Porsche is once again hiding its future combustion-powered compact SUV under an Audi Q5 body — and the company doesn't seem too eager for anyone to notice ahead of schedule. A new set of spy photos from SH Proshots was taken during hot-weather testing in Spain: the mule's grille has already changed, but there's no production body in sight yet.
Calling this car a new gas-powered Macan would be premature, though. Porsche has officially closed that door: once the current generation bows out, Macan is supposed to go fully electric. But at the same time, the company has confirmed a separate SUV with combustion and hybrid powertrains in development — one built to tap into technical “synergies” across the Volkswagen Group.
This is the same vehicle that first surfaced during an earlier round of testing, also wearing an Audi Q5 shell. Now the project has moved to a hot climate, and Porsche is still saying nothing — no name, no platform, no engines, no launch date. So the Project Octan label, the PPC architecture, the V6 and four-cylinder engines, and the PHEV range beyond 100 km all remain rumors, not factory specs.
Now for the numbers that explain everything. Porsche delivered 35,315 Macans between January and June 2026. Of those, 19,695 were combustion-engined models from the outgoing generation — and only 15,620 were electric. The gas version outsold the EV by almost four thousand units. And that's the version production just ended for, in late July. Coincidence? Not really.
The electric Macan isn't going anywhere and keeps evolving on its own: the 2027 model year picks up new equipment and charging capability, even if the hardware underneath hasn't fundamentally changed.
So Porsche isn't reversing course on the Macan itself. It's building a second compact SUV alongside it — for buyers who want a combustion engine or a plug-in hybrid, not a charging cable. The new tests in Spain show the project has already moved past early engineering mules. But a production car is still a long way off.
