Porsche Cayenne Electric VIRTUAL testing cuts development time by 20%

The new Porsche Cayenne Electric will arrive later this year after rigorous virtual and real-world testing in extreme conditions.

Porsche’s next EV, following on from the Taycan and Macan Electric, will be revealed before the end of the year and come with up to 1000bhp, a range of pushing on 400 miles from a 108kWh battery and 0-62mph as quick as 3.3 seconds.

Ahead of that, Porsche has been doing the usual extreme testing of the Cayenne, but as this is 2025, a big chunk of that testing has been ‘virtual’, negating the need for up to 120 test cars and cutting development time by 20%.

Using simulation and AI, digitised routes from the Nurburgring to everyday traffic, real-time simulations, and virtual environments perform initial tests which can then be verified later with bench tests.

Porsche’s new composite test bench allows drive, energy management and charging system to be tested together, with the bench able to simulate different road and environmental conditions.

All the work done in the virtual stage of testing still needs to be verified and tweaked by actual humans (yes, we still need them) in extremes of 50 °C in the desert and -35 °C in Scandinavia, with a particular focus not just on driving dynamics and control strategies, but on ensuring the Cayenne is always conditioned for fast charging.

Let’s hope all this, and the lessons learnt from the Taycan, mean the Cayenne EV is everything it should be from the off.