I drop a clanger just five minutes into my first taste of the new Cayenne. I’m behind the wheel, Cayenne vice president Michael Schätzle is in the passenger seat, and a couple of minutes into our conversation, as part of a long and rambling question, I mention that of course the platform is PPE, shared with the Macan and Audi Q6 e-Tron… Schätzle grimaces like he just took a swig of warm beer. ‘No. We have a new platform, PPE41C, owned by Porsche. It’s our platform and if someone else in the [VW] Group wants to use it they have to buy it from Porsche. We started with the joint platform but the changes are so big that this is now our own platform, with new motors and a new battery. At the moment it’s the most powerful platform in the Group.’

Tell me more, Michael. And apologies for the misunderstanding.

‘We have five different options in the new Cayenne; two different motors at the front – motors shared with the Macan but with more power – and three motor options on the rear. The base motor on the rear is also shared with the Macan. But for the Cayenne S and Turbo we have completely new motors with oil-cooled stators – very efficient, very light, very powerful. And we have this completely new battery, much bigger than in the Macan [113kWh] and with doublesided cooling. It’s very special. We have so much power in the car.’ All of which serves to underline just how seriously Porsche is taking the new Cayenne, its third modern EV after the Taycan and Macan. The pressure on Schätzle’s shoulders is considerable, but so too is his R&D budget.

‘This is the most important model for Porsche,’ he explains. ‘The Cayenne sells 100,000 cars a year in a segment in which you can earn a lot of money, so it’s the most important product for Porsche.’

A big deal, then, and a car worth getting to know months ahead of its official premiere. Here’s your guided tour and first drive.

As Schätzle has already made clear, the new Cayenne Electric is an all-new car on a bespoke, uprated version of the PPE platform. A bigger car in every dimension than the current one (which will remain on sale alongside the pure-electric newcomer), it offers a lower driving position, loads of interior space, a bigger boot, a 90-litre frunk and more legroom in the back. It’s also being cut zero slack when it comes to bettering the current car in every Cayenne role, from off-road to high-speed cruising.

Because life’s too short for range anxiety, hyper-miling and turning the air-con down so low your shirt turns see-through, battery capacity is 113kWh gross, for a headline range figure of 373 miles. Enjoy the Turbo’s muscle and you’ll be looking at 2.4/2.5 miles per kWh. Go steady in the less powerful variants and you’ll get more like 3.5 miles per kWh, making that range look feasible.

Power is… plentiful. Porsche is saying ‘more than 1000PS [986bhp]’ for the Turbo, but it’s also claiming this is the most powerful production Porsche yet, so the truth is likely north of the Taycan GT’s 1020bhp. That’s a hefty margin of superiority over even the fruitiest combustion Cayennes, such as the 650bhp Turbo GT (above) and the Turbo E-Hybrid.

Based on the existing Cayenne’s £77k starting price, the Cayenne Electric is likely to start at around £85k. Given the gulf in performance between the entry-level versions (less than 500bhp but still sub-5.0sec 0-62mph) and the 1000bhp-plus Turbo, flagship Cayennes will likely eclipse even the £161k Taycan Turbo S. Weight starts at around 2550kg, with a loaded Turbo coming in at about 2700kg. The chassis uses every trick in the book, with optional Porsche Active Ride, rear-steer and ceramic brakes.

Porsche’s SUVs have long managed to feel like Porsches first and SUVs second, with sweetly-judged steering, wicked turns of speed and enough body control, grip and brakes to have a good time. On first impressions, the Cayenne Electric is no different.

I kick off with the base car. We don’t know its precise numbers but circa 2500kg, between 450 and 500bhp and 0-62mph in less than five seconds give you a steer. We’re on narrow, ultra-twisty Spanish mountain roads – by rights a daunting place in which to try to get to know a very big, very fast new car. But, perhaps assisted by the relative simplicity of this particular test car’s honest spec (no active ride, no rear-steer and no ceramics – they’re only available on Cayennes with 21- and 22-inch wheels), I’m at ease right away. You feel the mass moving at times but it’s all very composed and benign, the nose tucking in readily even when it feels like understeer’s inevitable.

At no point do I feel I need more of anything, and yet more is precisely what the Turbo delivers – and to a degree that calls to mind the best iterations of the current car, including the addictively good GTS. Just with a boatload more performance.

Along wide open dusty trails, and up and down breathtaking stretches of deserted hill road, the Cayenne Electric Turbo is absolutely monstrous, luring me deeper and deeper into a world of stupendous acceleration, outrageous agility and no little driving enjoyment. As ever, it’s that perfectly weighted and laudably slackfree steering that sets the tone; the keystone around which everything else has been built. It gives you confidence right off the bat and, together with the unintimidating power delivery, works to put you at ease with the kind of shove you used to have to be an F1 driver to experience.

Schätzle: ‘We have three levels of power: a certain amount on the pedal, more on the push-to-pass button, and then another little bit with launch control. We had big discussions around how much power we put onto the pedal so that it’s usable and not too much power for normal driving. We have a good compromise, I think.’

Is it possible to feel embarrassed on behalf of a car? Up ahead, a V8- engined, current-generation Cayenne is leading me and my Cayenne Electric up a long, rocky climb, our path anything but direct as we weave around heat-ravaged trees, ugly-looking boulders and slopes so steep they’re essentially overhanging.

Trying to fight gravity with an unhelpful layer of sandy silt all over the very uneven surface, the car ahead’s on its third attempt. Each time it lurches forward there’s a promising spasm of forward progress, then some ugly scrabbling, flares of wheelspin and an ignominious, gravity-assisted retreat. I can’t help looking away to spare its blushes.

I’m up next and, in full-height Offroad 2 setting and with Rocks mode selected, the same steep gully is child’s play. Although my car is probably heavier, its ground clearance is at least as good; there’s over 200mm adjustment in the air suspension’s ride height. Being allelectric, my car enjoys two enormous powertrain advantages: big torque from next to no revs, and the cleanest, most linear relationship between pedal and driving wheels you ever experienced. Where the V8 must try to acquire momentum and then desperately hang onto it, its hard-working engine and soaring revs giving the contact patches a hard time and making slip at the tyres almost inevitable, the Cayenne Electric just rolls inexorably forward at a speed of my choosing, the travel in the pedal now so generous that it flatters my entirely average throttle control. Cut loose on faster tracks and the Porsche is up for that, too, balanced and driftable.

Land Rover engineers have long talked of this theoretical electric advantage off-road but it’s only now, with cars like this Cayenne and the new electric Range Rover, that we’re getting the chance to experience the difference for ourselves. While the chances of you forging into the undergrowth in your new Cayenne Electric are no doubt slim, certainly if you live in Europe, rest assured that, more than ever before, not having a clue about how to drive off-road is absolutely no barrier to doing so.

Cruising too-hot-to-touch black highways, there’s nothing to do but sit back and enjoy the views; deep blue skies, farmland bleached the colour of bone by the heat and, in the distance, a wildfire burning in the foothills, its billowing slate-grey smoke blotting out the sun.

We’re gliding down the motorway on what feels like a 1000bhp pile of bubble wrap. Bumps, vibrations, wind and road noise… apparently they weren’t invited. The cabin’s so quiet you could – and we do – hear a Peanut M&M drop. The ride quality is sublime in every variant but hits a new high in the cars equipped with Active Ride Control. Even ridged, cracked concrete is smothered, regardless of setting. At one point, in a fit of investigative journalism, I even drive a broken stretch of mountain road in Track mode without so much as a tremor.

So, life is good. The Porsche navigation is confident I’ll reach the hotel without another charge and we’re enjoying a cabin that forgoes giant screens or cinema gimmicks in favour of level-headed usability. The neat curved infotainment screen, which follows the contours of the dash, sweeping from vertical to a slush fit with the centre tunnel, is uncluttered. For those who wish to turn off some of the more intrusive assists and bongs, doing so is easy, and you can do the same with the V8-esque soundtrack, too. Though you might find you like it. I do.

‘There were a lot of people, even on the board, who were not convinced [by the synthetic noise],’ says Schätzle. ‘But when it was ready and they drove the car, everybody preferred it. And if you don’t like it you can switch it off in every mode.’

Roll-on performance is awesome. The numbers at this stage are sketchy but for the Turbo it’s less than 3.0sec 0-62mph and 0-124mph in less than 10. At one point the lane between us and our motorway exit is nose-to-tail with trucks. In an instant the Turbo leapfrogs the entire convoy, its fluency with huge changes in speed, up and down, quite addictive.

‘This car is really impressive on the autobahn,’ continues Schätzle. ‘With the longer wheelbase [up 35mm] it is so stable going through the fast corners and, more than the absolute speed, it’s how the car accelerates from say 120mph to 150mph that is really crazy.’

He’s not wrong. So, is this now Porsche’s electric flagship? I catch Schätzle grinning. ‘There’s quite a nice competition between Kevin [Giek, Taycan product line VP] and us, for the faster car – it’s funny. Sometimes he surprises us with new stuff and vice versa. There’s internal competition. He’s improving the acceleration of his car all the time.’ Interestingly, the Cayenne eschews the Taycan’s two-speed rear gearbox. ‘We save weight without it and we don’t need it because the motors are so powerful. We’re slipping the tyres up to 40mph [without a lower ratio]… We don’t need any more acceleration.’

Schätzle is particularly proud of the active ride system, though admits it won’t be an auto-include, so good is the passive car. ‘On the non-active car we have air suspension, adaptive damping on both compression and rebound and we have conventional roll bars. But the active system can move the wheels to follow the road surface – it’s completely different.’ For drive system director Denis Rancak the active advantage is clear.

‘It’s the benchmark,’ he explains. ‘I’ve driven the car more than 10,000 kilometres, and with the active system it’s like the tyres are glued to the road. Of course in this car that is crazy because if the tyre never loses contact then you’re always able to use the massive torque.’

Pushed to choose, I’d go with rear-wheel steering and without active ride, for the more natural, confidence-inspiring body movements of mechanical roll bars and the modest cost and weight savings. I also find myself wanting a sportier brake pedal at times, so capable are the faster variants. There’s so much talent in the chassis and so much sheer performance that when you’re really in the groove I’d love less travel, a firmer pedal and a more direct feel.

‘You have to find the best compromise between having a brake pedal that is very direct but that’s also not confusing or uncomfortable in everyday use,’ explains Rancak. ‘It wouldn’t be a problem to make the braking feel like a sports car’s. But most of the customers would not appreciate it.’

Porsche has waged war on tardy charging ever since the first Taycan, and the new Cayenne is equally keen to minimise overall journey times. It offers a 400kW peak charging rate, thanks to its 800-volt architecture and advanced batterycooling technology (the unit cools its pouch-type cells from above and below; other Porsche EVs cool only one side). We didn’t get a chance to try it, but that should give 10-80 per cent charges in less than 16 minutes. The car can also regen at up to 600kW under deceleration, a figure that’s way above even the secondgeneration Taycan (400kW).

In line with the Cayenne’s status as a tech innovator, Porsche has chosen to bring inductive charging to market with this car. The theory – roll into your garage and charge wirelessly without cables, plugs or faff – has been around for a while, but mostly dismissed on the grounds of inefficiency, cost and the risk to wandering pets. Porsche reckons it’s solved those issues to deliver reliable, cat-safe 11kW charging at 90 per cent efficiency – and the Cayenne will be the first car with the tech. All UK cars will be ready for the technology.

It uses a base plate installed in your garage or driveway, working with a plate on the underside of the car, between the front wheels, to deliver the ultimate lazy-charging experience. The car will automatically lower to minimise the gap between pad and plate, and sensors will stop the charging process if creatures or metallic objects find themselves in the line of fire. No separate wallbox is required, and the unit’s built tough, weatherproof and ready for over-the-air updates and app control.