While my Taycan was in for service, Porsche Walnut Creek loaned me a Macan 4S EV. For the last week, I’ve had the chance to live with the Macan, driving my daughter to her softball practice in heavy Bay Area traffic, driving to my son’s music performance in Santa Cruz over the weekend (which included a drive along the amazingHighway 17, though sadly with a few too many other cars around). I probably added 400-500 miles to the 1000 that the car had on it when they gave it to me. In that time, I think I discovered a lot about the Macan EV platform.
Overall Impression
I’m going to start this mini-review with the conclusion, but I need to preface that with the statement that I am not really a big fan of the SUV / cross-over form-factor for cars. I see why people like them, and the sales numbers make it clear that I am not in the majority, but that does somewhat affect my thoughts here.
The bottom line is that this is a massive improvement over the previous generation Macan (the combustion powered one) that I wrote about some 15 months ago here. Everything about the new car is better. It drives better. It is quiet and refined. It handles better. I think it even looks a little better. If you have test driven a Macan in the past and didn’t like it, try the electric version. I think you will be pleasantly surprised.
Efficiency
The other thing that really jumped out at me with the Macan EV was how much more efficient it is than the Taycan. Despite being a less than aerodynamic SUV shaped car (although it does have a lot of aero features that no doubt help). I was able to keep it above 3 miles / kWh effortlessly – with the Taycan, that takes a long drive, in Normal mode, at an ideal ambient temperature. Even the relatively cold drive to Santa Cruz, including some Sport Plus mode around the twisty sections, ended above that line and the slow crawl to my daughter’s softball practice came close to 4 miles/kWh. The most I’ve achieved in the Taycan was 3.2!
The Good Stuff
With that overall impression in mind, what did I really like about the new Macan EV? Top of the list has to be the refined driving experience and the power and acceleration that mean electric vehicles win every time over their combustion counterparts. The long drive to Santa Cruz was a mix of boring straight freeway driving, just eating up the miles, and the twisty highway 17 section. For the long, straight part the Macan just cruised along smoothly and quietly, not even minding the occasional rough section of the freeway. The car I was driving was equipped with adaptive cruise control, and a heads up display complete with AR (augmented reality) navigation. The adaptive cruise worked perfectly, handling the boring part of the drive with ease.
When we got to the twisty section, a quick turn of the selector on steering wheel (something I wish had been spec’d on my Taycan, but sadly wasn’t), and we were in Sport Plus. Cruise control off, and I was able to get a feel for how it handled the bends. For an SUV, it did well, but (and this is probably an unfair comparison), it did not come close to the Taycan. Perhaps the squishy tires, perhaps just being higher off the road, even though Sport Plus mode dropped the air suspension to its lowest setting. Still excellent for an SUV, and better than my wife’s Audi Q5 (which is built on the same platform as the combustion Macans).
Unrelated to the driving experience, the instrument cluster has gained a few new options, including a nice battery display for the left “tube”, and the PCM has a new look. There is also a charge limit option to select where you want charging to end – something I really wish the Taycan had (it’s version of this is a complex “target charge level” associated with the desired departure time, but if you don’t unplug at that time, it will happily charge all the way to 100%).
The Less Good
I’ll be honest, there is nothing bad about the Macan. There are a few things that I am less keen on, and, much like the Taycan, it still has some software bugs and oddities.
When it comes to the controls, I miss having the lights and software buttons down the two edges of the instrument cluster. By making it narrower and fitting it back a little into the dash, they have lost the space for the “buttons” there, so things like the lights have moved to physical buttons under the dash. While on that cluster, I also had a little trouble finding a position where I could see the speed in some of the modes for the center tube – the upper section of that area being partly obscured by the steering wheel no matter where I moved it.
The climate control panel is also a little odd. A mix of physical rocker switches and touch areas, but you push hard enough that the entire panel moves to provide the haptic feedback. Honestly, I’d rather have the Taycan’s touch screen than this. It does save space however, and as a result of there there is a more sensible place for storing and charging your mobile phone.
Finally, there are a couple of bugs I encountered during the week, and one of these may be partially related to the car being in guest mode with no main account configured. The first one I found though came the first time I tried to charge the car in the garage at home. As I do with the Taycan all the time, I plugged it in (like the Taycan it has charging ports on both sides, though they are at the back not the front), and I locked it and went inside. Maybe 20-30 minutes later I heard the car alarm sounding. Went to investigate and found nothing. Locked it, went back inside, and again, 20-30 minutes later, the alarm sounded. I was able to leave it locked in the garage while not charging, but if it was plugged in, I had to leave it unlocked to prevent the alarm going off all the time.
The second bug occurred yesterday on my drive to take my daughter to her softball practice. When I got in the car, I answered the usual questions about logging in, and whether I wanted to go online (normal for guest mode and not there once you log into an actual account). But all the icons were missing from the left side of the display except the one to open the app list. Tapping that, I was able to launch the other apps, but several just threw up an error about not having consent to use data. Including the navigation app.
I’ve seen this before with the PCM when the backend services go down. The in-car software treats the loss of its cloud services as if you don’t have connectivity, but the Taycan has never lost access to the navigation app completely in this situation (typically all I lose is the Apple Music & Podcasts apps, and traffic information display). Not having any access to navigation in the case where the cloud service is unavailable seems more serious.
Would I Buy One?
The bottom line is no, I wouldn’t buy one, but not because there was anything bad about the car. As I mentioned at the start of this post, I am not a fan of the SUV / cross-over form-factor, and that is really the only reason I wouldn’t consider a Macan EV. I did really enjoy the week I had with it, and have nothing to really complain about. If you are looking for a mid-size electric luxury SUV, with some actual sportiness, certainly test the Macan. You should probably also test its “cousin” the Audi Q6 – built on the same platform.
If, like me, you are not an SUV fan, Gavin Shoebridge has a great review of the Audi S6 Avant up on the Ecotricity website – a station wagon / estate car format vehicle that is built on the same platform as the Macan EV and Audi Q6.