Coming Soon: New Porsche Cayenne Specs, price and release info

Porsche has updated its largest SUV, the Cayenne Mk3, but is insisting this is far more than the usual midlife model facelift. Michael Schätzle, the vice-president for the Cayenne product line, says “it’s one of the most extensive product upgrades in the history of Porsche”. While the exterior appearance has been mildly polished, there are significant changes to the dashboard of the Cayenne, as well as to the chassis and the drivetrains. This model is designed to last for quite a few years on sale yet, as it will sit alongside an (unrelated) all-electric Cayenne due to launch in 2025.
· The Porsche Cayenne is the company’s largest model on sale. It is a five-door, five-seat luxury/sports SUV, which is available in regular and more rakish Coupe body styles. · Porsche doesn’t ‘do’ equipment specifications, per se – models are badged according to their power outputs and then given according kit. Therefore, choose from the Cayenne, Cayenne S or Cayenne E-Hybrid. · Choice of two petrol engines, one of them enlarged from a V6 formerly to a V8 here, as well as a petrol-electric plug-in hybrid. · Power starts at 353hp for the Porsche Cayenne, rising to 474 horsepower for the Cayenne S. · Regular Cayenne starts from £67,400, Cayenne E-Hybrid from £76,800 and Cayenne S from £80,800. Equivalent Cayenne Coupe versions are between £2,100-£3,700 more expensive, model-for-model. · Updated Porsche Cayenne is on sale right now.

Porsche’s Cayenne was no looker when it arrived way back in 2002, but over the years the company has slowly refined and evolved its appearance so that it’s actually quite a handsome thing now it is in its third generation, which launched in 2018. What’s changed for 2023 is that the front arches are more defined on the Cayenne, which necessitates a different treatment for the front grille and the LED headlights – for these, clever Matrix illumination, which can selectively dip part of the high beam to prevent dazzling other road users at night, is standard on all models, but it can be upgraded to HD Matrix LEDs that are even more technologically advanced and which feature a whopping 32,000 pixels per headlamp. At the back, three-dimensionally designed taillights and more of an emphasis on the Cayenne’s full-width detail bar are the main changes. Beyond the physical tweaks, three new body colours, lightweight Sports packages that save up to 33kg of kerb weight on the Cayenne Coupe, and a range of 20-, 21- and 22-inch alloy wheels are the other additions to the 2023MY Cayenne family.

Porsche has given the revised Cayenne the sort of high-tech interior first seen on the Taycan electric vehicle. This means the big SUV now has a heavily driver-focused layout of switchgear, while the automatic transmission selector has been relocated to the dashboard. This frees up space on the centre console for more storage and a near, flat-panel air-conditioning control system. Then there are the screens on the dashboard – up to three of them, if you optionally specify the 10.9-inch passenger-side display (again, a feature first seen on Taycan). All Cayenne drivers will benefit from the 12.6-inch digital instrument cluster with a curved, ‘floating’ design, while the central 12.3-inch touch-screen is for the main Porsche Communication Management (PCM) infotainment. There are other technical highlights too, such as the addition of an air-quality system that can sense when you’re driving into tunnels and automatically switch the climate control to ‘recirculate’, and an ioniser that can remove germs and pollutants from the outside air before it enters the passenger compartment. Porsche has also bolstered the Cayenne’s active safety assistance systems for a full technological update.

The opening vehicle is the V6-powered petrol Cayenne, which uses the same 3.0-litre engine as previously but with very modest increases in horsepower and torque. The same engine is augmented with electric power in the plug-in hybrid Cayenne E-Hybrid, which has a new electric motor and a larger battery pack, meaning it can now travel up to 56 miles in zero-emissions mode alone. Porsche has also upgraded its onboard charging system, so it takes less than two-and-a-half hours to charge the pack back up again too. And the E-Hybrid is almost as powerful as the final model in the line-up, the 474 horsepower Cayenne S. The big news here is that this car previously used a powerful V6 engine to differentiate it from the base-model Cayenne, but now the S has a 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 motor instead. This develops enough power to propel the SUV from 0-62mph in 4.7 seconds and on to a top speed of 170mph. Finally, Porsche has also amended the suspension on all models of Cayenne, so they now all come with Porsche Active Suspension Management (PASM) adaptive dampers as standard. There is then an option to upgrade even further to Adaptive Air Suspension, if buyers so desire.

The V6-powered petrol Cayenne kicks off the updated Porsche range at £67,400 as an SUV, while the Cayenne Coupe is £70,300. For the E-Hybrid, the regular five-door version is £76,800 and the Coupe is £78,900, while the Cayenne S retails at £80,800, with the Cayenne S Coupe the most expensive model so far at £84,500. Other models of Cayenne, such as the GTS, Turbo and Turbo S E-Hybrid, should soon follow on from these initial three specifications.

The German company has considerable midlife updates planned for both its venerable 911 sports car range and the deeply impressive Taycan electric vehicle. It is also releasing the ultra-high-performance 718 Spyder RS, a very extreme version of the Boxster two-seater roadster, as it prepares to end production on both this model line and the 718 Cayman coupe. After that, its next big launch will be the all-electric second-generation Macan compact SUV, due in either late 2023 or into 2024.

BMW’s newly launched XM high-performance plug-in hybrid SUV could be considered a rival to the Porsche Cayenne, while at the top end of its performance line-up, it might even encroach on the market territory of vehicles as high-end as Ferrari’s Purosangue SUV. Other than that, the Cayenne will continue to compete with the likes of the Maserati Levante, Audi Q8, BMW X5, Mercedes GLE, and Range Rover Sport, among others.

Though it’s hardly an inexpensive and easily attainable car, the Porsche Cayenne nevertheless remains brilliant. It’s one of the best SUVs of any size to drive, yet it has one of the most exceptional interiors in the segment and that undoubted Porsche badge cachet. The updates to the third-generation car aren’t seismic, but they’re enough to make one of the very best SUVs that tiny bit better still. We can’t wait to try it out.