Porsche Panamera Turbo E-Hybrid & Turbo S E-Hybrid review

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Top-level performance Panameras pack in versatile PHEV V8 powertrains and innovative suspension technology to broaden their appeal

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Porsche’s top-of-the-line Panamera has landed in the UK in its latest, third-generation or ‘976’ form.

Lording it over a pair of other V8-powered hot Panameras (leaving the V6 and V6 PHEV models, with which we deal in our regular Panamera review, to one side), the Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid becomes quite the potent proposition in all sorts of ways: technically, as a performance option or simply as a luxury electrified GT. And it comes at quite the price.

The 493bhp pure-V8 GTS will cost you £132k before options; the 671bhp Turbo E-Hybrid £152k; and the Turbo S E-Hybrid a whisker over £175k. Our test car came to rest at an all-up £194k, even without Porsche’s carbonfibre-intensive aero kit.

But Porsche actually delivers quite a lot on the top-of-the-line version for those who would be ordering a fully stocked vehicle anyway, and there’s fully 772bhp, 0-62mph in 2.9sec and up to 52 miles of electric-only range to tempt you.

So just how generous should your budget be for the ultimate Porsche fast four-door? Read on to find out.

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DESIGN & STYLING

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid rear static 0616

It’s a powerful advert for the Panamera that, even in range-topping form, there’s a sense of moderation and refinement about the car’s design. 

You can have the Turbo S’s carbon aero kit if you must (it helped produce the downforce to deliver its record-setting Nordschleife laptime, needless to say). But leave it aside and this car passes on the visual aggression of the latest BMW M5 and what you might expect of an equivalent Mercedes-AMG or Audi RS model. Although it gets lumped in with the super-saloon set, it’s well capable of rising above such easy definition and retains a richness and sense of the exotic that escapes its more prosaic rivals.

Our test car’s Madeira Gold paintwork - ‘sparkly brown’, as one passenger coined it - is the sort of colour that only the most assured, pre-possessing luxury car could pull off in 2025. A rare-groove pick; but you just might, you know.
Matt Saunders
Road test editor

The ‘976’ Turbo and Turbo S are available only with V8 PHEV power. The electric part, in both cases, is made up of a 188bhp motor sitting upstream of the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic gearbox, which draws power from an NMC battery of just under 26kWh in capacity, carried under the loadbay floor (so PHEV Panameras have slightly less claimed boot volume than ICE ones). Electric range varies between just under and just over 50 miles.

The Turbo's blown V8 adds enough oomph to make for 671bhp of peak power and 686lb ft of torque, while the Turbo S’s slightly higher-strung equivalent ups the ante as far as 772bhp and 738lb ft.

The difference in performance is less than half a second from 0-62mph (3.2sec versus 2.9sec). But it’s also enough to make the Turbo S the first factory Porsche Panamera with a top speed beyond 200mph (it’s 202mph).

All Panameras are built on the Porsche-developed MSB platform, constructed of a mix of high-strength steel and aluminium. The Turbo uses two-chamber, height-adjustable air suspension and PASM adaptive damping as standard.

But it’s the suspension and steering technology that the Turbo can have as an option - and which the Turbo S gets as standard - that represents the Panamera’s new technical tour de force. 

The highlight here is a special active air suspension system called Porsche Active Ride (PAR). This does away with anti-roll bars entirely. Instead, each wheel has a corresponding motor-driven hydraulic pump that builds up the necessary pressure for actuators in the air springs to harden or soften, or even to lift or lower each wheel or corner of the car independently, thus enabling all manner of dynamic magic tricks.

Porsche had a static demonstrator at the Panamera’s press launch in 2024 that could dance on its suspension like an American lowrider. More usefully, PAR can cancel out nearly all body roll. It can also enable ‘active features’ that positively lean the car into corners; and which also gently pitch it forward to counteract squat under acceleration and lean it back again under braking (the engineers describe its behaviour feeling a little like the movements of an Apache helicopter).

On rough roads, it can also lift up wheels for bumps; grab them to guard against rebound thwack; and return them to terra firma under perfect control on the far side of sleeping policemen etc.

The system draws its data from the steering, accelerator, brakes, accelerometers and, most importantly, sensors in the suspension itself. It doesn’t use cameras to monitor the road surface, because Porcshe says they’re unreliable when obscured. Given the suspension can adjust 13 times per second, it doesn’t need to be proactive anyway.

PAR is fairly pricey option (£7182) on the Turbo, but the Turbo S gets it as standard, and there are other technical tidbits the big-sibling model also gets thrown in that feed into its impressive ride and handling, to which we will come in due course.

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INTERIOR

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid dash 0613

The Turbo’s cabin is inviting and luxurious, with plenty of elegance and hints of understatedness that mirror its exterior design. 

There’s a sense of lowness about its hip point and of cocooning intimacy about the arc of the roofline, which feel distinctly special and set it apart from most other fast four-doors.

It’s not like an executive saloon to sit in but succeeds in conjuring more sporting ambition and sense of occasion.

The major controls are right where they ought to be, and its digital technology is integrated neatly and with just enough judicious reserve. The central touchscreen is designed neatly into the fascia rather than perched on top of it and isn’t the domineering presence you find in some luxury cars. It’s well laid out and usable, with conveniently located menu shortcut controls, and it’s juxtaposed to proper physical heating and ventilation controls with plenty of tactile quality about them.

We would prefer a slightly less small and fiddly transmission controller than the downsized one that’s perched to one side of the steering column, but the car’s secondary control regime is hard to fault. There are physical buttons you can use to disable the car’s lane-keeping assistance and speeding alarm systems; and Porsche’s familiar dial on the steering wheel boss for easy selection of the major driving modes (E-Power, Normal, Sport, Sport+).

The Panamera’s second row is a little less roomy and practical than in some uber-executive options, particularly if you stick with a standard two-seat rear bench, but still big enough for adult passengers to be comfortable.

That long, accessible boot, meanwhile, delivers beyond your expectations on cargo space, even in the case of the PHEVs, with their reduced load-bay volume.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid rear corner 0623

On the move, both the Turbo’s hybrid powertrain and its clever suspension have enormous potential to surprise and impress, and in a variety of different dimensions. 

The system is the same in both the Turbo and the Turbo S; it’s simply that the V8 engine can work so much harder in the faster version, to lend a hit of speed when called upon that feels fully Herculean rather than merely huge. And yet, even in the Turbo S, that engine never imposes itself unless you want it to.

In electric mode, there’s enough oomph from the 188bhp motor for fairly assured, if unhurried, engine-off cruising around the national speed limit.

Our Turbo S test car’s trip computer promised a little under 50 miles of electric-only running on a full charge, although it needed to be kept to lesser cruising speeds to reproduce that. 

Even so, the motor is really well integrated into the wider power delivery; the engine starts and stops discreetly, after bigger pedal inputs that become easy to gauge even without any additional haptic pedal feedback. 

The V8 fire and brimstone is there when you go digging for it, though, adding plenty of soul and theatre in wilder moments. And sure enough, every bit as much buttock-clenching acceleration as you have an appetite or use for, whether you want the torque-rich, locked-in-gear, hauling-from-lower-revs variety, or the redline-bothering, maximum-sound-and-fury kind.

Use Sport+ mode and the car ensures its hybrid battery remains at a healthy state of charge, so you never drag dead weight around.

The Turbo S is an unrelentingly fast car when given its head, and the Turbo isn’t far behind it. Both have plenty of authentic audible V8 charm, provided that you option in the sports exhaust (without it, they can sound just a little overly digitally augmented from the driver’s seat).

RIDE & HANDLING

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid rear tracking 0627

We’ve yet to test a Turbo or Turbo S without the PAR system fitted. With it, though, they seem to be at their very best on the road at that brisk but moderately relaxed pace that feels engaged and interesting yet still socially acceptable in 2025. It’s the kind of pace, suffice it to say, that suits a fast modern luxury GT car very well indeed.

The active suspension is a technical triumph for Porsche, working uncannily well on UK roads, and acting pre-emptively but discreetly to counter pitch and squat yet also lateral roll, and to bring a real sense of effortlessness to fast cross-country motoring. 

The secondary ride can be just coarse enough over really sharp edges and rough asphalt to remind you that you chose a Porsche, rather than a Bentley, Mercedes or Maserati, but rarely dismayingly so.

Turn the suspension’s active posture-adjusting off, if you prefer, with a flick of the wheel-mounted dial into Sport or Sport+ driving modes, and both Turbo and Turbo S feel more conventional in their close body control. Still amazingly taut and poised when cornering, though, with a tactile feel to the steering, a suppleness to bump absorption and a naturally fluent alacrity to turn-in all of which so often elude performance cars of this kind of size and weight.

On track, meanwhile, you truly can feel how the body movements - or lack thereof - make it unlike any rival. It can take a while to acclimatise to the way the car declines to roll past the apex or dive under hard braking when you use Hybrid driving mode (the one with the most ‘active’ suspension management).

Engaging Sport or Sport+ mode changes the system’s logic so that it aims to make the Panamera as composed yet natural-feeling as possible, for intuitive performance driving and even loading of contact patches, and progressive limit handling. While this is not as dramatic, it does serve to make this 2.4-tonne car feel far lighter than it is.

The weight still shows at times, especially under braking. Nevertheless, the way the Turbo enters tight turns and negotiates direction changes is impressive – if not as impressive as the way that it appears to simply flatten big crests and compressions and to apparently iron speed bumps almost pancake-flat around town.

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid front tracking 0630

Whether you’re satisfied with a fairly lightly equipped Turbo or a fully laden Turbo S, you’re unlikely to be spending much less than £160,000 on your fast Panamera, which makes it a pricey proposition even by modern fast saloon standards.

But there is a kind of ‘millionaire maths’ logic to spending big. Because it crams in so much more standard equipment than the regular Turbo (carbon-ceramic brakes, 21in centre-lock wheels, four-wheel steering, active mechanical torque vectoring and Porsche Active Ride suspension), the Turbo S isn’t entirely the heart-over-head, irrational splurge purchase that you might expect. 

Account for the optional cost of fitting all of that to a Turbo and you will end up within a couple of thousand pounds of the Turbo S’s £175k starting price anyway. And so, for those likely to lavish so much optional equipment on their Turbo anyway, it’s almost as if Porsche is giving away an additional 101bhp for free.

It’s something of a shame that Porsche elected to drop the Panamera's old Sport Turismo estate bodystyle, of which we were fans - not least because it softened the impact of the car’s slightly forced visual pastiche of a four-door 911.

That is about the only way you can really criticise the design or desirability of this car, however.

VERDICT

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Porsche Panamera Turbo S E Hybrid front static 0619

The Turbo and Turbo S are cars of an exceptionally broad range of dynamic ability. The Turbo S adds eye-popping performance and some show-stopping dynamic party tricks. 

Both have plenty of big-car usability, top-level ride comfort and luxury appeal and an enduring dash of the elegant and special mixed in with their performance. You would have to be a very demanding owner indeed of a modern performance GT to really expect more.

It may be true to point out that much of the car’s dynamic star quality depends on an active suspension system that’s a fairly expensive option on the Turbo – something we will confirm when we get a chance to drive a car on standard air springs.

As flagship derivatives go, however, the Turbo S is a singularly easy car to recommend, because it includes that system as standard, as well as all the other steering and driveline technology contributing to a level of ride and handling sophistication that lifts it well clear of its rivals for driver appeal.

Porsche has also addressed the shortage of electric-only range versus key PHEV rivals and made that side of the car’s character significantly more convincing.

It’s not often that a car as expensive as this so comprehensively justifies its price, but in 2025, the Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid feels like £175k of luxury GT, and then some.

Illya Verpraet

Illya Verpraet Road Tester Autocar
Title: Road Tester

As a road tester, Illya drives everything from superminis to supercars, and writes reviews and comparison tests, while also managing the magazine’s Drives section. Much of his time is spent wrangling the data logger and wielding the tape measure to gather the data for Autocar’s in-depth instrumented road tests.

He loves cars that are fun and usable on the road – whether piston-powered or electric – or just cars that are very fit for purpose. When not in test cars, he drives an R53-generation Mini Cooper S.

Matt Saunders

Matt Saunders Autocar
Title: Road test editor

As Autocar’s chief car tester and reviewer, it’s Matt’s job to ensure the quality, objectivity, relevance and rigour of the entirety of Autocar’s reviews output, as well contributing a great many detailed road tests, group tests and drive reviews himself.

Matt has been an Autocar staffer since the autumn of 2003, and has been lucky enough to work alongside some of the magazine’s best-known writers and contributors over that time. He served as staff writer, features editor, assistant editor and digital editor, before joining the road test desk in 2011.

Since then he’s driven, measured, lap-timed, figured, and reported on cars as varied as the Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce Phantom, Tesla Roadster, Ariel Hipercar, Tata Nano, McLaren Senna, Renault Twizy and Toyota Mirai. Among his wider personal highlights of the job have been covering Sebastien Loeb’s record-breaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013; doing 190mph on derestricted German autobahn in a Brabus Rocket; and driving McLaren’s legendary ‘XP5’ F1 prototype. His own car is a trusty Mazda CX-5.