Porsche might be known for sports cars like the 911, but today it makes its money selling SUVs. Four doors and voluminous cargo space may not be attributes we traditionally associated with the brand, but the Cayenne has proven it can hold its own in a segment that's extremely important to the car industry. The third-generation Cayenne is due before too long, but before it arrives on these shores, we thought we should take a look at the current model, in particular the 2017 Cayenne S E-Hybrid. Starting at just under $80,000, this plug-in hybrid is not cheap, but it turns out you do get a heck of a lot of vehicle for your money.

Porsche probably owes its existence to the Cayenne. Adding an SUV to its line-up in 2002 opened the brand up to a far wider range of customers than its usual fare of mid- and rear-engined sports cars. And for all the wailing and gnashing of teeth by the purists, it's hard to dispute the model's success in the showroom. And because it doesn't have the same cult-like following as the nimble little sports cars, the company can use the platform for experiments, like a hybrid option.

Just add electrons

When the first hybrid Cayenne arrived in the US in 2010, it was a relatively tame example of electrification. Its nickel-metal hydride batteries were only rated for 1.7kWh, and its electric motor generated just 47hp (35kW). More recently, it got a significant upgrade. Under the hood is the same 333hp (248kW), 325ft-lb (441Nm) 3.0L supercharged direct-injection gasoline V6 engine borrowed from Audi, but now it gets much more help: the electric motor now provides 95hp (70kW) and 229ft-lbs (310Nm).

Underneath the cargo space in the rear, you'll find an even bigger improvement—the Cayenne now sports 10.8kWh-worth of lithium-ion cells. That's sufficient for an EPA-estimated 14 miles (22.5km) of pure electric driving. Whether traveling on pure electricity or in hybrid mode, there's permanent all-wheel drive, for the electric motor is positioned between the engine and the eight-speed Tiptronic S transmission.

Being able to drive the Cayenne S E-Hybrid as a pure EV is great for short journeys, but we imagine the vast majority will spend their lives using engine and electric motor in harmony. (If you want an all-electric SUV your only option for now is the Tesla Model X.) In this mode, the hybrid Porsche can travel much farther—range is quoted as 480 miles (772km), making this a good replacement for the diesel Cayenne that can't be sold in the US as a result of the VW emissions scandal.

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin



Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin



Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

Jonathan Gitlin

It drives like a giant hot hatch

At more than 5,300lbs (2,400kg), we think the Cayenne must be the heaviest thing to wear a Porsche badge since the Porsche Diesel tractor back in the late 1950s. It's quicker, though; 0-60mph takes just 5.4 seconds, 100mph comes up in 13 seconds, and 0.8 seconds later, the Cayenne will cross the quarter-mile doing 103mph (166km/h). Obviously things get a little slower when using just internal combustion or electric power alone; when the battery is fully depleted, that dash to 60mph takes 6.8 seconds, with triple-digit speed requiring 17.7 seconds. Doing the same with just electrons and no fossil fuel is still not exactly slow—8.9 seconds to 60mph, although its electric-only top speed of 78mph (126km/h) puts paid to any other performance benchmarks.

Porsche gives you several different drive modes to choose from. By default, the Cayenne operates as a hybrid, shutting off the V6 when possible and relying on electric power at low speeds. In Sport mode, the supercharged V6 engine is kept running all the time, with the electric motor chiming in as needed to give the driver a maximum of 416hp (310kW) and 435ft-lbs (590Nm).

E-Power does what it sounds like, forcing the SUV to run on just electricity. We weren't quite able to match the claimed 14-mile EV range, but even lead-footed drivers ought to see 10 miles with a full battery. (As you can probably guess, you can only select E-power if the battery is sufficiently charged.) In this mode—and in common with all EVs—it's a very relaxed way to travel, gliding along silently on waves of electric torque.

E-Charge does the opposite by siphoning some power from the engine to charge the batteries. Since our Cayenne arrived with a depleted battery, we tried this out on a 60-mile round trip. The 90-minute journey was mostly at freeway speeds and was able to bring the lithium-ion cells up to 50 percent. A better method is to plug the vehicle in to the wall. Do this and Porsche says it will take 2.7 hours to fully charge the battery using 240v power and the standard 3.6kW charger, or 1.3 hours with the optional 7.2kW charger. (If you're stuck with 110v, expect to spend at least 11 hours topping up those cells.) In practice, about 30 minutes on a level 2 charger at the supermarket was enough to add four or five miles of electric-only range to the Cayenne S E-Hybrid.

With so much mass to move, you'd be forgiven for assuming the big Porsche would be ponderous to drive. Commendably, that was not the case, and, from behind the wheel, the E-Hybrid felt considerably more like a hot hatch than a big SUV. We've already established it's quick in a straight line—handy for impromptu toll booth and on-ramp drag races—but it changes direction with an ease that belies that high center of gravity.

However, although the Cayenne has three different suspension modes (Comfort, Sport, and Sport Plus, which are in addition to those various drive modes mentioned above), we were hard-pressed to feel any real difference. In Comfort, the Cayenne manages to resist rolling much as it corners, and, even in Sport Plus, the ride was never particularly harsh or jarring.

Buttons, buttons, everywhere

You need plenty of toys to be competitive in the luxury SUV market, and our test Cayenne was even better equipped than most. At $82,800, the Platinum Edition is nearly $3,000 more than the regular Cayenne S E-Hybrid. But given Porsche's notoriously expensive options list, this actually proves quite the bargain. This limited edition (which we think will remain on sale until the third-generation Cayenne arrives next year) comes with 20-inch "RS Spyder" design wheels, bi-xenon headlights, a Bose surround-sound system, and more. A particular standout were the front seats, which were well-bolstered to hold you in place while remaining supremely comfortable. In fact, they might just be the best seats we've ridden in all year.

You also get a vast number of buttons to press, push, and poke; all told, we counted more than 40 individual controls on the center console, with several more on the headlining. Someone in Porsche's design team must have been a firm believer in one function per switch when the company put together this interior. The infotainment system is Porsche's latest PCM system. It uses a seven-inch touchscreen, and it's basically a Porsche-specific UI on top of VW Group's current MIB II system. That's definitely no bad thing, for this is one of the very best infotainment systems in the market and a massive improvement over the systems Porsche used until now. The UI is intuitive, and it even includes Apple CarPlay (but not Android Auto).

The spec sheet has some curious omissions, though; for the money, we'd expect some kind of blind-spot monitoring system, and a rear-view backup camera was conspicuous in its absence. With regard to the latter, the Platinum Edition does include front and rear ultrasonic parking sensors, which is better than nothing but less than we'd expect.

Perhaps our biggest surprise—other than those amazing front seats—was the efficiency of the Cayenne S E-Hybrid. During our week with the SUV, we averaged almost 26mpg over about 300 miles. While that doesn't sound spectacular, we only plugged into a charger on a couple of occasions, and remember this is still a 5,300lb vehicle with more than 400hp. That's better than we were able to achieve with BMW's X5 hybrid or Volvo's XC90 T8 hybrid (neither of which returned more than 22mpg in our hands). Fuel economy is probably far down the list of priorities for potential Cayenne customers, but it is satisfying to be able to run errands in such a big and powerful vehicle without once hearing the engine spin into life.