The 2025 Porsche Macan Turbo Electric posing near Lake George Winery. Photo: James Coleman.
Leaving the “alright-for-some” pricetag to the side, I’m not sure anyone will ever buy the new Porsche Macan – and not because it’s a bad car by any stretch. I’m not sure anyone would ever actually get to the point of buying one, simply because of the sheer number of options to go through first.
I made the mistake of playing around on the online configurator where I discovered not only is Porsche’s new mid-size SUV offered in 13 colours under various themes of ‘Dreams’ and ‘Legends’, you can also pick from up to 59 ‘Paint to Sample’ colours (an $18,310 privilege, it should be said).
There’s more – painted wheels are a thing, in ‘Vesuvius Grey’ or ‘Turbonite’ or ‘Neodyme’ but also, again, pretty much any colour you like for (the bargain price of) $2500.
And this is before we get to the colour options for the interior, or the mirror caps, or the plastic ‘blades’ on each side.
For a man who is thrown into a panic by a dinner menu, this is impassable territory. Fortunately, someone at Porsche Australia did a brilliant job of setting up the one I borrowed – coloured a deeply luscious ‘Oak Green Metallic’ with bronze wheels and a ‘black and crayon’ interior. Even if it looks a bit like it’s from Louis Vuitton.
Whatever you also think of the styling, the more controversial step Porsche has taken with the second-generation Macan is going fully electric. Yep, its best-selling car worldwide is now powered by – in the case of three of the four Macan models – two electric motors.
Rumours have circulated this was a mistake and Porsche is considering shoehorning internal combustion back into it, but late last year, Macan product line vice president Jörg Kerner told Australian media, “At the moment, it’s not planned – combustion Macan – because we think we can do with the electric Macan everything better.”
The electric Macan is here to stay then. So, is it any good?
The build quality is excellent, and in the case of the steering wheel, the perfect size and shape (BMW, take note). You change between drive and reverse using a lever mounted into the dash near the steering wheel, just like in an old Buick, except obviously nothing like in an old Buick.
The passenger also gets their own touchscreen, which is a terrible idea because it meant my brother could spend the whole way back from Sydney changing the music and even the speaker it was coming from. However, because of a film cleverly placed over his screen, I couldn’t see anything on it from where I was, trying to drive.
How to change gear in the new Macan … just like an old Buick (except it’s nothing like an old Buick). Photo: James Coleman.
Porsche has worked hard to deliver “a real sports car feeling”, and it’s worked.
My model, called the ‘Turbo’ in keeping with traditional Porsche nomenclature and nothing else, is capable of doing 0-100 km/h in 3.3 seconds (faster than a 911 GT3). But – at least until you put your foot down and get shoved into the back of your seat for daring to harbour thoughts about how perhaps it isn’t very Porsche-like – you don’t really feel this.
Around town, the Macan comes across as mild-mannered. The air suspension is the best I’ve ever tried – even in Sports Plus mode, when it has the right to be properly coccyx-crunching. There’s a nice depth of feeling to the wheel and pedals, too, like they’re actually connected to something mechanical and not just thin air like a lot of EVs. This is probably why it also feels heavy, because it is (2405 kg).
To help keep all of this in check, Porsche has given all but the base model a rear diff lock and rear-wheel steering. The combined result also makes for immensely tight cornering.
And to make up for the fact there’s no roar from the – I don’t know, ‘real’ turbo perhaps – the Macan comes with a fake noise. We’ve seen this done well – and just as often, cheesily – by all sorts of manufacturers in an attempt to give their EVs some character, and this is one of the better ones. It sounds exactly like a pod-racer from Star Wars.
As for how long you can enjoy all this, Porsche claims a total range of 616 km and while mine never read that high, the Macan also didn’t chronically overestimate like a lot of EVs. I comfortably spanned Sydney and Canberra at 110 km/h without the range plummeting. (This is also good because it took me several awkward minutes to find where on earth the button was to open the charging flaps – it’s buried in the touchscreen’s ‘vehicle settings’.)
Look, I still miss the dirty rumble of a petrol Macan Turbo, especially when it cost about $40K less than this one. But if the biggest problem with a car – let alone one that’s been rebuilt from the ground up – is the number of its colour options, I’d say that’s a winner.
The new Macan range spans $128,400 to $184,400. Photo: James Coleman.
2025 Porsche Macan Turbo Electric
- $184,400 (plus driveaway costs)
- Two electric motors, 430 kW (470 kW overboost) / 1,130 Nm
- Automatic, all-wheel drive (AWD)
- 0-100 km/h in 3.3 seconds
- 616 km claimed range
- 2405 kg.
Thanks to Porsche Australia for providing this car for testing. Region has no commercial arrangement with Porsche Australia.
