Porsche Cayenne vs Bentley Flying Spur

What's the difference?

There is a lot riding on this new Cayenne Electric, it is the sales leader for the German brand and if it suffers the same sales decline as the Macan, that will be a big concern for Porsche.

The good news is it’s an impressive all-rounder, with an incredible breadth of capability. But so is the electric Macan.

Going electric hasn’t diminished its trademark Porsche elements, and instead has amplified them in many respects. The speed is nothing short of staggering in the Turbo, but across the range the on and off-road driving ability is impressive. 

Plus it has the kind of spacious, well-considered and premium appointed cabin you should expect for a luxury SUV.

There are two key differences that could see it succeed where the Macan has faltered. Unlike the Macan, Porsche’s decision to give Cayenne buyers the option to stick with internal combustion if they prefer, is likely to ensure it remains a popular member of its line-up for years to come.

And while the Macan was perhaps too much, too soon, the Cayenne arrives at a time when Australians are embracing electric cars more than ever before. Although the luxury and performance end of the EV market is growing more slowly than the mainstream.

As for the pick of the range, as mind-blowing as the Turbo is, the truth is (like pretty much every Porsche model) the entry-level Cayenne is arguably the pick of the bunch. It has all the performance you’ll reasonably need and offers a good blend of capability and luxury for the lowest price.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

The Bentley Flying Spur Speed is a whole lot of car, for a whole lot of money. Sure, I’d rather have a Ferrari or a Porsche with similar power (and the Panamera shares the same V8 and hybrid set up), but then if you’re in the market for a Bentley like this you already have a garage full of other options. And I can see why you’d add one of these to your collection. Because you can.

Note: CarsGuide attended this event as a guest of the manufacturer, with travel, accommodation and meals provided.

For all the positives of continuing to offer the previous generation Cayenne alongside the new one, it does come with some downsides too. The most obvious is unmissable design differences between the older generation and this newer one.

This new electric version has the same basic silhouette of the previous Cayenne, but the details give it a distinctive look. Being electric it needs to cut through the air as efficiently as possible, so this new model is longer and lower than the internal combustion versions.

The details of the design also give it a sharper, more modern look too. Not that the previous Cayenne suddenly looks old and outdated, but if you stick with petrol power you will be sacrificing the latest styling.

Another surprising design element with this new model is an optional off-road package, which includes a unique front bumper for greater off-road clearance and approach angle. It’s unlikely that too many Cayenne Electric owners will head deep into the bush, but for those who want to, the unique bumper will help them go further. 

However, it does create a rather unusual look, as it has quite a pronounced undercut, or what I referred to as an ‘overbite’ that definitely doesn’t look as well-proportioned as the standard bodykit.

Inside, for all the hype around Porsche performance, one of the brand’s standout features has always been interior design. 

This new Cayenne looks really interesting inside, with curved screens for the digital instrument display and the multimedia system, as well as the option to add a third screen in-front of the passenger. 

The overall level of fit and finish, the detail and quality of the materials is exactly what you’d expect from a premium brand and an SUV at this price point.

Bentley seems to have spent the design budget on the Continental GT Speed, which was launched at the same time and gets the same new engine under its slightly sexier bonnet. The big move there has been going from Bentley’s traditional four headlight face to a smoother more modern one with just two lights, or eyes.

The Flying Spur, by comparison, sticks with the more traditional look, and four eyes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it looks nerdier. Indeed, it’s still an impressive and handsome beast and does a mighty fine job of making this much metal and mass look bold and desirable. 

Truly, vehicles this large tend to look lumpen and making one look as good this Flying Spur Speed does is an impressive feat. Look at the photos and be impressed.

The interior fit out and fittings are stunning, with Bentley boldly claiming it makes the best car cabins in the world. It’s not an outrageous claim, either.

As for the space and practicality, once again Porsche showcases that it’s not a one-trick pony brand. As fast as the Cayenne Electric is - and is very fast - the designers have also ensured it is a genuinely spacious vehicle for a family.

The second row space is good, enough to take two adults in comfort and easily accommodate three kids.

The SUV is obviously the more practical of the pair, with the Coupe losing some rear headroom.

As for the boot, space varies between 781L for the Cayenne SUV and 747L for the S and Turbo SUVs, while the Coupe looks sleeker but comes at the expense of cargo capacity, dropping to 534L for the Coupe and Coupe S and just 500L for the Coupe Turbo. 

The technology integration is well-considered too. One highlight is the new curved central multimedia screen, which has a palm rest that extends out from the centre fascia to make it more ergonomic to use the screen. 

The intuitive menu, as well as the physical controls for the volume and climate control, plus the ability to integrate the smartphone apps, means the key non-driving functions are incredibly easy-to-use, even on the move. 

Integrated into that palm rest is a large centre console space between the front seats, which has both wireless smartphone charging as well as four USB-C ports and two cupholders. It means there is plenty of small item storage space to go with all the room for people.

I’m not going to pretend that I had my laptop out taking notes while we were hitting 200km/h down the back straight at Magarigawa, but at more sane speeds there’s no doubt the rear seats of this car would be a very relaxing, plush, cosseting and pleasant smelling place to sit and work.

That’s at least partly what the Flying Spur Speed is for, a limousine for those who don’t like, or perhaps can’t quite afford, a Rolls-Royce, but still want great British solidity, class and that sense of obscene wealth, probably inherited.

The bonus of the Flying Spur is that it’s also a lovely place to be should you choose either of the front seats, with hugely comfortable seats that are more like couches, endless adjustability and many soothing massage settings for your heated and ventilated pews.

The spinning central 12.3-inch display remains the highlight, offering you a modern touch screen, which can disappear to reveal either three classic analogue dials or a plan piece of dashboard, if you prefer a “digital detox”.

Is “value” even a word that people use when they can afford to shop for a Bentley that costs $581,900, and will not be their only car? At very least, it’s a term that means something different to the people who breathe that kind of rarefied air.

The kind who have memberships to the exclusive Magarigawa Club where the Flying Spur Speed was launched. When just being a member costs a rumoured $1 million a year (and there’s a waiting list to get in), then half that much for a car probably isn’t so much.

The Flying Spur Speed comes with everything you would expect from a Bentley, incredible levels of comfort, a modern hybrid system that allows you to pretend you’re an eco-warrior while driving through the zero-emission zones of big cities like London and plenty of space and shiny things to look at.

The stereo is a Naim for Bentley audio system "arguably the finest in-car hi-fi available in any production car", while you also score a panoramic sunroof and mood lighting and even lovely deep-pile mats in the footwells. Ahh.

Sure, you could buy Ferraris and Lamborghinis for that kind of money, but they don’t have comfortable back seats like this Bentley, for those days when you really need to get to the chopper (parked on your personal helipad) in a hurry.

As mentioned earlier, there are three initial Cayenne Electric variants and each offer a different powertrain option. All are dual-motor, all-wheel drive but the power levels vary greatly depending on what you spend.

The standard Cayenne Electric comes with 300kW (325kW on Overboost), which is enough for this five-seat, family friendly SUV to launch 0-100km/h in just 4.8 seconds, which is genuinely impressive.

However, stepping up to the Cayenne S raises the power level to 400kW (490kW on Overboost) and drops the 0-100km/h time to 3.8 seconds.

Finally there’s the Cayenne Turbo, with up to 850kW of power and a claimed 0-100km/h capability of just 2.5 seconds. Which is borderline crazy for such a big SUV. 

It is worth explaining that the 850kW claim for the Cayenne Turbo is only available for short bursts of performance when you activate Overboost, and the ‘standard’ output for the two electric motors is 630kW, which may sound like a lot less but is actually more than enough to make the Cayenne Turbo feel fast anytime you need more performance.

If you’re going to put the word “Speed” in the title of your car, you really can’t mess about when it comes to the powerplant, and Bentley also has a proud history of making hugely powerful V12 engines to live up to. That’s a history that has now ended, with the announcement that the new 4.0-litre twin-turbo V8 in this Flying Spur Speed will be the one and only in all Bentleys, henceforth, including the Continental and the Bentayga SUV.

Bentley’s W12 engine is, sadly, no more, which might well make some older Flying Spurs quite collectable.

The V8 will come in different flavours, of course, and it’s also a hybrid, as is the modern way. Bentley calls the 140kW electric motor attached to the engine an “e-machine”.

Using that machine, the Speed can whisk you around in silent, EV-only mode for up to 81km. With such a stupendous sounding V8 on offer, it’s hard to see why you’d bother, but it’s an option, and the hybrid system is cleverly set up so that the harder you drive, the quicker the battery recharges, so effectively you’d almost never have to actually plug this PHEV in.

With the engine and e-machine combined, you’re looking at a staggering 575kW and 1000Nm, enough to propel all 2646kg of this Flying Spur Speed to 100km/h in just 3.5 seconds.

It might not sound quite as orchestrally moving as the big, sassy W12, but it’s still a hell of a replacement, as it is, in fact, “the most powerful Bentley engine ever”. That will do nicely.

The Cayenne is Porsche’s third electric model, after the Taycan and Macan, and it shows. The brand has taken battery production in-house for the Cayenne, producing the 106kWh unit at its own factory in Eastern Europe.

Range is rated at 542km for the Cayenne, 571km for the Cayenne S and 537km for the Cayenne Turbo.

Thermal efficiency is the key selling point for Porsche, as it unlocks not only the peak performance but also the repeatability that allows the Cayenne to launch so quickly over and over again. It’s notable, that unlike most other EVs that get slower the more time you extract peak performance out of them, Porsche was happy for us to undertake multiple acceleration runs in the same vehicle.

But that’s not the only trick Porsche has up its sleeve. It will be introducing inductive charging with the Cayenne. This means you’ll be able to buy a charging pad you can place on the floor in your garage, and simply drive it, park on top of it and the Cayenne will charge wirelessly.

This has the potential to be a game-changer for EV buyers as it removes the need to plug in to replenish the batteries, making life even easier for owners. It’s not available in Australia at the time of publication, but the company says it will be available from the fourth quarter and all Australian-delivered models, even those sold now, will be able to be retrofitted to take advantage of the technology.

So, if you were very careful to use your 81km of EV-only range, as often as possible, and you drove very slowly and treated the accelerator pedal with great care, you might, possibly, achieve the Flying Spur Speed’s claimed fuel-economy of 10.7 litres per 100km. 

That’s the great thing about hybrids like this, they are theoretical fuel misers of the highest order. But if you aren’t careful and you care more about enjoying that twin-turbo V8 engine you’ve paid so much money for, you’re never, ever going to get it under 15L/100km, and you’ll quite likely exceed 20L/100km, as we did, with ease, by driving it around a track all day.

Theoretically, again, this Bentley will emit just 33 grams of CO2 per kilometre. 

Porsche Australia invited us to drive the new Cayenne Electric in Port Lincoln, South Australia. While a picturesque part of the country, it seemed like an unlikely venue to test drive a new Porsche, as it’s typically Ford Ranger/Toyota HiLux country.

But one of the reasons Porsche launched the Cayenne Electric in regional South Australia was because they had managed to find a small airstrip we could use to fully explore the acceleration potential. 

Even some operator error, which meant my launch was using ‘just’ the 630kW, the acceleration was sickeningly fast and had me hitting more than 170km/h in just 200m. With the full 850kW unleashed the Cayenne is actually faster 0-100km/h than Porsche’s hero sports car, the iconic 911 Turbo S. 

That alone is a remarkable achievement, but Porsche had a few more reasons for taking us to Port Lincoln. After a drive on some sealed roads, which demonstrated the SUV's on-road composure, we found ourselves heading off-road… more off-road than I thought possible (or at least sensible) in a Porsche.

After surviving some of the gnarliest rocky roads, we found ourselves in some stunning sand dunes. We were driving the Cayenne S with the optional off-road package but the only other modification was to let down the tyres.

Carving through sand dunes like you’re in the Dakar Rally is likely to be a rare job for the Cayenne Electric, but the fact it is capable is immensely impressive and helps to demonstrate the breadth of capability that this electric SUV has.

But Porsche wasn’t finished showing off just how multi-talented the Cayenne is. 

They had a Cayenne Turbo attached to a trailer, carrying the previously beaten 911 Turbo S, to prove that it can live up to its claimed 3500kg towing capacity.

Towing a nearly $600k sports car with a $260k SUV is an expensive way to demonstrate the point, but the Cayenne didn’t miss a beat. Certainly the battery was dropping more rapidly than it was unladen, but the electric Cayenne underlined that it can do everything the petrol versions can manage (at least over a short distance).

Any car with a whopping 575kW and 1000Nm is going to be interesting, even invigorating to drive, but you’d have to say the smaller and lighter it is, the more excitement, and even fear, you’re going to be faced with.

In the case of the Bentley Flying Spur Speed, you’re talking about an enormous, and enormously luxurious and comfortable, sedan that’s designed to carry more than two people, and weighs a hefty 2646kg.

It’s a limousine powered by a rocket, as I said earlier, but looking at the size, and pondering the weight of it, you really don’t expect too much in the way of thrills. Effortless performance, sure, titanic overtaking thrust, perhaps, but then you read the fine print and note that this Flying Spur Speed can hit 100km/h in 3.5 seconds.

That’s seriously fast in anything, but in a car this big, and filled with as much luxury as a mid-sized super yacht, it feels other worldly. 

Hammering the big Speed around a tight, intense race track feels strange at first and then strangely comfortable. Even sitting in the back wasn’t so much frightening as amusing, as the big Bentley simply slopes through any challenge you throw at it.

Sure, I’d like it to be louder, and you do miss the sound of the old 12-cylinder engine (and Bentley fans in particularly might find its absence upsetting), but the V8 is still throaty enough to please your ears, and it’s important to consider that it’s actually more powerful than the old W12, which is no mean feat.

Compared to the shorter, sharper Continental GT Speed we drove on the same day, the Flying Spur does have a bit more body roll, a bit more pitch and dive under braking from 200km/h, or when accelerating ballistically out of slow corners, but it’s still stupendously impressive for what it is.

And that is a luxury limousine that can turn itself into a race track weapon if you, and your three passengers, want it to. 

The Flying Spur Speed comes with 10 airbags and it has not been crash tested. Bentley also has its own 'Safeguard' suite of technologies including auto emergency braking, 'Swerve Assist' and 'Turn Assist'. 

Other tech includes 'Predictive Adaptive Cruise Assist with Lane Guidance', lane departure warning, emergency assist, remote park assist and 3D surround-view monitor.

The Cayenne Electric is covered by Porsche’s usual three-year/unlimited kilometre warranty, and the battery gets eight years of coverage.

Both of these are fairly standard by historical terms, but with so many luxury brands - including Audi, BMW, Lexus and Mercedes-Benz - all now offering five years of coverage, it does leave Porsche lagging behind.

Servicing intervals are every 12 months or 15,000km, whichever comes first, which is standard for an internal combustion engine vehicle.

Porsche doesn’t offer capped-price servicing, so prices may vary from dealer to dealer. However, the brand does sell a special EV-focused ‘Porsche Scheduled Maintenance Plan’ that costs $1995 for three years, $3695 for four years and $3995 for five years of servicing. 

The Bentley Continental GT Speed comes with a five-year, all-inclusive servicing plan as standard.

That sounds good, but stunningly, Bentley still only offers a three-year manufacturer warranty, albeit one with no mileage limitations. That's way below industry standard these days.

The battery that forms part of the hybrid system is, however, warrantied for eight years, or 160,000km.