Opinion: Electric SUVs are good news for Porsche fans

Forthcoming Macan EV will use Porsche's PPE architecture

Volume-focused models atop PPE architecture make enthusiast sports cars more viable

Porsche has today provided further details of its new Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architecture, set to arrive with the Porsche Macan EV and sibling brand Audi’s Q6 E-tron.

The headlines include an 800V electrical architecture, competitive battery capacities and an emphasis on weight distribution in a bid to maintain the dynamic character of Porsche’s legacy models.

But it is not the on-paper figures through which PPE’s impact will be most dramatically felt – nor is that what Porsche people were most excited by at a media briefing in Franciacorta, Italy. Instead, they emphasised its profitability, and the avenues this opens for the brand.

Barbara Frenkel, board executive for procurement, said the platform would be the launch pad for high-volume electric cars made in a “very profitable way”.

This implies that the firm is positioning the Porsche Macan EV to ultimately take the reins from the petrol version – for which sales will continue in parallel – as its best-selling model, its higher price generating greater profit.

Enthusiasts might reel at the notion of Porsche leading its line-up with what is expected to be a two-tonne-plus electric crossover – almost antithetical to its historical line-up – but this may not be such a bad thing.

For one, the bullishness of Porsche executives about PPE’s profitability means that even if only a mild success, it could secure funding for the development of future internal-combustion models.

And this is important because Porsche appears keen to maintain its investment in ICEs – with a Formula 1 deal for 2026 on the cards and synthetic fuel development work under way in Chile.

It also means that there should be more money for some of the less ‘sensible’ skunkworks projects many of us fawn over, such as the Porsche Cayman GT4 RS and soon to be revealed 911 Dakar.

However, money alone does not guarantee that such cars make it to market. After all, increasingly strict fleet emissions standards ultimately limit how many fire-breathing flat sixes – producing a whopping 299g/km of CO2, in the GT4 RS’s case – can be produced.

And it is this aspect in which PPE’s positioning should be cause for excitement: should the Macan EV prove as successful as expected, it could slash the manufacturer’s fleet emissions and open up a berth for what Porsche does best. This effect would only be heightened when the Cayenne EV – the electric counterpart to Porsche’s second-best seller, also based on PPE – arrives in 2025.

This does, of course, hinge on a few key factors. The first is that there will be the expected demand for electric versions of Porsche’s mainstays, despite their (likely) significant price hike compared with the petrol versions.

The second assumption is that the manufacturer will be able to meet that demand: executives industry-wide seem confident that the semiconductor chip shortage will be over by the end of 2023, but we heard similar rhetoric last year and supply troubles continued.

But all being well, electric SUVs based on the PPE platform will not sully Porsche’s reputation, but instead be a lifeline for the enthusiastic-focused models we all know and love.