New Porsche Cayenne Electric breaks its first record

Do you want to drive your car up a hill very quickly and then tow something heavy? If so, we’ve got just the thing. Obviously, there’s more to it than that, but it seemed a good place to start. You can also add comfort, refinement, interior space, practicality, and an all-electric drive to the list. Plus, you get the bonus of having a legendary badge on the bonnet that says you’re driving the brand-new Porsche Cayenne Electric.

For more than 20 years, the Porsche Cayenne has been an incredibly important model for the brand. The upcoming electric version will build on this, combining performance, everyday usability, long-distance comfort and off-road suitability better than ever.

Now, we should be clear from the start. You can’t lease one yet because technically the new all-electric Cayenne still isn’t in production.

Not that this little fact prevented Porsche proving the point with a pre-production model at the British Hillclimb Championship. The Shelsley Walsh hill climb, which has been running since 1905, is one of the oldest motorsport events in the world, making it the ideal location to test another aspect of the electrified Cayenne’s performance.

Porsche demonstrated the high-performance potential of its upcoming all-electric SUV at the historic location as part of a filming project. As well as mingling with the entrants competing in the British Hillclimb Championship. Gabriela Jílková, development driver for the TAG Heuer Porsche Formula E Team, also attacked the route in a camouflaged Cayenne Electric, smashing the record for an SUV in the process.

Despite being as little as three and a half metres wide in places, and with a steep gradient of up to 16.7%, the Cayenne Electric completed the 1,000-yard (914m) course in just 31.28 seconds, knocking a massive 4 seconds off the previous record. Even more impressive was the fact the first measuring point, a mere 60 feet (18m) beyond the starting line, was passed after just 1.94 seconds, a feat usually reserved for purpose-built single-seater racing cars with slick tyres.

So, it appears the Cayenne Electric will be quite fast and remarkably agile.

But just in case you start thinking that’s all it can do, Porsche then handed it over to Richard Hammond – the bloke off the telly - to transport a classic car more than 100 years old and weighing more than two tonnes from his workshop in Hereford to his garage.

In the pursuit of everyday practicality, Porsche has designed the Cayenne Electric to meet all the requirements to be one of the first battery electric vehicles in the world to achieve a towing capacity of up to 3.5 tonnes. The total weight of the TV presenter’s car and trailer came to around three tonnes, with the Cayenne Electric mastering the task, according to Hammond: “We were trailing significant weight behind us, but you wouldn’t know it – the Cayenne handled it effortlessly.”

At this stage, we’re not entirely certain when Porsche will move from the testing phase to full production, but if the new Cayenne Electric is far enough down the line for Porsche to be making films about it then it shouldn't be too far away.

You’ll have to keep watching this space for more information, but it’s highly likely that when the Porsche Cayenne Electric finally arrives in the UK it’s going to be the premium electric SUV to beat.