Three of the fastest SUVs Europe currently builds lined up on a UK runway for carwow, and the one that won was not the one with the V12. The Porsche Cayenne Turbo EV covered the standing quarter mile in 10 seconds flat, the video reports, with the Lamborghini Urus Performante at 11.5 seconds and the Ferrari Purosangue last at 11.6. carwow lists the Porsche at 1,156 horsepower and 1,500 Nm from two electric motors, against 725 hp and 716 Nm for the Ferrari's 6.5 litre naturally aspirated V12, and 666 hp and 850 Nm for the Lamborghini's twin turbo V8. The Porsche also carries roughly half a tonne more, at a quoted 2.6 tonnes against 2.1 for the other two, and it won every single run anyway.
Horsepower is the headline and the least useful number here. Torque launches a car, and on carwow's own figures the Porsche has more than twice the Ferrari's and roughly 75 percent more than the Lamborghini's, all of it available from a standstill rather than somewhere near a redline. That is why the gap opens inside the first fifty metres and never closes again. The question the video leaves alone is what a 10 second quarter mile is actually worth in a car shaped like this. Performance SUVs have spent a decade charging a premium for engine character, and character is the exact thing an electric drivetrain deletes. One of the drivers makes the point without meaning to, telling the host he would keep his Lamborghini regardless and dismissing the Ferrari on resale grounds.
There is a limit to what this format can show, and it works in the Porsche's favour. A standing quarter mile rewards instant torque and punishes almost nothing. Mass only starts charging rent when the road turns, when the brakes have been leaned on repeatedly, or when a battery is asked for everything it has more than once in a row. carwow's day is a series of straight lines and one stop, so the heaviest car in the group never really gets a bill for being the heaviest car in the group.
The drag races were the predictable part. carwow also ran three rolling races and a brake test, and the Porsche won all of them. From 50 mph in comfort mode it pulled clear while its driver pointed out he had not bothered leaving the softest setting. In the final rolling start he let both combustion cars go, waited a few seconds, then caught and passed them before the half mile marker, and told the others afterwards he could have launched from a standstill and still won. The detail that reframes the whole video comes later: he admits he had been running the Porsche in comfort mode with launch control switched off for the earlier drag runs. When he finally used sport plus and launch control, he reads 146 mph off the screen and the other two lose sight of him.
The brake test is the result worth sitting with. The heaviest car by half a tonne stopped shortest, and by enough of a margin that its driver spent the next minute asking the other two what they were doing with the pedal. The Ferrari's driver blamed a soft first launch for the opening race and said the car simply needed heat in it. The Lamborghini finished ahead of the Ferrari overall on carwow's quarter mile times. In the one contest the Porsche could not enter, a straight comparison of engine noise, the Lamborghini was the pick.
Bottom line: if you buy one of these for the noise and the occasion, nothing here changes your mind, and the Lamborghini won the only contest judged on its own terms. If you buy one because it is the quickest thing on your street, that argument is finished and it was not close. The uncomfortable part for Ferrari and Lamborghini is not the ten second quarter mile, which everyone saw coming. It is the braking. Straight line speed was always going to fall to electric motors. Stopping distance was supposed to be the consolation prize, and this week it was not.
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.