Macan 4 EV Detailed Review: 3 Days After Delivery

[Smarty0nline]

Hi All,

Please read the first impressions post if this post is too long. This post is for those seriously considering the Macan or others who have already ordered.

Here are some additional details after 3 days and almost 200 miles (321 km) to expand on my first impressions posting.

Heads Up Display
Keeps your attention on the road. No need to glance down at the dashboard in most driving situations. The HUD works well with CarPlay navigation and displays a checkered flag when you arrive at your destination. AR (augmented reality) features show potential lane departures as a red line superimposed over the center or edge lines in your field of view. It also shows the car separation distance superimposed in your field of view for cruse control. However, the HUD can be distracting at night and puzzles passengers when you describe it because they can’t see it from their vantage point. It can be easily toggled on and off by pressing and holding the steering wheel left knurled switch (and volume control) if the HUD causes visual overload.

Rear Axle Steering
This tightens the turning circle and adds stability at higher speeds. It is a major component of the precision handling feel of the Macan. I cannot say enough good things about the Macan’s handling, but also can’t say how much handling degrades without it.

Powered charge port doors
I was holding them wrong and almost wrote a negative review as a result. By inspiration, I discovered guaranteed success steps:

1. Make sure the car is unlocked by using the fob. Comfort access unlocking may be insufficient.
2. Rest your hand gently on the edge of the charge port door closest to the taillight UNTIL the door starts to move (about 2 seconds). The owner’s manual tells you to lay your hand on the door, but not how long. Many reviewers touched and released too quickly. Waiting until the door moves means the charge port opens every time without fiddling. See note 1

Passenger display
Unless you have a passenger, this display shows you CarPlay album cover art and song info. It also gives you an impressive animation of the car’s taillights when your car wakes up. We confirmed that the CarPlay and Porsche Navigation run simultaneously at least when you run one it on the driver display and also on the passenger display. This allows combining charge planning and CarPlay use. Passenger display can also be skipped as an option by many. If you team well with your passenger, specify it.

Driver assistance usability
For those accustomed to driver assistance on the steering wheel, the assistance function stalk is initially quite awkward. You have to remind yourself upper left stalk for headlights and lower left stalk for driver assistance. Apologies to anyone that I flashed my brights at while getting used to this. They were doubtless thinking: “One of those Porsche drivers”. See note 2

Innodrive
A button on the bottom surface of the driver assistance stalk activates Innodrive. I forgot this detail from reading the manual and had to be reminded of it by my SA. I tried Innodrive on both highway and back roads. if you want to have confidence in Innodrive you really need to option the HUD too. When Innodrive anticipates a speed change (and is showing traffic signs) Innodrive signals the speed change to the right of the current speed in blue outlined rectangle. A curved arrow signals upcoming curves. You might want to bump the speed up a little with the stalk to stay with traffic as Innodrive strictly observes posted limits. Driving with Innodrive is a bit dance-like, similar to an able but cautious copilot. Tesla is far ahead in this respect, but I would not pay large sums to put my life in the hands of a self driving car (yet).

Surround View
My diamond button is assigned to Surround View and I appreciate this feature for parking precisely in spaces and when pulling into our barely big enough garage. I have not tried park assist, but will sometime (in an empty lot). Honestly, with the surround view perspective, you don’t need to trust the car to park itself. See note 3.

Charging
It is great to get a level 2 charging solution with the car and I’m using it. However, the Mobile Charger relies completely on the car for all settings and feedback. The app shows wording (“Target charge reached: 7 PM”) which made me think the charge info was from yesterday and it was actually in the future as I originally wrote this. I suggested different wording to Porsche. This may change.

i activated the battery conservation setting in the PCM which lengthens charge times and caps the charge percentage at 80%. for the bundled charger this means about 7% charge percentage per hour, I’m averaging 3 hour charge times per day if I want to go to 80% and I travelled about 60 miles today.

Range
Correction: I calculated my range at 320.5 miles (516 km) on a 95 kWh (available on a 100 kWh) battery. See my mumbers and Diego’s below.

Siri vs Porsche Voice Assistant:
Both Siri and Porsche voice assistants work from the same button. I use the Porsche assistant (short press) for vehicle only functions like temperature setting and Siri (long press) for music selection, navigation and typical Siri incidentals. They both have their strengths and weaknesses. It is better to combine both than choose.

User Interface
Most features are easy to find, but settings are all over the place. The quality of graphics and animation are excellent. There are a lot of great graphical touches. The AR HUD to quote You Tuber Gas Guzzler Reviews: “It truly is class leading”. The second amazing feature displays cars and trucks in front of and beside you. If it included behind it would be even better, but sensational for multi-lane highways when I drove in rush hour traffic this morning. See the picture below circled in orange, but unfortunately not populated with multiple lanes of cars.


Comparing EVs
This is our second EV. Our first is a Subaru Solterra. The Solterra is a fantastic commuter car, but is far surpassed by the Macan as a road trip car. I feel very comfortable driving each. The Solterra has a better design for its ACC steering wheel switches and has a very useful video rear view mirror. Otherwise the tech superiority style, handling, customization and comfort go to the Macan. To be fair the Macan is almost 2X the cost of the Solterra and so it needs to justify the price tag by being worth it.

Notes

1. I completely understand that powered charge ports could fail in long term use like pop up headlights did in the past. However, the charge port doors are a joy to use once you know how. I will also favor concentrating wear on the AC only charge port door to save the AC and DC charge port for as long as possible. If you are risk averse or want to save the cost, skip this option.
2. For some reason Macan switched from Taycan’s up/down for set, resume and cancel and forward and back to speed up and slow down to the opposite for Macan. Why?
3. Macan gets only one diamond button whereas Taycan has two. This was somewhat disappointing

Important Note
As revealed in the first impressions posting, adaptive headlights will be coming to all Macan EV models with the LED matrix headlight option (either as part of the premium package or ordered separately). I think most Macan EVs in EU or Canada already have adaptive headlights.

Some You Tube Videos I consulted prior to ordering:
Out of Spec Reviews
Savage Geese reviews
Gas Guzzler Reviews

Configuration You Tube Videos
Nick Murray
The Cycling Tech Guy
Martin Karel

Photos:

Thanks for your review. We just got ours and are having a nightmare trying to remote charge it from any app. We have a BP pulse mark 1 7kw charger so there’s no app for that where we can set the charger to come on at night. We can’t use Octopus intelligent go because the Macan isn’t on there yet so that doesn’t work. And we can’t seem to use the Porsche app to set the timer as we’ve been told it won’t connect to anything other than a Porsche charger. So it’s on to charge when we want but we can’t seem to set a timer anywhere ? I’m sure it’s user error and there must be a way. Anyone know please ? Thanks

 

[Diego]

To plan a charge you have to use the charging planner (green arrow) and NOT the charging station section (Red Cross).

Plan a charge setting up the day and hour and if you have lower rate at night you can select the advanced option (“avanzate” and "Ricarica ottimizzata" in the pic) and set the start and finish hours).

Save and send it to the car.