The Porsche Macan, at least in its present petrol-powered form, is set to be discontinued, and the deadline could be as soon as 2024. This impending death of the ICE-powered junior SUV by Porsche is despite it being a major cash cow and one of the top sellers of the family alongside the Cayenne.
Macan product line boss Sebastian Staiger told Autocar that it’s because of emissions regulations. “There are several limiting factors in a vehicle project. One of these factors, of course, is legislation. Emission laws are another limiting factor. Today, no final decision has been taken, but we assume that 2024 will be the year,” he said.
We already know that the Macan is switching to electric power, and the EV will surface in 2023. The electric Macan will sit on the Volkswagen Group’s Premium Platform Electric (PPE), and the carmaker announced in May that it has started testing the EV out in the open. By the time it reaches showrooms, the Macan EV would have undergone three million test kilometres, plus countless more miles on a simulator.
As the PPE architecture is being jointly developed with Audi, the Macan should share much of its unseen parts with the Audi Q6 e-tron, just as the Audi e-tron GT is essentially a Taycan with a different suit. Porsche says that PPE will allow for longer ranges (previous reports mentioned 480 km and battery capacities of up to 100 kWh), high-performance fast charging (up to 350 kW, Taycan is 270 kW) and hard acceleration that can be repeated.
By the way, the Macan was given a second facelift in July, three years from its first refresh. Changes include new bumpers front and back, a revamped centre console with Taycan-style flat touch-sensitive controls, new steering wheel and gear lever and a a revised engine range that’s more powerful.
The Macan S is now powered by the same 2.9 litre twin-turbo V6 as the GTS, an upgrade from the previous single-turbo 3.0L. It now makes 380 PS and 520 Nm of torque from 1,850 to 5,000 rpm, up by 26 PS/40 Nm. With that, 0-100 km/h is half a second quicker at 4.6 seconds, dipping below the five second mark for the first time.
Without a Turbo for now, the GTS is the Macan range topper, with 440 PS and 550 Nm between 1,900 to 5,600 rpm. That’s an extra 60 PS/30 Nm, shaving four tenths of a second off the 0-100 km/h time for 4.3 seconds. The base 2.0L turbo-four makes 13 PS/30 Nm more. With 265 PS/400 Nm, the century sprint is done in 6.2 seconds, 0.5s quicker. All variants get a seven-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission and all-wheel drive.
If you’re into this ancient thing called engines, this is the last call for the Macan. From the dates mentioned by Porsche, we can expect ICE and EV to co-exist for a while in this SUV line, before the former rides into the sunset.
GALLERY: 2022 Porsche Macan S facelift
GALLERY: 2022 Porsche Macan GTS facelift
GALLERY: 2022 Porsche Macan GTS facelift with GTS Sport package
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Good luck in trying to sell their EVs here in Bolehland. Maybe their CKD plant will continue to churn out ICE models for the SEA region since they are well aware this region isn’t ready yet.