Does everyone fantasise about having sex in a Porsche? Or is it just middle-aged men? The middle-aged women I know are much more interested in having sex in grand hotels rooms than on the backseat of a sports car but then perhaps that’s because they haven’t considered the Porsche Macan, which is as sleek, luxurious and sexy as a Porsche but as practical and spacious as an SUV. I invite a man for a spin and he instantly agrees. Then I deliver the bad news: it’s electric.
I’ve borrowed a Porsche Macan 4, not to try out the legroom, but to see if it’s the car that can finally turn me electric (in much the same way a girl might see if Stella McCartney is the designer who can finally convince her it’s worth spending £1000 on pleather).
I’ve never been a fan of electric cars. I tried one a decade ago, hated it and have sworn off them ever since. I found them boxy, humming, and a pain to charge. I detested driving the Tesla long before it was cool to hate Elon Musk. I borrowed a Nissan Leaf to review and slated it, only to be attacked online by electric car fans, who, it turns out, are as militant as vegans. They began spreading conspiracy theories that I was shilling for Big Petrol. (I’d be driving a better car if I was).
But the real reason I hate electric cars isn’t practical, it’s lascivious. They take all the sex out of driving. Gone is the foreplay of gently choking it on a cold morning, teasing the clutch, going slow, deliberate gear changes, revving the engine and feeling it growl beneath you before you let it loose.There is no pumping a car full of electric, you just stick it on to charge like a vibrator.
My Macan 4 arrives in ‘Oak Green Metallic Neo’ (British Racing Green to the untrained eye) with an olive leather interior (wipe-clean). It promisingly claims to have a range of 344 miles and fast charging. It’s a good ride (not in the Irish sense): sporty but smooth and controlled, a nippy acceleration (0-62mph in 5.2 seconds) and as sensitive as electric car owners if you ask them how hard finding a charging station is. It’s also a powerful four-wheel drive, with a meaty 650 Nm Torque, but not as bulky as the Porsche Cayenne.
Here is a car designed for people who love driving even if it does come with boring compulsory safety features such as an alarm that beeps when you go over the speed limit. To my delight, it also has a button to flick said alarm off, leaving me free to reach the top speed of 137mph. And it’s true, the electrics do give it more precision, particularly when showing off with moves like steering into a parking bay automatically, self-parking in your garage or parking the car remotely using a smartphone app.
I detested driving the Tesla long before it was cool to hate Elon Musk
I like the idea that I’m driving around for free on clean fuel although the reality is frankly more complicated. In the week I have the car, I find charging endlessly frustrating and inconvenient. ‘Just keep the battery topped up, like charging your phone,’ my friend says. The 344-mile range seems optimistic, and the charging stations mostly broken. Since I live near Babington House in Somerset, I had planned to take advantage of one of their many Porsche-sponsored charging stations, but I soon discover that half of them aren’t working. I drive to Devon and pull up to electric charge points only to find petrol cars parked in them. On a day trip to Bath, I fume around town getting increasingly irritable as I desperately try to find a charging station – going to three different locations before I find one that works. When I do plug in the car, I am charged £35 to fill half the battery – although being a fast charger it only takes 20 minutes. Slower chargers cost less but take hours. Fully charging my Macan Electric’s 95 kWh (usable) battery on a standard home 7.4 kWh charger would take 13.5 hours.
Electric vehicles (EVs) became more expensive when they attracted road tax in April last year, while new, expensive EVs – like my Porsche – also attract the premium car supplement. From April 2028 EV owners will also have to pay 3p a mile duty – so 10,000 miles a year will cost £300 extra on top of normal road tax. At this point are EVs really cheaper? And if not, who can be bothered with the inconvenience? After all, a woman can’t live on virtue-signalling and smugness alone – even if she wants to date eco-warriors.
But the thing I like least is the silence. You can hardly hear the car’s motor, although the GTS model offers an optional sport sound that adds fake noise into the cabin (like a fake orgasm, I guess). On country roads I feel like a silent assassin, creeping up on horses; shocking people out for country walks, taking blind corners where other drivers rely on hearing each other coming.
This stealth mode, coupled with the car’s ‘Oak Green Neo’ colour, make me feel like a silent moving hedge, gliding around waiting for someone to smash me. Although sadly not the man, who cancels our date. I would be offended, but I blame the car. Nobody ghosts you when you’re driving a petrol engine Porsche.
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