Climate change made Helene 200x more likely – but just 3% of TV news said so
Hurricane Helene has made its way through the southeast US as the strongest storm of the 2024 season and potentially the costliest storm ever recorded. But if you watch US media, you’d barely know that the true culprit behind Helene’s record-breaking strength is us – the climate change that we humans caused by burning fossil fuels.
Hurricane Helene spent the last week traveling through the Gulf of Mexico, eventually making landfall in Florida and leaving a swath of devastation as far north as Tennessee and North Carolina.
The storm was exceptional for its strength, but also for the high speed at which it traveled, reaching much farther inland than most storms.
In particular, one does not expect Asheville, North Carolina, over 400 miles from where Helene made landfall and nestled high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, to be vulnerable to hurricanes – and yet the “biblical devastation” seen there is readily apparent in photographs of the area, or in this story of a 7,000lb Rivian which was swept away (and yet, it still works).
And East Tennessee experienced a “1-in-5000 years rain event” according to a TVA spokesperson. (Thankfully, some people in the area have an electric car in the house to help keep the lights on by powering the house from their car.)
Images from CSU/CIRA & NOAA.
As of now, with 180 deaths (and counting) attributed to it, Helene is the second-deadliest hurricane to hit the US in 50 years (after Katrina), and early estimates of the amount of damage done range from ~$30 billion to ~$160 billion – the upper end of which would make it the most expensive hurricane to hit the US, ahead of Katrina and Harvey.
Much of these record costs will likely be paid by taxpayers, as FEMA funds are used for storm recovery in these areas. Congress may come back for a special session to address a shortfall in FEMA funds – and more outlays like this can be expected as climate change continues to make storms stronger. (Though if the republican Project 2025 had any say about it, hurricane-affected areas might get no help at all)
How climate change and storms are connected
As one might expect out of massive, species-wide global efforts to spew enormous amounts of heat-trapping pollution into the atmosphere, human-caused climate change tends to have a lot of varied effects on the environment.
Some of these effects are better understood than others, with scientists working every day to figure out exactly the magnitude of the effects that rising temperatures have on myriad aspects of the environment. Scientists tend to be precise in their language, so even if certain climate effects are plausible and supported by early data, scientists may still speak in a couched manner which can lead to a perception of uncertainty.
But one thing that is well-understood is that a warmer atmosphere, and warmer water, means stronger storms.
The reason behind this is fairly simple. Heat is energy, so more heat means more energy. When a hurricane crosses over warm ocean water, that warmth helps to feed the storm and make it stronger.
Currently, the world is about 1.3 degrees Celsius warmer on average than it was before humans started affecting the climate by burning fossil fuels. While that doesn’t sound like a lot, averaged over the entire ocean we have added the energy equivalent of several billion nuclear bombs in just the last couple decades. That’s a lot of extra energy to feed storms, meaning a lot more destruction when they roll through town.
That extra energy hasn’t been evenly distributed, either. Some of the places that have seen the most warming are the Gulf of Mexico and the Eastern Seaboard of the US, the most densely populated part of the world’s largest historical emitter. Around this time last year, Gulf waters might have set a world record for the hottest seawater ever recorded at 101ºF/38ºC.
Warmer water also means higher sea levels, which means more flooding due to storm surge. Much has been said about how sea level rise is caused by melting ice sheets, but a less often mentioned feature is the thermal expansion of water. As water (or any substance) gets warmer, it expands. Averaged over the entire ocean, this makes the ocean bigger and therefore contributes to rising sea levels.
Warmer air also contributes. Warmer air is able to hold more moisture than colder air, which means more precipitation.
So, combining the effects of warmer and wetter air, we have more significant storm surge and more rainfall, meaning more dangerous hurricanes. After all, in a hurricane, it’s not the wind that’s the most dangerous, it’s the water.
More warmth, more damage
All of this warmth also means a longer hurricane season, with storm season starting earlier and ending later.
The reason hurricane season comes in the warmer months is because that’s when ocean and air temperatures are higher, contributing to all the above effects. But if the atmosphere and ocean are warmer, then the period of time in the year where conditions are right for hurricanes will be wider, which means hurricane season is longer and harder to contend with.
This will also tend to mean that storms develop more rapidly. Storms typically gain energy while traveling over the ocean (due to warm water, as mentioned above), and having more energy available means they can develop faster. Faster-developing storms mean less notice to make preparations, less time to evacuate populations from danger zones, and more stress on infrastructure in making those rapid preparations and evacuations.
And most of all, stronger storms means more damage. The US has had increasingly-more “billion-dollar disasters” in recent years. Since 1980, the US averaged 8.5 natural disaster events with more than a billion dollars worth of damage per year (adjusted for inflation). But in the last 5 years, that average has ballooned to 20.4 events, with 2023 setting the record at 28 billion-dollar disasters.
It’s gotten bad enough that Florida is going through an insurance crisis, with rates skyrocketing and many homes becoming uninsurable. It’s happening in other states too.
These numbers are often ignored when it comes to the “cost” of carbon reduction. Environmental opponents say it’s too expensive to clean up humanity’s act, but in fact it’s much more expensive if we don’t take action (by sixfold, according to research).
So we now know how storms are influenced by climate change, how Helene has been historic, how its records were contributed to by climate change, and how devastating an impact these climate-affected storms have in aggregate.
High ocean temps fueling Helene were made 200-500x more likely by climate change
So this storm is more damaging than expected, and is damaging areas that were thought to be safe from storms. But was it truly “caused” by climate change? How do we account for this?
It turns out, something called climate attribution science can answer our questions.
Climate attribution science is a relatively new branch of climate science which seeks to answer the question of how much more likely extreme weather events are made by climate change.
It does this by looking at the natural variability of temperatures, then seeing how much that variability has shifted as a result of the additional heat that human fossil fuel emissions have trapped in the atmosphere and oceans.
Climate Central has packaged the information from these measurements into an online tool which can show just how much hotter ocean surface temperatures are in any given location, and how much more likely those hot ocean temperatures were made by climate change.
And, since the Gulf of Mexico has warmed faster than much of the rest of the world’s oceans, we can see that the 1.7ºC/3.1ºF warming in the area where Helene started its rapid intensification from a category 1 to category 4 storm was made 400x more likely by climate change. Other high ocean temps in the area were made 200-500x more likely by climate change, all of which helped to fuel the storm.
Notably, there is an asterisk on this data, which as you can see at the top of the screenshot is not the most current possible data. The reason for this is because the National Center of Environmental Information is headquartered in Asheville, North Carolina, a place that was previously considered relatively safe from storms. But as we learned earlier in this article, Asheville is no longer quite so safe, and the NCEI is currently underwater due to flooding from Helene.
Attribution science does not make the argument, however, that we would not have hurricanes without climate change. Clearly we would still have them, but climate change creates the conditions that make hurricanes stronger and more historic.
Dr. Friederike Otto, one of the founders of the field of attribution science, puts it this way:
“It’s not like without climate change we wouldn’t have hurricanes. But it’s the same kind of causation that we use when we talk about smoking. You would still have lung cancer in the world if people wouldn’t smoke, but if you do smoke, you have a much much higher likelihood [of getting lung cancer]. And so there is a causal relationship between that and lung cancer.”
The increased chance of storms like these happening, and higher intensity of storms when they do happen, are important to keep in mind when planning infrastructure. If infrastructure is built to withstand a 1,000-year storm, and that storm becomes not only more common but stronger and hits a wider area, then your infrastructure will be overwhelmed. Even if a storm is only 10 or 20 percent stronger, if that suddenly goes past the threshold that your infrastructure can handle, it turns a storm that would have been relatively “fine” into a big problem.
Despite these interactions being fairly well understood, and it being clear that hurricanes are getting stronger due to climate change, climate change still didn’t manage to make it into almost any TV news coverage about the storm.
According to Media Matters’ analysis, out of 1,355 minutes and 468 segments about Hurricane Helene, only 15 segments, or 3%, mentioned climate change at all. Cable news networks mentioned it 11 times, and broadcast TV networks mentioned it 4 times.
Among the cable news stations, MSNBC fared best, mentioning climate change 6 times out of 73 segments. CNN trailed with 5 mentions in 235 segments. And, as you might expect, Fox News, which is owned by climate denier Rupert Murdoch who has been a major driving force in spreading propaganda to support environmental destruction worldwide, aired 87 segments and did not mention climate change once.
Broadcast news did similarly poorly, with ABC mentioning climate 2 times in 31 segments, NBC mentioning it twice in 19, and CBS zero times in 23.
Media matters selected a few standout segments from ABC, CNN and MSNBC.
In an ABC segment, weather anchor Sam Champion explained how warmer gulf waters lead to rapid intensification of storms, and rising sea levels make storm surge more dangerous:
In an MSNBC segment, meteorologist Angie Lassman put it succinctly, citing Climate Central’s analysis showing that high surface temps, which fuel stronger storms, are made hundreds of times more likely due to human-caused climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels:
And on a long CNN segment, meteorologist Chris Gloninger cited Climate Central’s analysis, mentioned the higher moisture content of warmer air, and said how deep ocean warming has resulted in a “new normal” where hurricanes are no longer slowed down by the churning of colder deep ocean waters to the surface:
And, as usual, climate scientist Michael Mann was involved with a standout segment when he dropped by CNN to explain what’s happening from a scientist’s perspective, and to make the important connection to the upcoming US election, where there is a stark difference between the candidates, with one wanting to solve this problem and the other denying it exists (or even trying to make it worse):
The overall lack of coverage highlights a significant issue with tackling climate change. Despite that it is the most important challenge that humanity has ever confronted – after all, nothing matters without clean air, clean water, and a livable environment – relatively few voters put the environment highest on their list of important issues.
That list is instead dominated by any number of other issues that are focused upon in media and which are less important than climate change. Or some of which are indeed related to climate change, such that approaching the climate problem could alleviate other pressures that people perceive as important.
But it’s hard for people to make these connections when media refuses to make them. If all of the media you watch tells you that something is a problem, you are likely to perceive that as a problem, whether it really is one or not. And if they never mention the problem, how are you supposed to learn about it?
This is where we get to the speculative portion of this article, wherein I try to analyze how we got where we are, and how we can solve it.
Make no mistake, the largest and richest industry in the world, the oil industry, is actively lying to you to shift your perceptions about real solutions to the problems they cause. That rich industry also happens to buy a lot of advertising, which makes it harder for ad-funded networks – especially those that are actively in favor of spreading fossil propaganda like the climate denier-run Fox – to speak up against the guys who pay the bills.
Even for algorithmically-based advertising, the same influence is there. Climate change is an issue that requires less, not more, consumption to combat. People who sell things generally like consumption. So any algorithmic news is incentivized to show you fewer climate stories, lest they get fewer sweet sweet consumer clickthroughs.
But there is a much more mundane, and less conspiratorial, explanation for why media doesn’t talk about climate change: because you, dear reader, don’t want to hear about it.
Climate change is an enormous and difficult problem that will require participation from basically everyone on Earth, and all of us will need to learn about what solutions work and how to implement them. These solutions need to be both personal and structural – everyone’s personal carbon emissions need to go down, primarily those of us in rich countries, and also new rules need to be enforced to ensure that companies and people are incentivized to pollute less and/or punished for polluting more.
Frankly, that’s hard, and thinking about it makes people feel bad. So they don’t want to hear about it, because it’s complicated and oftentimes feels impossible.
While people might want to act personally, they’ll think that it’s too expensive or difficult to do so, and they’ll see that not enough action is happening from major players and wonder whether it’s worth the time for them to do much work personally when it seems like nobody else is doing so.
Though we must understand that this attitude is also influenced by propaganda – polluters want you to feel like nothing can be done, because then they can continue the status quo. But we have to avoid this feeling.
I understand these feelings, and it is indeed hard. Trust me, my job is to talk about climate and climate solutions, which means I have to think and talk about this all the time. I see more data and reports than most about the problems with our climate and how we are not doing enough to solve these problems, even though some partial solutions can be remarkably simple.
Climate scientists also feel the call of the void when looking at how society has responded to their repeated attempts to wake the public up about this problem. For a sense of what it’s like, watch the movie Don’t Look Up, which parodizes how society responds to an imminent disaster by simply ignoring it. It’s eerily similar to real life, to the point where I often hated watching the movie because it felt too real. Which is, of course, the entire point of the movie.
So, I go and write about some climate story like this one, and spend a lot of time getting it right, and often enough, any story about climate goes over like a lead balloon (feel free to share this one far and wide to prove me wrong… pretty please, mister algorithm?). When instead, I could have spent 30 minutes writing about some dumb thing Elon did and gotten a much bigger response. As always, petty drama rules the day.
We climate reporters have bills to pay too, and writing about climate doesn’t pay them, because people don’t read them. No wonder people or newsrooms don’t cover it as much as they should when there’s less incentive to do so (as parodied in another scene in Don’t Look Up). I’m probably doing volunteer work today. You’re welcome, I guess.
How do we solve this?
But all of this doesn’t let anyone off the hook. We still need to write about it, to talk about it more, to recognize this problem, to do more to solve it, at all levels. Frankly, it’s like any problem of collective action – everyone has a reason not to act as long as they think nobody else is. Someone has to break the cycle.
Journalists need to do the right thing and connect the dots properly, especially when it’s as easy as adding one or two sentences to the hundreds of segments done about a major news event like Beryl. Say it with me: “human-caused climate change makes waters warmer, which causes stronger storms, which contributed to Beryl’s record-breaking nature.” You can have that sentence royalty-free. Have at it, networks. (You can also get more information from Covering Climate Now, a great resource for climate journalists, which tipped me to the Media Matters study to begin with, and also offered a free quote).
News consumers need to do the right thing and stay informed about this topic. I know it’s hard and annoying, but this problem gets solved better the more informed you are, and the more you talk about it with people you know and who trust you, and the more you act on lowering your personal emissions and demanding that your representatives do more on climate. Anyone reading this already took the first step by going through another one of my huge rants, and for that I thank you (but please, mister algorithm, may I have but a crumbof virality?)
Governments need to do the right thing and act more on climate change even if people don’t rank it as their most important issue. Given that climate change underlies so many other societal problems, acting to solve it can help to solve those other problems too. It’s a problem that changes are often too long-term to be captured in a single term of office, so doing these things won’t always help your re-election campaign but simply be done for the good of society – but that’s the job of a public servant anyway, so get on it.
And fossil fuel companies need to do the right thing and stop exis…. uh, stop the propaganda? I don’t know, let’s just stick with stop existing. But other companies can reduce their exposure to fossil fuels, which consumers say they want anyway (and that means you consumers need to follow up on that promise, by the way).
I understand that that’s a lot of direction I’ve just given to a lot of people, but at the very least, can we start off with acknowledging the reality of science and mentioning it when relevant, like in the case of Hurricane Beryl? Because none of the rest of this happens if we don’t at least recognize the problem and its effects in the first place.
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Solar and wind power aren’t just keeping up with global electricity demand anymore – they’re pulling ahead. According to a new analysis from energy think tank Ember, solar and wind combined outpaced global electricity demand growth in the first half of 2025. That shift led to a drop in both coal and gas generation compared to the same period last year. For the first time ever, renewables generated more power than coal globally.
“We’re seeing the first signs of a crucial turning point,” said Małgorzata Wiatros-Motyka, senior electricity analyst at Ember. “Solar and wind are now growing fast enough to meet the world’s growing appetite for electricity. This marks the beginning of a shift where clean power is keeping pace with demand growth.”
Solar leads the charge
Global electricity demand rose 2.6% in the first half of 2025 – an additional 369 terawatt-hours (TWh) year-over-year. Solar met a stunning 83% of that increase, growing by 306 TWh, or 31% year-over-year. Combined with steady wind expansion, renewables were able to meet rising demand and start displacing fossil fuels.
Coal generation fell 0.6% (-31 TWh), gas dropped 0.2% (-6 TWh), and overall fossil generation declined 0.3% (-27 TWh). As a result, global power sector emissions fell by 0.2%.
Renewables supplied 5,072 TWh of electricity in the first half of 2025 – up from 4,709 TWh a year earlier. Coal, by comparison, generated 4,896 TWh, down 31 TWh year-over-year. It’s the first time on record that clean energy has overtaken coal.
A global turning point
Ember’s analysis shows this is more than a blip. Solar and wind are now growing fast enough to meet new demand and begin cutting into fossil generation. As deployment accelerates, Ember expects clean power to outstrip demand growth for longer stretches, pushing fossil fuels into permanent decline.
But progress isn’t uniform across the globe. Among the world’s four biggest power markets – China, India, the US, and the EU – two saw fossil generation fall, while two saw it rise.
China remains the global clean energy powerhouse, adding more solar and wind capacity than the rest of the world combined. Its fossil generation fell 2% (-58.7 TWh) in the first half of 2025.
In India, clean power growth outpaced demand threefold. With electricity demand rising just 1.3% (+12 TWh) – far below the 9% surge seen last year – fossil generation dropped sharply: coal fell 3.1% (-22 TWh) and gas plunged 34% (-7.1 TWh).
In contrast, fossil generation rose in the US and EU. In the US, demand grew faster than renewables could keep up, leading to higher fossil fuel output. In the EU, weaker wind and hydro performance meant more gas and coal were needed to fill the gap.
What comes next
With half the world already past the peak of fossil fuel generation, Ember says the trend is clear: Clean power can keep up with rising electricity demand. But to lock in progress, deployment of solar, wind, and batteries needs to accelerate.
“Solar and wind are no longer marginal technologies – they’re driving the global power system forward,” said Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council. “The fact that renewables have overtaken coal for the first time marks a historic shift. But to secure it, governments and industry must step up investment in clean energy and storage so affordable, reliable power reaches everyone.”
Ember’s Wiatros-Motyka added, “With technology costs continuing to fall, now is the perfect moment to embrace the economic, social, and health benefits that come with increased solar, wind, and batteries.”
Read more: FERC: Solar + wind made up 90% of new US power generating capacity to July 2025
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Tesla is planning to launch a new vehicle this week, which is expected to be a new base variant of the Model Y – often referred to as a “stripped-down Model Y.”
Here’s everything we know about the new electric vehicle.
Tesla’s new “more affordable models”
Tesla has been talking about launching new “more affordable models” during the first half of the year.
The first half of 2025 came and went without new, cheaper models. Instead, Tesla claimed that the “first build” of the new model was produced in June, and it will launch later this year.
Now, it is finally upon us.
A few teasers released over the last two days confirm that Tesla plans to launch a new vehicle on Tuesday, October 7th.
Everything suggests that it is not a new “model” but rather a new base variant of the Model Y.
There has been confusion surrounding what Tesla plans to release, and CEO Elon Musk has been largely responsible for it. The CEO announced at Tesla’s Battery Day in 2020 that the automaker was working on delivering a “$25,000 electric car.”
However, as we have been reporting for a year, Musk canceled Tesla’s planned “$25,000 EV” in favor of stripped-down versions of its Model 3 and Model Y.
When it was first reported that the vehicle program was canceled, Musk denied the news.
Due to Tesla still referring to them as “new, more affordable models”, many people believed that Tesla would still bring to market new, cheaper models.
Musk finally confirmed that the first “new affordable model” is in fact simply a Model Y back in July.
While Tesla first intended to launch the new cheaper variants in the first half of the year, we reported that the automaker would likely wait until Q4 as it benefited from inflated demand in Q3 due to the tax credit for electric vehicles going away.
Tesla’s E41 stripped-down Model Y
We already know almost everything about the new stripped-down Model Y. Prototypes have been spotted for months, and recently, Tesla didn’t bother to camouflage them.
Images and specs have also leaked through Tesla’s software and website.
As for the design, it features a simplified front and back and loses the lightbars that were introduced in the Model Y design refresh earlier this year.
There’s no glass roof, which is currently standard on the Model Y.
The wheels also appear to be cheaper-looking, with a visible wheel cover. Although there might be a fancier one available based on one of the teasers:
Inside, Tesla is expected to use cheaper materials, specifically textiles on the seats, a simplified fiberglass headliner, less cabin lighting, and single-axis seat controls.
Furthermore, the vehicle is expected to have a lesser audio system and no screen for the second row.
The stripped-down Model Y is also believed to be losing a power-folding mirror and be equipped with a downgraded suspension.
As for the specs, Tesla is likely going to stick to a rear-wheel-drive motor, but with a smaller LFP battery pack than in the one in the current base version of the Model Y.
We can expect a range of between 250 and 300 miles (400-485 km).
Electrek’s Take
The biggest unknown is the price. Tesla is cutting a lot of features here.
Considering the current Model Y Long Range RWD starts at $45,000 in the US, we should expect a much cheaper price.
I think it needs to be between $30,000 and $35,000. If it’s more than that, it will be a redo of the Cybertruck RWD, which only lasted a few months.
We need to keep in mind that the Model Y Long Range RWD was $37,500 in the US with the tax credit last week.
If Tesla is closer to $30,000, it is a win, but if it is higher than $35,000, it is a big loss.
I was hoping for an event with a chance for a “one more thing” moment, but it doesn’t even look like Tesla is planning an event to unveil this. The automaker only mentioned the date, October 7th, without a time for an event.
The automaker brought a group of Tesla influencers to Gigafactory Texas last week, most likely to showcase this vehicle.
Therefore, I expect a launch on the website and social media, featuring content from influencers, as well as a few select outlets, such as Jay Leno’s Garage and Motor Trend, depending on how Tesla feels about them at the moment.
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As Porsche continues its communication campaign for the all-electric Cayenne (Cayenne Electric) the company invited us to get a detailed look at some of the advancements in technology behind it.
They consider the Cayenne Electric to be a platform for innovation and a reflection of Porsche’s commitment to electric, not just a product line update.
A repositioning based on the experience and learnings they have gained over the past few years and they want to share some of these advancements early.
Instead of one big announcement with a release date and a mass of updated performance specs, they are hosting a series of sessions to share what the team at Porsche has been working on over the past 4 years to make the impressive specs possible. We had the opportunity to talk directly with a few of the engineers behind the Cayenne Electric, in order to help share some of the excitement and thought going into the re-envisioned platform.
On the day we visited there were detailed sessions in four areas:
- Interior Highlights
- High Voltage System
- Drive Train
- Then an overview of some overarching design and driver experience principles followed by two ride-alongs (Offroad and the track “Taxi Ride’)
It was a full day.
INTERIOR
Our first session was with the interior design team.
As with the current Porsche line, the new era for their driver experience remains grounded and inspired by the 911 with its familiar “tube-layout” driver instrument cluster using a 14.25 horizontally curved OLED screen to “wrap” the driver. This extends to a center area using a vertically curved OLED screen and finally over to an optional 14.9” LED passenger screen all working together to form their “Flow Display” concept.
Below the center screen are physical controls for climate control and navigation functions leveraging digital interfaces where practical while embracing physical / haptic switches for eyes off touch control of certain core functions. An analog / digital approach.
With the placement of those switches, there was thought put into the resting hand position of the driver and overall interior ergonomics for the passenger with consideration for handholds in rough terrain.
There are a plethora of comfort options from mood/massage/wellness modes, passenger entertainment (gaming on the large passenger screen), driver heads up display, customizable Interface and widgets, new interior materials and colors, sliding panoramic roof and sunshine control (liquid crystal shading with variable intensities), a Digital Key system (allowing you to share a key with others and control access levels), moving from Android to Android Auto, and much more.
They are also integrating “Voice Pilot” into the onboard system which is a custom trained LLM to support navigation needs and finding destinations. (requires an active internet connection).
Interior highlights and the driver experience could be an entire writeup on its own – but as we didn’t have the opportunity to drive ourselves or spend road-trip time in the car, I’ll leave it at the list so you can get a flavor for the direction they are headed. We can share more when we are able to immerse in them at a later date.
The focus of these sessions (for me) surrounded the tech they are developing to make the Cayenne Electric a true performer.
The targeted specs (depending on configuration):
- 0 to 100km/h (62mph) in less than 3 seconds
- 0 to 200km/h (124mph) in less than 8 seconds (!!)
- Top speed of more than 250km/h (155 miles)
- Output of more than 1000PS and up to 1,500Nm of torque
- Recuperation capacity of 600kW
- 113kWh (gross) battery
- Fast charging up to 400kW (10% to 80% in less than 16 minutes)
- Range more than 600km (373 miles)
- Towing capacity up to 3.5 tons
To achieve these numbers in a luxury, production, sports, offroad capable vehicle required the team at Porsche to approach several complex engineering problems.
Which leads us to our next sessions.
DRIVE TRAIN
For this session, we received a VR walkthrough of the Drive Train to get a sense of how the Cayenne Electric distributes the torque potential between the front and rear axles.
The primary drive axle is in the rear, with the front passive axle contributing torque as needed.
A fascinating bit of engineering has Porsche incorporating direct and integrated cooling to the rear (primary) motor through an oil circulation system embedded in a closed system.
This keeps the cooling oil in direct contact with the copper windings where the heat is generated.
This handles the heat generated in peak power when launching with 800kW or when using the push-to-pass boost, giving the driver access to an additional 100kW for 10 seconds. (A nod to formula-e)
The cooling system also garners the ability to regen at 600kW with assisted braking.
All of this heat is addressed just about as close to the source as you can get.
Then there was a demonstration for the addition of Active Ride to the platform, which is designed to self-level the body of the car during heavy braking, steering, and acceleration. Witnessing it on a stationary vehicle that was simulating an aggressive drive around a track illustrated how fast the response was, but also how powerful the system can be, including the range of motion. It was impressive and somehow unnerving to see the car bouncing around in place, as if it were racing around a track.
Combining this with the addition of active suspension and driver selectable modes for Gravel/Mud, Sand, and Rock, the team is striving to make for a smooth ride even when traversing complex terrain (which we get to experience later in the off-road ride.)
HIGH VOLTAGE
This led us to our last tech session of the day and the area that brings many of these concepts together since all innovation has little value if the high voltage system and batteries can’t keep up with demand.
Again – another VR walkthrough of the 6 module, 192 cell, 800 volt,113 kWh battery pack illustrating how it is cooled from both sides, serviced/replaced and handles the loads required of it.
A poignant moment for me was when one of the team communicated:
“The Cayenne Electric is a Porsche – and a Porsche needs to be a Porsche.”
What could be more Porsche than going flat out on the Autobahn with max acceleration, brake with max regen, back again max acceleration to a sustained high load maintaining speed as necessary, then pull off and recharge at a max rate (the chart they showed indicated 10% to 80% in about 16 minutes starting at about 375kW to 55%, 300kW to 70%, sub 150kW up to 80%), when charging is complete – jumping back on the Autobahn – rinse and repeat.
That target example is clearly on their mind and would be a fantastic cross-country road trip test I’d be up for helping perform…
But not everyone is pushing flat out on cross-country road trips, so for the “daily driver,” there are additional practical solutions coming with the Cayenne Electric, such as the previously announced induction charging solution. This provides 11KW from either 2-phase (in the US) or 3-phase AC power sources, so these could be installed in a home.
It consists of a floor pad on the ground and a vehicle plate installed in the underbody of the car between the front wheels. The floor pad is heavy at about 50kg so not something you move in and out all the time, but it can be moved out of the way if needed.
Hands-on with the system illustrated how the car will guide the driver to the charging pad using the displays in the car, how the handshake works and ramps up charging (about 15 seconds from handshake to full flow of 11KW), as well at what happens if a “living object” enters an area around the vehicle.
In such a case, it will halt charging momentarily until the risk is gone before resuming the charging on its own.
RIDE ALONGS
The next part of the day consisted of ride-alongs, which, frankly, Porsche could charge admission for.
We did not get the opportunity to drive the car ourselves, but we were driven by professional drivers around two closed courses (off-road and track).
The off-road ride took us to a dirt (mud, rock, and sand) trail to highlight the “off-road mode” with Active Ride.
Much of this was underwhelming, which is what made it so impressive.
That is to say, it felt totally smooth and unremarkable… but this was as we were rolling over potholes, rocks, and a variety of uneven terrain. Essentially gliding over various unpaved surfaces.
The powerful suspension dynamics we saw bouncing the car around in front of us in the demo I previously mentioned, now made for a very smooth ride and felt like the body wasn’t moving at all.
It was a cool and rainy day in Leipzig so the course was wet and muddy. The car was equipped with standard “summer” tires so this illustrated the dynamic application of power to the gripping wheels.
We effortlessly (and intentionally slowly) climbed up an 80% grade (36º) slope consisting of a wet, corrugated metal path, at the top we traversed a muddy path into a tight turn showing the turning radius of 11.1 meters fully leveraging the rear axle supported range of up to 5º.
As we went over the axle switches (and a few more muddy roads and bumpy climbs), I wished we could have seen a display somewhere showing the Active Ride system in action. It was certainly working hard, but that resulted in us feeling almost nothing (which is the goal, of course).
You do get information like pitch and bank angle in the “flow display,” so we could see we were at times rolling around at a bank angle of 30º (apparently capable of up to 45º for the daring), and 36º pitch on our climb.
On the downhill sections, when entering the drop, you can set the car at a speed you want to maintain (e.g. 2km/h) and it will use a combination of regen and standard braking to hold that pace and keep traction – you can nudge that speed up and down with the accelerator and brake pedals.
So off-road? Sure.
But this would be “European offroad” which is different from “back-country US, winter-fireroad offroad”.
It’s not your weekend rock crawler, but if you have an unmaintained road to traverse, the Cayenne Electric will effortlessly roll you in comfort along a bumpy, rocky road, or a tight, twisting trail, while your kid plays a game on the passenger display – if that is a solution you are looking for.
TAXI RIDE
This was to demonstrate active ride in Sport Plus mode, as well as 0-100km in less than 3 seconds, boost pass, traction control, intense braking, and regen in what would normally be a washing machine of laps around the track.
We calmly rolled out onto the track as the professional driver turned off various overspeed alert systems and explained the sport mode of Active Ride.
We got to a line and stopped.
“Ok – let me know if it is too much or if you feel – not right.”
“All good,” I say as he puts his foot down and we launch down the straightaway.
I’ve experienced various fast accelerations and insane modes – and this was a bit more than I had expected. For sure we hit the 100kph in 3 seconds and we just kept going at what felt like the same acceleration for another several seconds, now I was along for the ride.
I did indeed feel “not right” for a moment, but that transformed into a huge smile.
The straight-away quickly disappeared, and a wet corner awaited us.
The driver let off the acceleration but waited until the last moment to leverage braking, and we whipped around the corner – it felt effortless, and the Cayenne kept the body roll much lower than expected.
A few more zigs and zags, meanwhile, inside felt nothing like a washing machine. It was quite tame.
As mentioned, it was a cool (11ºC) and rainy day in Leipzig, and we were on summer tires.
“The tires are a bit cold,” he matter-of-factly stated as he raced us through another chicane, trying to intentionally get the car to slide. Down the back straight, up and over a hill.
It all felt bonkers, but somehow smooth.
As we started another lap with a bit less brute speed and more “throwing” the car into turns to force it to slide, to demonstrate how quickly it returned to the line each time.
Oversteer, intentional slide, gunning it, braking turn, whatever. The Cayenne Electric complied and recovered and kept everything quite calm in the cabin.
Yes – the driver is a pro and can handle all the power and unstable situations with all the safety and control features “off”.
But also yes – this is a production electric SPORTS utility vehicle built for a normal person to drive.
I hope to see what a non-professional driver can do with all this power and tech as the launch gets closer.
Overall, the day made the impression that the engineering team understood the assignment.
To create an Electric SUV that is “Powerful, Practical, and unmistakably Porsche.”
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