Porsche Macan: Combustion-powered successor a "very good opportunity", says local boss

The CEO of Porsche Cars Australia is keen to get his hands on the successor to the discontinued petrol-powered Macan to sit alongside the new electric-only SUV when it’s launched in a couple of years.

Speaking with media at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, the managing director and CEO for Porsche’s local arm, Daniel Schmollinger, said he sees a “very good opportunity” in a mid-size SUV featuring combustion power, and potentially even a plug-in hybrid.

“We did very, very well with the Macan petrol. This was a super success story over the last, more than 10 years.

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“Is it an opportunity for Australia? It definitely is – if we look into the segments, if look into VFACTS, what is selling, that would definitely be a very good opportunity.”

His comments come after Porsche’s global boss Oliver Blume told investors in 2025 that Porsche is “developing a compact SUV with both ICE and hybrid versions” to complement the Macan EV.

Mr Blume also said the company is “speeding up the process there with very short development times”, and expected the new mid-size SUV to be launched in major markets “no later than 2028”.

Further, Porsche’s global CEO said the new vehicle would be “very, very typical Porsche for this segment and also differentiated from the BEV Macan”, suggesting the new SUV will have a different name.

That said, Porsche’s decision to sell the all-new fourth-generation Cayenne Electric alongside the petrol and plug-in hybrid-powered third-generation Cayenne and Cayenne Coupe means the new model, which will be sold alongside the Macan Electric, may end up being called the Macan after all.

The original Macan shared its underpinnings with previous generations of the Audi Q5, so it’s almost certain that Porsche will use the latest generation of Audi’s mid-size SUV as the basis of its successor.

Where the old Macan was based on the MLB evo platform from the Volkswagen Group, it’s likely the petrol and hybrid-powered Macan replacement will use the newer Premium Platform Combustion (PPC) toolkit that underpins the latest Audi A5 and Q5 – which itself is a development of the MLB architecture.

That would make the new Macan and Macan Electric similar to the Audi Q5 and Q6 e-tron in utilising the VW Group’s PPC and Premium Platform Electric (PPE) architectures concurrently, respectively.

It also means the petrol-fired replacement for Porsche’s popular smaller SUV could feature an entirely electrically assisted engine range – including 48V mild-hybrid (MHEV) as well as plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrains.

The Audi Q5 currently offers a range of four- and six-cylinder turbocharged petrol and diesel engines, as well as four-cylinder turbo-petrol plug-in hybrids.

Given the outgoing Macan’s engine range featured similar cylinder counts, it would make sense for Porsche to employ versions of the Audi’s petrol engines given the Stuttgart marque’s aversion to turbo-diesels following the VW Group’s ‘dieselgate’ emissions scandal.

That means we could see the new ‘Macan’ offered with a 200kW 2.0-litre EA888 turbo-petrol engine, as well as a version of the SQ5‘s 270kW 3.0-litre V6 turbo-petrol engine – both of these could also feature 48V MHEV assistance like they do in the Audi, which would allow for EV driving at very low speeds.

In addition, the higher-output 270kW 2.0-litre e-hybrid PHEV powertrain could make for a logical ‘Macan E-Hybrid’ candidate, given it offers similar power to the V6 TFSI, while the RS5‘s new 470kW 2.9-litre twin-turbo V6 PHEV powertrain could be a potential starter for a high-performance ‘Macan Turbo E-Hybrid’ – but we’re just speculating.

Given we may not see this mysterious new Porsche SUV for nearly two years, we’ll just have to wait and see what comes to fruition.

In 2025, Porsche sales in Australia dipped by 27 per cent to 5133 units (down from 7029 in 2024).

This was in part due to a 34 per cent dip in Macan sales as the range moved to EV-only, as well as sales slides for just about every one of the company’s nameplates, excluding the low-volume Panamera limousine.

Mr Schmollinger told media the drop in sales volume “is not a surprise” as the overall market has started to slow following consecutive record years, and the adoption of all-electric vehicles has also declined – which is significant for Porsche given its Taycan, Macan Electric and, soon, Cayenne Electric.

In addition to the new 911 Turbo S and Cayenne Electric, which were showcased at the Melbourne GP event, the local Porsche CEO said there’s “more [new models] to come”.

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