- Porsche’s Cayenne Electric skipped traditional prototype stages, moving directly to pre-series production.
- Engineers validated simulations with a new composite test bench, replicating drivetrain, battery and charging behaviour.
- Extreme testing ranged from 50°C desert heat to –35°C Arctic cold, ensuring reliable performance and rapid charging.
Porsche is putting the finishing touches on its first all-electric Cayenne, and the brand’s approach blends cutting-edge digital tools with old-fashioned human grit.
The SUV is due for unveiling later this year, set to join its petrol and hybrid siblings in showrooms.
Virtual first, desert later
Traditionally, Porsche would churn out more than a hundred costly prototypes before launch. This time, engineers swapped most of those for digital doubles. Using virtual reality and real-time simulation, they “drove” the Cayenne Electric on digitised versions of tracks like the Nurburgring and through simulated city traffic. Dr Michael Steiner, Porsche’s head of R&D, says it’s the first project to jump directly from full digital testing into pre-series production.
That doesn’t mean the workshop’s gone quiet. Engineers built a sophisticated composite test bench, powered by four synchronous motors, to replicate real-world stresses on the drivetrain, battery, and charging systems. “The machines are so sophisticated that we can even display different asphalt surfaces or tyre slip,” says engineer Marcus Junige.
Nurburgring meets the North Pole
The Cayenne Electric’s virtual twin was pushed to its digital limits on the Nordschleife, but Porsche still wanted human fingerprints on the final tune. Test drivers took prototypes everywhere from Gulf deserts at 50°C to Scandinavian roads dipping to –35°C. Fast charging had to work flawlessly in both extremes. As Team Leader Sascha Niesen puts it: “In reality, only humans can perform the finishing touches”.
On top of climate stress, engineers simulated years of ownership in a matter of months. Each car clocked more than 150,000km in mixed traffic, from city runs to autobahn blasts.
Quicker, leaner, still Porsche
Porsche claims the combination of digital prep and trackside sweat shaved 20% off the Cayenne Electric’s development time. It also cut material waste by reducing the number of physical prototypes. That efficiency doesn’t appear to have dulled ambition - the SUV still has to deliver full power whenever the driver demands it, no excuses.
The big question, of course, is whether all this virtual wizardry and real-world punishment will result in a Cayenne that feels authentically Porsche. We’ll find out when the covers come off at the end of the year.
