2024 Porsche Cayenne cabin offers all-new driver experience

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Remember when the Porsche Cayenne was first upon us, complete with its sea of hard-touch buttons that bookended the gear selector? The complaints were plentiful, and, nevertheless, Porsche kept those buttons around for years. Eventually, though, the buttons were swapped out in favour of haptic screens.

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Fast-forward to the upcoming 2024 Porsche Cayenne, and the German luxury brand has gone even heavier on the digital-controls side of things. Drawing inspiration and design from the Taycan, the instrument cluster is now a free-standing 12.6-inch curved display piece that, interestingly, is sans hood cover. How? Though the use of an anti-glare filter that minimizes that pesky inconvenience, the sun.

Said screen can, depending on trim, offer up to seven different gauge layouts, with night vision available, too. If you’re nostalgic, you can opt for the five-dial traditional look, albeit rendered digitally. The open-concept redesigned cockpit also sees the entire instrument panel employ horizontal lines to visually widen the Cayenne’s interior.

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A 12.3-inch infotainment screen – or as Porsche calls it, a “Porsche Communication Management” screen – is in place for handling a variety of key functions, and for the first time in a Cayenne, there’s an optional 10.9-inch passenger screen that operates navigation and media.

Smartly, unique foil is used so that the driver cannot see the passenger’s screen, and therefore will pay closer attention to driving instead of what’s happening on the other side of the car. The passenger screen can also stream video, so your fellow Cayenne occupant can get caught up on all of our expert reviews and news at Driving.ca.

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The gear selector sits to the right of the 911-inspired steering wheel, while the drive modes are accessed via a dial inside the steering wheel. The wheel also houses controls for the instrument cluster displays; and the optional head-up display.

USB-C ports reign supreme, with four present and all providing a fast-charging function; Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are included as well.

Yes, there are still physical controls, implemented because Porsche very much listens to its customers, but the digital age is here and it shows. The rest of the all-new 2024 Cayenne makes its world debut at the Auto Shanghai Show on April 18, 2023.