Porsche has enjoyed major success with its Cayenne for the past 20 years, but its days as the brand’s SUV flagship are numbered. Come 2027 it’ll be outranked by the all-electric K1, revealed for the very first time in these spy shots looking just like a German Ferrari Purosangue.
Don’t worry, K1 is just the codename; both it and the heavy disguise panels seen on this early prototype will be swapped out in time for the production debut three years from now. The rear quarter window is misleading too, giving the posh SUV a more upright look than it will reveal later. But the basic body structure is the real deal and this car even appears to be wearing production lamps, rather than the placeholder light units we’d normally expect to see at this stage of development.
Related: Everything We Know About Porsche’s Seven-Seat, Electric K1
Our spy photo team says the K1 looks long, low and wide in the metal, with enough real estate between the front and rear axles to make space for a small third row of seats we know will be stashed in there. Unlike the new Macan EV, which features a fashionable split headlight setup, the K1’s LED lights are all housed together allowing for an almost entirely smooth front fascia.
The lower bumper has vertical vanes, a bit like the ones seen on the facelifted 911 that will be revealed later this year, though there’s no central grille intake because the K1, like the Taycan, runs only on electricity.
But while the Taycan rides on VW’s J1 platform, the K1 (hmm, coincidence?) will debut a brand new SSP Sport architecture, which is an enhanced version of the main SSP platform that will be used by lesser VW Group brands. Porsche confirmed the existence of the K1 project last year, showing a teaser picture of an SUV under a cover, though it didn’t go into details about motor setups or power levels.
However, given that the latest Taycan Turbo GT generates up to 1,093 hp (1,108 PS / 815 kW) we can surely expect the most expensive versions of the K1 to come with four-figure horsepower ratings.
And they will be expensive. The newly facelifted Cayenne starts at $79,200 in the U.S. and currently tops out at $146,900 for the Turbo E-Hybrid, which is hardly small change, but the K1 is expected to cost more than $200,000 when it lands in 2027 ready to battle the Range Rover EV – and maybe even steal a few sales from Ferrari’s first ever electric vehicle.
