18/05/2025

SUNDAY | MAY 18, 2025

Contributing Editor Keshy Dhillon / keshy@piston.my Editorial

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Electric fun New Porsche Macan 4 not just fast, quite a looker as well

BY KESHY DHILLON

PORSCHE has one of the most colourful histories in the automo tive world. I truly doubt anyone would disagree with that. At a time when new car makers are emerging quicker than ever before, more car makers are turn ing to their history books to show where they have come from and where they are going. Most of them are doing a really good job at it too, except for Jaguar perhaps. The British marque seems to have completely lost the plot, but word is that it is now looking to hire a new brand agency after a disastrous rebrand ing exercise, so don’t write off the great Jag yet. Anyway, brands with a storied history have also survived tumul tuous times, and Porsche is no dif ferent. The mighty Stuttgart based brand almost lost everything in the 90s, but the introduction of the Boxster single handedly saved it. Then came the Cayenne which not only saved Porsche but trans formed it and gave it much needed cash flow to let it continue its motorsport exploits. But while the Boxster and Cayenne can be credited with sav ing Porsche, that does not mean the duo are the best-selling Porsches. Far from it. In fact, that title belongs to the Porsche Macan. Introduced in 2014, the Macan is the culmination of many years of research and development by the multi-talented team at Porsche. While the Cayenne enjoyed brisk sales, Porsche analysis found that there was a market for a small, high-performance SUV. And that was basically right up Porsche’s alley since it already had

Generous boot space.

Adequate frunk size.

Headlight cluster is

located at the bottom of the LED daytime running lights.

A space saving spare wheel.

the experience in both segments and its sister company Audi already had the platform from the Q5, which suited Porsche’s requirement. So, Porsche’s team secretly started working on a project called Cajun, which is basically an abbre viation for Cayenne Junior. And, per Porsche’s prediction, the Macan was an immediate sales phenomenon. Today it is set to reach a million homes, with over 800,000 Macan’s already sold. However, the fast-changing

pace of the automotive industry has left the Macan in a bit of a lurch. With electric powertrains fast catching on, Porsche had a deci sion to make. Focus on an entirely new electric car like what it did with the Taycan, except this time it had to be an SUV, or work with one of its current models but with an electric powertrain instead. Porsche did the unthinkable. In the early 2020s, the German mar quee announced that it will be dropping all petrol (and diesel)

powertrains for the next genera tion Macan and will thus offer it with an electric drivetrain only. This did not sit well with many, but Porsche has had a knack for making the right decision at the right time. But no one could imag ine what would come next. Sales of the EV industry slowed down. The roll out of charging facilities slowed as well and this had the general poulation rethink ing the approach to EV’s. Perhaps electric cars were not the saviours they were made out

to be after all? Perhaps motoring scribes were right and plug-in hybrids are a much better answer? This slow down forced many car makers to abandon their full EV plans altogether, including Porsche. Though none have openly admitted to it. Instead of admitting going fully electric was not the right decision, car makers like Volvo announced they were going to continue to offer regular powertrains with hybrids and EV’s as well to give consumers “the power of choice”