Yahoo Autos Porsche Will Sell Two Macans at Once, One EV, One Internal Combustion
We've known for quite some time that Porsche is working on an all-electric Macan, which will live alongside an internal-combustion-powered version of the same car. Over the weekend, the Stuttgart company released photos and some info about the Macan EV prototypes currently undergoing testing, which gave us a better look at the future of this top-selling model.
Porsche is taking an interesting strategy with the Macan. Later this year, we'll see a significantly facelifted internal-combustion Macan. Then, in 2023, the electric Macan will arrive, riding on a new EV-only platform co-developed by Audi and Porsche. The platform is called Premium Performance Electric (PPE) and recently made its debut underpinning the Audi A6 E-Tron concept.
"Demand for electric vehicles continues to rise, but the pace of change varies considerably across the world," said Porsche R&D head Michael Steiner in a statement. "That's why we're going to launch another conventionally powered evolution of the current Macan in the course of 2021."
When reached by Road & Track, a Porsche spokesperson confirmed that the next generation of the internal-combustion Macan will be a reworking of the currently-available model, rather than a complete redesign.
As for the Macan EV, it will use an 800-volt electrical architecture similar to that of the Porsche Taycan, though the two EV models will use different platforms and underpinnings. Our colleagues at Car and Driver report that the Macan EV will offer significantly more battery range than Porsche's electric sedan, which tops out at an EPA-estimated 227 miles of range in Taycan 4S trim.
It's a bit unusual for Porsche to commit to two versions of the Macan, riding on separate platforms, to be sold simultaneously. It's far simpler to develop one shared platform that can accommodate either propulsion system. That's more or less what Porsche's competitors have done: Audi's E-Tron, Mercedes-Benz's EQC, and BMW's iX3 all share platforms with their internal-combustion siblings.
Presumably, building a unique EV version of the Macan will allow Porsche to optimize packaging of the electric drivetrain and associated equipment, rather than shoehorning the zero-emissions drivetrain into a setup designed for piston power. Plus, Porsche can continue to refine the current internal-combustion Macan without having to also accommodate an EV setup, while a future generation of the dinosaur-powered Macan could move onto the VW Group's current MLB Evo platform, currently found beneath the Porsche Cayenne. Plus, the EV Macan's PPE platform will eventually appear in multiple Audi and Porsche models, and it's likely to be used by Bentley as well. In other words, the massive scale and parts-sharing opportunities of VW Group allow Porsche to consider something that seems baffling on first glance: building two vastly different versions of the same small SUV at the same time.
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