Our Porsche Macan EV Was Not a Great Way to Spend $100K

• We owned a 2024 Porsche Macan 4 Electric for just over a year.
• In that time, we loved the way this SUV drove, but its interior quality and lack of space proved to be letdowns.
• Worse, our car cost $99,020, which proved to be a horrible overall value.

What we bought

We ordered our Macan right when Porsche introduced its first fully electric SUV. At the time, we had the choice between Macan 4 and Macan Turbo models, and since the former was poised to be the volume model, we went with that. Fast-forward one year and Porsche now offers a rear-wheel-drive base Macan in addition to the all-wheel-drive Macan 4, Macan 4S, Macan GTS and Macan Turbo.

Our car had a starting price of $80,450 including destination, but Porsche being Porsche, many of the Macan's must-have creature comforts were optional extras. We went with 21-inch wheels, rear-axle steering, a Bose stereo, ventilated front seats, heated rear seats, four-zone climate control, 18-way adjustable seats, Porsche's InnoDrive hands-free highway driving tech, an augmented reality head-up display, a heated sport steering wheel and more. We also ordered ours in Papaya Metallic ($1,250), even though most of the team wanted to order Provence purple. (It's a long story.) All in, our car cost $99,020.

What we liked

"The driving experience is easily the strongest selling point of the Macan EV," wrote vehicle testing director Jonathan Elfalan. And indeed, that's the one common takeaway from most of the people on our staff. The steering, handling and ride quality were all fantastic and completely befitting of a Porsche.

We were also impressed with the Macan's real-world driving range. The EPA estimated our car would go 308 miles on a full charge, but when we ran the Macan on the Edmunds EV Range Test, we observed 342 miles — a number that held up over our year of driving. What's more, the Macan proved more efficient than the EPA's estimates, averaging 29 kWh per 100 miles. It's also one of the fastest-charging EVs we've ever tested, which made the Macan great for road trips where we wanted to stop, charge and get back on the road as quickly as possible.

What we didn't

While most people on staff liked driving the Macan, not everyone was thrilled.

"This might be the worst-sorted Porsche I've ever driven," wrote senior news editor Nick Yekikian. "There is bump steer at both the front and rear axle. So if you drive over a poorly paved road, the Macan is all over the place. The front end can't find its footing and skirts around. This thing can even be a handful when you're driving straight. Do. Not. Like."

We also were disappointed by the performance data. "The Macan 4 isn't especially quick — a 0-to-60-mph time of 4.8 seconds is slow for a small electric SUV that costs $100,000," noted manager of written content Cameron Rogers. "Some versions of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 are quicker."

Speaking of the Hyundai Ioniq 5 ...

"I'm struggling to understand why the Macan's interior is so compromised," wrote editor-in-chief Alistair Weaver. "It's a bigger, longer car than a Hyundai Ioniq 5 but the rear seat accommodation is pitiful by comparison. I'm 6 feet, 4 inches tall and if I adopt my natural driving position, my 6-year-old in a high-backed booster seat complains bitterly about legroom. That's simply not an issue in the Hyundai or a Genesis GV60. Given that both vehicles have similarly sized batteries and two electric motors, it's difficult to understand why Porsche couldn't liberate more space for passengers."

Other complaints included the center stack buttons, which aren't really buttons, per se, but flush-mounted icons on one large plastic panel, where the whole thing moves when you push anything. We hated how the passenger-side seat belt would constantly bang against the hard plastic door pillar, the driver assistance tech had some wonky use issues, and the Bose stereo kind of stank.

The general public might not be too fond of the Macan either. According to script writer Duncan Brady, "Someone left a 'We Buy Junk Cars' business card on the window of the Macan. Ouch."

Would we do it again?

Life with the Macan 4 was relatively worry-free, though we did have one big issue where the electric charging port flap wouldn't open, requiring a trip to the dealership. Still, the more time we spent with the Macan, the lows really outweighed the highs. And the common problem? Value. We just couldn't understand how Porsche could charge this much for this little.

"We've owned other six-figure cars, and by and large, we give those price tags a pass because those cars felt like six-figure cars," wrote Rogers. "I generally agree with my colleagues: I think the Macan is relatively small, modestly powered, not all that special inside, and a great example of Porsche's nickel-and-diming pricing strategy."

"Our Macan is objectively a bad value," wrote video manager Will Kaufman. "We spent more than $80,000, and we don't even have a surround-view camera system. There are hard plastics and piano black around the cabin that just seem cheap (even if they're sturdy)."

The price is much harder to understand when you consider there are other great-driving electric SUVs — think Hyundai Ioniq 5 N — available for tens of thousands of dollars less. At the end of the day, if you told us this Macan 4 cost $70,000, that'd make more sense. But for nearly $100K as tested? This car is nothing but a bad value.

Photos by Ryan Greger