Never before have we had so much demand for sporty vehicles that comfortably seat five adults. The Porsche Panamera has five seats, four driven wheels, big V8 power, and an even bigger price tag. But unlike the Lamborghini Urus, Aston Martin DBX, and Ferrari Purosangue, the Panamera is a sedan. Yes, Porsche makes a super SUV themselves, the Cayenne Turbo GT. But none of the aforementioned SUVs are made by a company that also sells a four-door sedan. And that’s a shame because a super sedan is much better than a super SUV.
What powers the Porsche Panamera?
Like many full-size big-power vehicles, the Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid is a plug-in hybrid. A PHEV is the most practical way to slide by modern fuel economy and emissions requirements even though it makes the vehicle notably heavier than a pure ICE design. I digress. The Panamera is a big car and it has some very big numbers. Stuffed somewhere way back under the long hood is a twin-turbo 4.0L V8. That V8 makes 590 horsepower and 591 lb-ft of torque. That is plenty of power all by itself but it’s further assisted by a single electric motor which makes 136 hp and 331 lb-ft of torque. Deriving the total system output isn’t as easy as adding those numbers together. In total, the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid punches out an astonishing 771 hp and 737 lb-ft of torque. That’s more horsepower than a Ferrari Purosangue and more torque than a Bentley Bentayga W12.
Other big numbers include its 202 mph (323 km/h) top speed. A small number would be the mere 2.8 seconds it takes to hustle the full-sized sedan to 60 mph which is only one tenth of a second slower than a 911 Turbo S. And a quarter-mile time of 10.8 seconds makes this a 10-second sedan. Bonkers!
How much is the Porsche Panamera in Canada?
Of course you had to expect that the price would be similarly super-sized and it is indeed. The Turbo S E-Hybrid has a base price of $257,000 but that’s largely an academic figure because nobody goes out the door with a base Porsche. Our test car was loaded with $24,740 in options and when you add in destination and all other mandatory fees, our as-tested price was a sky-high $316,333!
The Sport Chrono package with its signature dash-mounted clock is standard and the eye-catching “Provence” paint is a “free” paint color from the Porsche palette. Big dollar options on our test car included the exterior Sport Design Package for $7,430, carbon ceramic brakes for $1,030, passenger display screen for $1,850, and insulated (acoustic) glass for $1,570. Park assist is a whopping $2,480 which is pretty incredible considering that it comes standard on most Hyundai products these days. My favorite option on the car is the pepita cloth interior. It’s nice to see makers experimenting with non-leather textiles in premium cars. Cloth can feel really excellent when executed well.
Once nestled in those cloth seats you find yourself in a sleek and modern cabin. Previous generations of Panamera featured rows of buttons up and down the centre console; today you’ll find a smooth expanse of “piano black” and a smattering of capacitive touch buttons. Climate controls are nicely tactile switches on the console but most interior functions are handled on the centre-mounted touch screen. The tiny dash-mounted shifter reminds me of the automatic shifter you’d find in a Chevy Corvair. Throwback! An optional ($1,850) passenger touchscreen allows your co-pilot to input addresses into the GPS.
This is all pretty-standard luxury car fare. But on an open road with some good curves, the Panamera Turbo S hybrid does what few other sedans or super SUVs can. Though the Panamera is packing some considerable heft, active dampers at all four corners and a low centre of gravity make the Panamera surprisingly agile in the corners. And thanks to the prodigious 737 lb-ft of torque, the Panamera can accelerate out of those corners with authority. It’s also a Porsche so that means it has perfect brake feel through the pedal and it can do that all day long because it has fade-resistant carbon ceramic brakes.
But when you’re not bombing around canyon roads at full tilt, the Panamera sips fuel daintily, thanks to its hybrid drivetrain. On the European driving cycle, the car is rated at just 2.9 L/100 km and it can drive 50 km on battery-power alone before the gas engine needs to kick in. Those adaptive dampers can be switched into comfort mode to give the Panamera a smooth, magic carpet ride.
In every single way, I prefer the Panamera to an equivalent high-performance SUV. I like the lower and more comfortable seating position; I like the better visibility; I like the large amount of cargo space and the amount of legroom for rear seat passengers. Super SUVs need to be sprung fairly stiffly because they need to control all that high-riding mass. When the mass is located lower in the chassis (and uses smaller, lighter wheels and tires), you can use softer springing to achieve the same performance. Plus, it gets better fuel mileage, and it looks better. The Porsche Panamera is all-wheel-drive too, so I don’t wanna hear it! Super sedans are better than super SUVs in every way, and can’t go off road anyway. Stop buying them. Buy this instead.
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