With a wealth of engineering modifications beneath and visible updates to the physique and inside, this Porsche Cayenne facelift isn’t a kind of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it surgical procedures. The brand new LED matrix headlights are straightforward to identify (and, in case you like, you may have high-definition ones at further price), whereas the brand new bumpers entrance and rear make for a contemporary, barely Macanish-looking widened grille, although with acquainted proportions behind it.
Technically, the headline change is the elimination from the Cayenne S of the two.9-litre twin-turbocharged V6 that previously powered it, substituted for an overhauled model of the ‘EA825’ 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 that Porsche first developed with technical associate Audi in 2017.
That leaves the entry-level Cayenne and the Cayenne E-Hybrid as the one six-cylinder fashions nonetheless in a showroom line-up, which, for now, consists of 4 fashions (Cayenne, Cayenne S, Cayenne E-Hybrid and Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid, plus equal ‘coupés’). In time, we’ll see a Turbo, a GTS and a V8-powered Cayenne S E-Hybrid as nicely, the PHEVs set to account for greater than three-quarters of the UK gross sales combine between them.
We received’t see a return of the range-topping Cayenne Turbo GT, which is being reserved for markets, let’s consider, much less carbon-emissions-punitive than the European Union and the UK. Go for the Cayenne Turbo E-Hybrid as a substitute, nevertheless, and you should buy a GT bundle that makes your automotive look, experience and deal with as very like the range-topping poster little one as attainable. Meantime, ‘making do’ with solely 730bhp shouldn’t be an excessive amount of of a chore.
Beneath that range-topping PHEV, there can be two additional electrified fashions. The cheaper Cayenne E-Hybrid makes use of an overhauled V6 and a 174bhp electrical motor, solely now there’s a much bigger battery to produce the juice. As such, electric-only vary jumps to a helpful 46 miles, dropping it into the 8% benefit-in-kind tax bracket. It’s a well timed riposte to the Vary Rover Sport’s firm automotive attraction. The unhealthy information? Kerb weight shoots up by 370kg over the bottom Cayenne.
And above that automotive will shortly come a Cayenne S E-Hybrid, utilizing the identical battery and motor know-how however delivering a V8-engined electrified possibility for lower than the Turbo E-Hybrid’s £130k-plus worth.
Outdoors of the engine bay, Porsche is continuous with metal coil suspension for lower-range Cayennes, with height-adjustable air springs non-obligatory on some and normal on others. New double-valved adaptive dampers (on which compression and rebound could be adjusted independently of one another) characteristic on all fashions, with entrance wheel and tyre dimension having modified barely too – each, says Porsche, to the development of the automotive’s rolling refinement.
4-wheel drive is normal on the Cayenne, downstream of an eight-speed torque-converter gearbox. Mechanical torque vectoring, four-wheel steering and lively anti-roll bars, in the meantime, are non-obligatory on most fashions.
