Four of today’s five reviews arrive at the same place from completely different directions, and they are not even reviewing the same kind of car. The pattern is that the halo trim, the version built to win the spec sheet, has quietly stopped being the one worth buying.
Carwow spent a video establishing that the Cayenne Electric Turbo does things a 2.6 tonne SUV should not be able to do, and then concluded that the 80,000 pound entry car is enough for almost everybody. Gjeebs pulled a 478 mile rating out of a Silverado EV Max Range and recommended the trim below it. And Out of Spec Reviews found that a base Cayenne ordered with the no cost small wheel package returned 344.7 miles at 70 mph, while the 170,000 pound Turbo carwow drove was averaging around 2.4 miles per kilowatt hour on 22 inch rims. Three very different price brackets, one conclusion.
The Denza Z is the sharpest version of it, because Denza built the argument into the product. Electrifying reports that all three versions make the same 1,604 horsepower and differ only in aerodynamics and equipment, which means the cheapest car in the range is mechanically the equal of the most expensive. Meanwhile the Subaru Uncharted shows the flip side of the same coin. It is quick, it rides beautifully, and none of that rescues it, because the number that decides how it lives with you is 20.3 kilowatt hours per 100 kilometres.
What to watch over the next six months is whether manufacturers keep loading power and battery into the top trim while the genuinely useful engineering, efficiency, charging speed, wheel and tyre choice, sits further down the order form or costs nothing at all. Buyers are working it out faster than the marketing is. A small pack refilled at 400 kilowatts beats a huge one refilled slowly, and a wheel size can swing real world range further than a badge ever will.
Bottom line: the halo trim is becoming a marketing exercise. The interesting engineering in electric cars has moved to efficiency and charging speed, and both of those show up on the cheap versions first. If you are shopping this year, read the order form before you read the horsepower figure.
Commentary on a third-party video. Figures and claims are as presented in the source and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.