Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid review: I wish this car didn’t exist … but it’s brilliant

I expected to hate the Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid because, well, it is a Cayenne. While too expensive it’s annoyingly excellent to drive.

The Pink Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid at The Langham in the Gold Coast.

Logically, one would assume there is no time at which a sane person would turn down the offer of a free Porsche. Throw a single word into that sentence, however, and add in the context that said offer was being made in a part of Queensland where anything that does not glitter is not Gold Coast, and you can see how it might happen.

That word is “pink”, and when the lovely people from the louche Langham Hotel said they would like to offer me a pink Porsche to use during my weekend of pretending to be Harry Styles, I must admit my mind raced off in search of excuses, coming up only with the slightly desperate-sounding “I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten how to drive”.

Happily, they thought I was joking – and, even more pleasantly, I had imagined the wrong kind of pink; something the shade of raspberry lemonade, when in actual fact the Cayenne E-Hybrid Langham-branded Porsche was less hen’s night and more blushing bride. If I’d been more aware of the current Barbie-mania (and I should have been, as I’m usually hanging on Margot Robbie’s every utterance), I would have felt very on trend.

I should explain that, in a move to counter the inevitable end of motoring writing as a craft (I’d say it’s a calling, but that might be overly grand) when autonomous cars replace enjoyable ones, I am planning a career pivot to travel journalism. In a move that will seem obvious to those readers who suggest I only write about cars that no one can afford, I have decided to start at the top by reviewing only penthouse suites, like the one at the Gold Coast Langham where, it turns out, Harry Styles recently sashayed.

To describe the accommodations as rock-star lavish would undersell their magnificence, but the one low point was being asked to lick the bath by a deliriously excited Styles fan, and she’s barely 10.

The Porsche Cayenne’s interior.

I expected to hate the Porsche, regardless of its hue, because it is a Cayenne, which is a car I wish didn’t exist. Two decades ago, when Porsche – far and away my favourite brand of anything – announced it was making SUVs, I took a principled and hugely pointless stand and refused to drive one. This went on for years, to the raging ire of the brand’s PR, but you have to remember that before the Cayenne peppered our roads with people wearing smug “I own a Porsche” faces (at whom I long felt the urge to shout, “no you don’t, you bought an aberration”), this proud German marque only made sports cars. Brilliant ones.

The arrival of the Cayenne was like Elvis getting fat and lazing around Vegas, or Obama getting fat and becoming president of the NRA, or Rolls-Royce building an SUV. Yes, that debacle did happen, but Porsche started it.

Today, of course, Porsche is an SUV company, with fewer than a third of the vehicles it sells being proper, ground-hugging sports cars, but I have to admit that the likes of the Macan and Cayenne are annoyingly excellent to drive. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I had never driven the Cayenne E-Hybrid I was gifted to swan through the concrete canyons of the Gold Coast in before, and it was typically, brutishly brilliant. What always amazes me is how Porsche manages to get so much of the DNA of its proper cars into these carnival floats, with the perfect steering, the corner-carving ability and rorty-sounding engines all present and accounted for.

The perfect steering, the corner-carving ability and rorty-sounding engines were all present and accounted for.

What struck me about this car in particular was that it was genuinely old, at least compared to what I’m normally allowed to borrow – a 2020 model with almost 25,000km on the clock, and yet it still felt as tight as a sprinter’s glutes. Being a hybrid it also has lots of Gold Coastian flashing lights on the dash advising you about how much power you’re recouping, your EV-only range (the modern, 2023 version you can buy today promises 74km of emission-free driving between charges, but can go as far as 90km, at a top silent speed of 135km/h) and which of the various modes you’re engaging (I prefer SportPlus, which gives you full, noisy access to its combined 345kW and 650Nm and a 0 to 100km/h dash of 4.9 seconds, just 0.1 faster than the 2020 version).

More noticeably, the newer Cayenne E-Hybrid – which claims an incredible-sounding fuel economy of just 3.5 litres per 100km, a figure I would never achieve because I find it too tempting to mash the thirsty pedal – has mod cons such as a 12.6-inch curved digital display and touch screen (driving the old one reminded me how exhausting physical buttons were) as well as wireless charging and Apple CarPlay. Honestly, it’s embarrassing how technologically deprived we were back in 2020.

The Cayenne E-Hybrid Langham-branded Porsche was less hen’s night and more blushing bride.

The problem with Porsches, much like vast, 340sqm hotel suites, is that they are simply too expensive. The Cayenne I was driving could be had for $137,800 in its day, while the more powerful 2023 model E-Hybrid is now $155,900. Obviously this is the kind of money Mr Styles would not notice falling out of his dress pockets, much like an $8000-a-night hotel room.

I also believe he’s far less scared of the colour pink, or “watermelon sugar” as he calls it, than I am.

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Porsche Cayenne E-Hybrid

ENGINE: 3.0-litre turbocharged, six-cylinder, single electric motor, 25.9 kWh battery (345kW/650Nm)
FUEL ECONOMY: 3.5 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: Eight-speed automatic, all-wheel drive
PRICE: $155,900
RATING: 4 out of 5 stars