What’s Porsche Testing With This ICE-Powered Cayenne?
First electric Cayenne arrives in 2026 but the combustion-powered SUV will live on until the end of the decade
March 27, 2024 at 11:35
The Cayenne was Porsche’s best-selling model last year, accounting for 87,553 of the 320,201 cars the firm sold across the globe in 2023. And the Cayenne is only going to become more popular when it finally gets an EV variant in 2026, but these pictures prove that it’s far from the end of the road for the ICE-powered SUV.
Porsche facelifted the Cayenne last year – its first refresh in seven model years – and the overhaul was not your usual bumper massage and DRL tweak, as it included new powertrains, new chassis tech, and improved driver assistance gadgets. But since Porsche hopes to keep the ICE Cayenne on the road until the end of the decade, only a serious overhaul like that would cut it.
But if Porsche has already given the ICE Cayenne its final significant update, what’s this prototype hiding under its coupe skin? The quad exhaust setup and huge front air intakes tell us it’s not a mule for the upcoming EV, which we know from previous spy shots is being tested using highly modified Macan EVs. And our spy photographer’s suggestion that this could be a mule for one final all-new generation of ICE-powered Macan doesn’t seem to add up.
Related: Here’s The 2026 Porsche Cayenne EV Hiding Under The New Macan EV
Porsche has said that it wants 80 percent of its output to be BEVs by 2030, and since we already know that the 911 isn’t going electric before that date, it’s logical to assume that most of the 20 percent that isn’t an EV is a 911. Given this, it doesn’t make sense that Porsche would go to the trouble of engineering an all-new ICE Cayenne for 2030, and then hang around for the eight years needed to recover the investment despite legislation in California and Europe outlawing the sale of combustion cars from 2035.
It doesn’t make sense, or it didn’t until stories about a slowdown in EV takeup, and a ride in demand for hybrids started appearing last year. And it’s also worth remembering that the Audi Q7, which has traditionally shared the Cayenne’s platform, will get one final ICE generation in around 2026 or 2027. Porsche has led us to believe that last year’s facelift car was meant to last years in the market, but maybe it’s due to be pensioned off sooner than we thought, leaving space for an ICE encore in 2028.
So is this really a mule for an all-new Cayenne, or is Porsche simply testing a new version of the current SUV whose powertrain is so hungry for air it needs a grille shaped like a jail door to keep it cool? Drop your comments below and let us know what you think Porsche is up to.
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