to-62mph time? The same 2.5 seconds.

The Aston – I imagine – takes some mastery to drive hard and isn’t all that pleasant in the city at low speed. But it is purposefully exclusive so that super-rich customers will only want to extract all of its potency on track. 

Now, how many Cayennes do you expect will be taken to a circuit? 

I think it’s fair to assume that owners using the lung-collapsing launch mode will do so on public highways. And is that really fit for purpose?

Stepping back into the standard Electric for a brief respite from stomach-churning acceleration and 402bhp suddenly feels pathetically underpowered. That’s how quickly the Turbo recalibrates your sense of speed.

Fortunately, the Cayenne offers plenty of braking prowess to compliment its brutal grunt.

Even without the ceramic disc option [an additional £7,592 for the Turbo, if you wanted to know], the brakes provide more than adequate stopping power for this bounding giant.

This is supported by a regenerative system adopted from Formula E – the zero-emission (and zero-sound) equivalent to F1 – with immense energy-to-battery recover capabilities.

In typical everyday driving, Porsche boffins reckon 97 per cent of all braking can be handled purely by the electric motors, while at the same time recuperating 600kW of energy for the battery.

In the standard setting – which is said to mimic combustion engine braking – it’s not quite as intrusive as you might expect, or hope. But in Sport Plus mode, it becomes more influential and, as such, feels more natural.

Frustratingly, if you want to adjust the aggressiveness of the regen system, you have to tinker with the touchscreen rather than toggle a switch on the steering wheel or centre console.

It can go from London to Edinburgh on a charge

With range being one of the biggest selling points to differentiate EVs from their rivals, the Cayenne Electric delivers distances between charges to keep even the most devout petrolhead happy.

Its 113kWh high-voltage battery – which features double-sided cooling to improve its efficiency – can deliver up to 399 miles of range in standard Cayenne Electric guise.

The mid-spec Cayenne S Electric is the rangiest option with 402 miles – a near match for a blast from Central London to Edinburgh via the A1 and M1 without needing to stop.

With the Turbo Electric’s profuse power extracting more from the battery, it can only go for 383 miles between charges, according to the European-standard test cycle.

Given the well-documented decline in range between official tests and real-world driving – and taking into account how enthusiastically Cayennes might be driven – and you need to take these figures as a guide rather than an achievable benchmark. 

But for the majority of journeys, the distance between charges will be more than adequate. 

However, given there are already electric SUVs in showrooms that cost less and deliver over 500 miles on a full battery – namely the BMW iX3 and Volvo EX60 – customers might think twice about dropping a six-figure sum on the Porsche.

But its 800-volt architecture does promise market-leading charging times.

DC charging capacity is up to 390kW, though Porsche’s technical bods say it can reach 400kW ‘under specific conditions’. As such, owners can expect to increase the battery’s charge from 10 to 80 per cent in less than 16 minutes when using the nation’s fastest public EV devices.

In just a 10-minute session, the standard Cayenne Electric can add 202 miles of range, while the Turbo is upped by 196 miles.

And this hulking EV will also be ground-breaking in terms of convenience as it is one of the first mainstream electric family cars sold in the UK with wireless charging.

It means owners can have a dedicated inductive charging pad installed in their garage or driveway. When they park over it, charging is activated at speeds up to 11kW.

This won’t be a cheap feature to have, though; installing the vehicle hardware costs £2,000 and the charging pad itself is an additional £3,000, taking the grand total to £5,000.

Sadly, it won’t be available from launch, despite all Cayenne Electric models having ‘preparation’ for the system.

Is it plush? Is it practical?

Cayenne debuts Porsche’s new ‘Flow Display’ – a curved infotainment panel that blends into a fully digital driver’s instrument cluster to dominate the dashboard.

The TV-derived OLED screen is 14.25 inches in total, but customers can also spec an additional 14.9-inch display for the front-seat passenger. Together, the result is the largest wrap-around screen ever installed in a Porsche.

The curvature of the central screen I found surprisingly convenient. A pad in the centre console provides the support to your palm to give more control when prodding around, meaning you rarely select the wrong option as a result of a slight jolt from a pothole or dropped manhole cover. 

The lower – flatter – area of the screen has shortcuts for the most frequently adjusted controls and there are separate hard buttons for the temperature setting, which is a big win.

For the first time in its lineage, the Cayenne also gets a head-up display with augmented reality (AR) tech. This visually represents an 87-inch display area 10 metres in front of the vehicle.

Gimmickier is its all-new ‘Mood Modes’ feature, which suggests a changing interior environment to adapt to a driver’s emotional state. I can’t recall which tone it set for ‘petrified’ during my stint in the Turbo.

There has also been a major upgrade in comfort.

While heated seats are customary in 2026 – especially in expensive luxury cars – the Cayenne boasts warming across many major contact surfaces, such as the armrests and door panels.

In terms of occupant space, the cockpit is typically Porsche: cossetting and driver focussed. But there’s ample head and elbow room up front, while the sports seats are a perfect blend of comfortable and figure-hugging.

In the back, there is more space for three adults to sit across the rear bench than in any Cayenne before, thanks largely to the electric drivetrain serving up a flat floor and eliminating a bulky transmission tunnel through its spine. And the seats – like the front – get power adjustment as standard.

Other Porsche firsts include a button-operated power front door opening and closing. It too has sensors to stop you banging the panels into other motors in car parks, concrete pillars in multi-storeys, or cyclists passing too closely on the high street. The charging socket cover is also gesture operated, meaning you can open and shut it with a sweeping hand action.

Boot capacity is impressive.

At 781 litres, it’s about on par with a Land Rover Defender 110. Fold the rear seats flat and it provides a cavernous 1,588 litres of flat-pack loading space – more than both the petrol and hybrid options.

And the Cayenne Electric also has a 90-litre ‘frunk’ (front trunk) with enough room for a small rucksack and a couple of mashed in coats.

Towing capacity is up to 3,000kg, though with the optional Off-Road package (£2,036 extra) this can be upped to a petrol and E-Hybrid matching 3,500kg. 

How much does it cost?

Order books for the new Cayenne Electric officially opened last year – though first deliveries aren’t expected to arrive on British shores until June.

The entry Cayenne Electric will start from £83,200, which is less than a £6,000 premium over the petrol model (from £77,500) and £3,000 less than the cheapest E-Hybrid. The 656bhp Cayenne S Electric rings in at £99,900.

However, the supercar-crushing Cayenne Electric Turbo is quite a lot pricier, starting from an eye-watering £130,900.

That said, it’s still less than the flagship Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid in showrooms currently, which will hit you for £140,600.

Of course, these prices are not inclusive of the endless list of options to hand, meaning most will leave dealers at a premium at least £10,000 to £20,000 above the numbers quoted here. Among these, by the way, is your very own Cayenne-matching Swiss timepiece – a £5,100 trinket, if you should so want one.

Aware of the limited demand for EVs across some major markets, Porsche says it will continue to offer Cayenne with all three powertrains deep into the next decade, with the petrol and hybrid given a styling and tech upgrade to bring them up to date in due course.

Despite retaining the petrol, Porsche expects roughly four in five UK Cayenne sales this year to be ‘electrified’ – so, either the EV or hybrid.

For reference, deliveries of the smaller Macan in the last two years show a 65 per cent swing to electric, while 35 per cent order the previous-generation petrol SUV that is due to be culled next year.

The Cars & Motoring Verdict

Without question, the new Cayenne Electric is a feat of engineering.

Like most ‘super-SUVs’, it’s versatility and all-round capabilities are jaw dropping, with Porsche successfully injecting its legendary sports car DNA into a vehicle with the equivalent bulk of a fully matured male rhino.

How it defies its weight once the wheels start rotating is masterful and it feels compliant, sophisticated and usable on just about any road.

For some, the 400-mile quoted range might – against longer-legged rivals – be a turn-off at such a high price point, but the standard Cayenne Electric delivers an unparalleled driving experience for a high-riding EV.

However, with the Cayenne Turbo Electric firmly in mind, there’s something that doesn’t sit comfortably about having access – be it for short bursts – to 1,140bhp in what is effectively a mass-produced, mainstream family car that’s only going to be driven on public highways.

Such potency dwarfs combustion SUV rivals: Ferrari’s polished Purosangue has 715bhp, Lambo’s Urus SE churns out 789bhp. Even Land Rover’s Defender Octa feels utterly bonkers but does so with just 625 horses.

And it is the effortlessness and lack of skill required to propel the hulking Cayenne Turbo Electric into the distance that – to me – makes it an unsettling addition to our roads.