There’s fast and then there’s this

The advice was not unexpected but it was surprising considering it applied to a vehicle weighing almost 6,000 pounds.

“Before you let off the brake, put your head against the headrest,” the instructor said.

We — myself and a handful of Porsche customers gathered at Red River Exhibition Park — were about to experience launch control on the 2027 Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric.

Launch control works like this: you put the vehicle in Drive, hold the brake as hard as you can with your left foot and quickly depress the accelerator pedal as far as it goes and hold it.

Then, and with not a word of hyperbole, you let off the brake and open the gates of hell.

All 1,159 horsepower and 1,106 pound-feet of torque are very nearly instantly delivered through the Cayenne’s four wheels to the pavement.

If you didn’t heed the instructor’s advice, there’s a good chance you’re getting a welt on the back of your head. Inertia can be your friend, just not in this instance.

Not a gearhead? No problem. To put those numbers in perspective, a 2026 Toyota Corolla Hybrid offers one-10th the torque and almost a 10th the horsepower. So this is fast.

The Cayenne Turbo Electric — yes, it’s a misnomer since there’s no exhaust to spool up forced induction to a motor that takes no air — has a zero-to-100 km/h time of 2.5 seconds.

In one-sixth the time it took to read that sentence, you’d be at the speed limit on most Canadian highways.

This in a vehicle that has no emissions, has 600 km range and charges in less than 25 minutes on a high-speed charger. Oh, and it costs $202,000, but what’s a couple hundred grand among friends?

Porsche Cars Canada came to Winnipeg in late August as part of its cross-country tour to promote its vehicles — primarily to customers of its local dealerships, which in this case is Porsche Centre Winnipeg.

It also extends invitations to automotive journalists in cities that don’t regularly receive vehicles from its press fleet, which explains why I was the interloper on this day.

To be fair, the company brought the most impressive examples of its vehicles. The Cayenne in non-turbo, non-electric trim doesn’t start at a quarter-million. It’s still not cheap: in base, gasoline form, it starts at $102,000. The electric starts at $144,562 and a base turbo electric is $200,000. All not including luxury tax, destination or other charges.

While the vast majority of you reading this at home won’t be in that snack bracket, it’s still interesting from a technical curiosity standpoint: over the course of automotive history, every advance that started at the highest price points eventually filters down to Average Joe price levels.

Those heated seats you enjoy on a cold winter’s day? They were once only available at the highest price points. Now, they’re standard on a base Toyota Corolla.

Helping the Cayenne charge so quickly is its battery chemistry: it uses 192 cells, organized into six interchangeable modules, employing lithium-ion cells using nickel-manganese-cobalt-aluminum cathodes and graphite-silicon anodes.

The chemistry raises energy density — the weak link in EVs — by seven per cent over older battery designs and allows charging at up to 400 kilowatts.

To improve safety, the battery is built into aluminum cages designed to absorb impact energy. As well, a dual-sided cooling system bleeds heat from above and below the battery cells to prevent overheating.

The design also allows for individual modules to be replaced, rather than the entire battery.

The Cayenne earned the Euro NCAP’s highest crash safety rating of five stars.

An option for the Cayenne Electric, in all trim levels, will be appealing to a number of drivers. That’s the drive-over charging pad. You put a pad on your garage floor and with the right accessory mounted under your Cayenne, it charges automatically as soon as you park over it.

The mat and the charging receptor on the car form a sort of transformer, inductively coupling power from mat to car for charging.

It doesn’t charge in a fast manner, as there’s only so much energy that can be transferred wirelessly. Porsche says it’s more like plugging in at 120 volts rather than plugging into a fast charger. But it’s automatic and requires no effort. The option must be chosen when ordering as there’s no option to add later. It’s part of the $9,000 premium package or available as a stand-alone option for $270.

The Cayenne in all forms is an elbows-up opportunity: they’re built not in the U.S. but in Slovakia.

For the electric models, the battery is also built in Slovakia. Indeed, anything with the Porsche logo sold in Canada is built outside the U.S., either in Slovakia or Germany.

It won’t be for everyone: its price alone guarantees that. Still, the Cayenne Electric will be the most fun you can have in an SUV without burning a single molecule of hydrocarbons.

kelly.taylor@freepress.mb.ca