A call comes over the radio: “You’ll need to launch a few metres behind the markers this time; we’re starting to make small divots in the tarmac”.
I’m staring down the length of a South Australian airstrip in the new, fully-electric Porsche Cayenne Turbo. Repeated launch controls in this 1,140 horsepower, 1,500 Newton-metre, two-point-six tonne chunk of science-fiction have literally begun to bend the bitumen.
Launch control pins my head back; any recording equipment not secured within an inch of its life goes flying, the speedo climbs in a comical fashion, while my lunch threatens an unwelcome return – two and a half seconds is enough to realise the school run will never be the same again.
If you tried, at the start of the millennium, predicting the existence of a production SUV with off-road credentials, a three and a half tonne towing capacity, and enough straight-line chops to send a 911 Turbo packing you’d be laughed out of the room. But the future is now, old man. Strap in.
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I’m in Port Lincoln, Australia’s seafood capital and the food-bowl for much of South Australia.
The journey has undertones of a “Visit SA” campaign: grain siloes rise from hills reminiscent of the Windows XP wallpaper, vast fields of impossibly yellow canola slow-dance in the breeze, while grey nomads wade waist-deep into Coffin Bay to suck down fresh oysters.
A short pause to admire the surroundings has allowed me to briefly forget the task at hand. I’m meant to grab this vehicle by the scruff of its neck, stretch its legs on a runway, see how it manages with a 911 strapped to its back, then drag it across rocks and sand dunes unfamiliar with such posh cars.
The new Cayenne is being offered in three variants of performance and trim: a Cayenne (starting at $167,800), Cayenne ‘S’, and Cayenne Turbo, which tops out at $259,900 before options. Buyers will also need to pick between a swoopy “Coupe” body and the more conventional SUV shape; the latter, a strong preference of mine.
After successfully keeping down lunch at Tumby Bay Airport, where a later technical presentation describes the astounding levels of thinking invested into making this sort of performance somewhat repeatable, we draw the attention of curious locals by hitching a trailer loaded with a 911 Turbo S to the back of the Cayenne.
The pulling power on offer makes light work of the job, and the Cayenne’s enormous heft helps keep things balanced at highway speeds. A curious moment for the 911 Turbo then, being pulled along by a younger sibling that can also make short work of your most famous party trick.
After unhitching the trailer, I head towards Lincoln National Park for an off-road test via expansive, mostly straight roads.
The damping offered through the Active Ride system is sublime, deftly balancing compliance against responsiveness, with the feel through the wheel unmistakably Porsche, even if the rubber underneath is working overtime to earn its keep.
The dynamics are hugely impressive, too, but the few short bursts of less “restrained” driving that may or may not have occurred were spurred on by curiosity, not lust. It’s all great on paper, though the package isn’t free of gripes.
To my eyes, the styling of the Coupe version is frumpy and lacks intention, while the new “aeroblade” wheels, designed to reduce drag and increase range, look downright unfortunate. Thankfully, other options exist. And I picture most buyers preferring to pull into the charging station a few kilometres earlier and look a whole lot better doing it.
The interior is mostly up to scratch. High-quality materials abound, save for a glaring omission in the form of the piano black plastic located in the passenger dash, should you not opt for the integrated passenger display.
It doesn’t belong in a vehicle at this level and is angled squarely facing the passenger. It turns out even I can get tired of my own reflection.
Superficialities aside, and bordering on dealbreaker territory, the climate controls are only accessible via the infotainment and are located far too low on the display, with a quick change of temperature asking the driver to almost entirely remove their eyes from the road.
At highway speeds, I lacked the confidence to fiddle with the A/C, opting instead to roll the windows down. A big problem, it turns out, for just about anybody driving outside of Port Lincoln on a perfect spring day. The rear windows don’t roll all the way down either. Ouch.
A family of emus at the National Park watch on as we prepare for the off-road section, lowering tyre pressures and selecting our Offroad mode of choice.
The vehicle offers terrain-specific options across gravel, mud, sand, and rocks, which give extra ground clearance, engage unique throttle maps to prevent wheel-spin, and activate cameras which help you see what’s happening underfoot – handy stuff.
The car handles challenging rockery nicely, even taking the low-profile tyres and rather lovely 22-inch SportTechno wheels into account. Rocks soon make way for bright, white sand-dunes, where some off-piste shenanigans land one of the cars deep in extremely fine sand from which it can’t escape under its own steam.
I quietly wonder if we’ll need a tow from some 30-year-old Land Cruiser spewing black diesel smoke, but the help of a shovel and another Cayenne to yank it free gets the job done – unthinkable capability from an EV of not-so-long-ago.
The new electric Cayenne is, by all measures, a herculean technical achievement from Porsche. It goes like the clappers, gets you down the road with poise (and in perfect comfort), and handles the more adventurous stuff with the press of a few buttons – a fine measure for exactly how far we’ve come with this whole “car” thing.
It was some time ago in B.H. that I pointed towards the future existence of an unspeakably fast SUV perfect for bragging to your mates about, but ultimately short of texture and theatre – the stuff Porsche customers expect in buckets. Will its capability be enough to win a welcome with open arms, or will the new Cayenne find its way into the growing list of “cool, but not for me” performance EV’s? Time will tell.
The author travelled to South Australia as a guest of Porsche Cars Australia.