What Car Shoppers Need to Know
- Porsche Active Ride uses an electric hydraulic pump on all four active dampers, enabling them to adapt up to 13 times per second.
- It’s available on hybrid Panameras and most dual-motor Taycans.
- Active Ride pushes against natural body roll, effectively eliminating the need for anti-roll bars.
Some housekeeping before we get into it: If Porsche’s Active Ride tech has you intrigued, I implore you to somehow sample it for yourself out in the real world. Given the fact that electronically “adaptive suspensions” have been around since the early 1980s, there’s only so much I can describe here before it enters “trust me, bro” territory. Nevertheless, Porsche Active Ride is one of the most remarkable, novel evolutions of suspension tech I’ve ever experienced. It’s not so much that it isolates like a Rolls-Royce or corners tortilla-flat, but rather how disconcertingly proactive it is even in everyday scenarios — to the point that the familiar soft-medium-hard ride quality of adaptive suspensions feels downright archaic by comparison.
Related: 2025 Porsche Panamera GTS Review: Continental Cruiser
How Is Porsche Active Ride Different From an Adaptive Suspension?
- Takeaway: Active Ride utilizes electrically powered suspension components that eliminate body roll to a spooky degree.
Traditional adaptive/adjustable suspensions operate reactively to inputs ranging from a small lump in the tarmac to dropping a wheel into a pothole. Valving in the shock, the air spring or a combination of the two softens or firms the car’s response, depending on either the driver’s chosen setting or the system’s own logic, if left to its own devices.
In the more proactive camp, camera and GPS-based loops use predictive data to prep the chassis for upcoming craggy pavement or a sweeping corner, perhaps stiffening a specific side of the suspension or slightly raising the vehicle’s ride height to better clear an approaching dip. In my experience, the benefits of such systems aren’t particularly discernable from a well-tuned reactive system. Today, though, tandem advancements in processing capacity at production scale and the proliferation of hybrid and electric powertrains have made the long-gestating active hydraulic suspension a market reality. As of this writing, only Porsche, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari offer active hydraulic systems in the U.S market, and the latter only on its Purosangue SUV and ultra-exclusive F80 hypercar.
What Cars Offer Porsche Active Ride?
- Takeaway: Starting with the 2025 model year, all hybrid Panameras and most dual-motor Taycans offer it.
I haven’t driven either of those Ferraris, I’m afraid, but I have driven a veritable fleet of Benzes fitted with the marque’s E-Active Body Control, as well as this 2026 Porsche Panamera 4S E-Hybrid, which was equipped with the automaker’s Active Ride option. Same core concept, dramatically different execution. Where the Mercedes’ 48-volt mild-hybrid system supports a single, centralized hydraulic pump to service all four corners, Porsche’s 400- and 800-volt architecture uses a hydraulic pump on each shock, supported by a familiar air spring. Whereas Mercedes’ active setup primarily works to eliminate even the smallest grain of road imperfection, Porsche Active Ride does its damnedest to cut body roll to an absolute minimum while maintaining ride comfort that’s commensurate with the Panamera’s and Taycan’s luxurious, grand touring characters. Porsche sourced its specialized dampers from ZF’s sMotion catalog, an evolution of preexisting continuous damping control tech that regulates compression and rebound independently at each corner. An integrated hydraulic pump and circuit on each damper circulates fluid from top to bottom as necessary, making up to 13 adjustments per second. The harder it works, the higher the energy requirements; at its peak on particularly pockmarked roads or during aggressive canyon driving, the Active Ride system siphons up to 34 horsepower from the car.
The net result of all this technomancy is some downright uncanny chassis behavior. Even in day-to-day driving, with something as simple as a 90-degree right turn, you’ll note the two outside dampers actively pushing against the car’s natural lean. The system doesn’t eliminate every single degree of said lean, but the car corners as if on casters — or perhaps as a remarkably precise hovercraft. It’s equal parts odd, soothing and fantastic. Zooming in on the odd portion of the pie chart, opening any door triggers a default “easy-entry” function, raising the car about 2 inches for an entry position that’s nearly on par with that of a Porsche Macan SUV. I’m sure my parents would love this, but I remain hearty and hale (for now) and found it more jarring than useful, as did my fellow 30-something buddy.
Is Porsche Active Ride More Comfortable Than the Standard Suspension?
- Takeaway: Generally speaking, yes. Porsche Active Ride eliminates most — but not all — road imperfections and muffles larger bumps.
LA’s sprawling, labyrinthian web of roads is surprisingly fractured and cragged, often surprising out-of-towners who expect the 405 to be as glassy-smooth as the Pacific Coast Highway is on-screen. Aside from your standard potholes and expansion joint ledges, I also maneuver through deep, bumper-ripping dips and shockingly steep parking-lot entrance ramps on a daily basis — often large enough to bottom out my mighty Subaru Crosstrek if taken at the posted speed limit. In the Panamera? No prob. Though it’s not a sensory-deprivation chamber, Active Ride is shockingly effective at significantly muffling the big, crashy stuff and dissipating the finer, granular imperfections into a distant buzz. Meanwhile, the view over the hood remains preternaturally stable, feeling almost as if the cockpit were gimbaled from the chassis.
High comfort, highly impressive. Add this to the E-Hybrids’ manufacturer-rated 28 miles of smooth and silent all-electric range, and it’s almost cushy enough to make you forget the “S” badge on the rear bumper. Almost. The Panamera 4 E-Hybrid models share the same twin-turbo 2.9-liter V-6 as the base Panamera and Panamera 4, which generate 348 hp and 368 pounds-feet of torque. The 4 E-Hybrids add a 25.9-kilowatt-hour battery pack that feeds a single electric motor integrated into the eight-speed PDK dual-clutch transmission. In the 4S E-Hybrid, the result is an eyeball-squishing, unsecured-phone-launching combined output of 536 hp and 553 pounds-feet of torque.
Is the 2026 Porsche Panamera 4S E-Hybrid Quick?
- Takeaway: Very much so. Porsche quotes an official 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds.
On its own, the E-Hybrids’ electric motor is good for up to 187 hp and 331 pounds-feet of torque — more than enough for all-electric urban commuting. It’s even up for exurban stints thanks to the EV mode’s lofty 87 mph top speed before the V-6 kicks in. Thanks to all-wheel drive — that’s the “4” in 4S — Porsche claims a 0-60 zip of 3.5 seconds. Aside from the distinctly vee-six-y sound warbling from the quad pipes out back, a full-throttle holeshot in the 4S E-Hybrid feels every bit like yesteryear’s Turbo S performance. It’s a far, far cry from the current Turbo S E-Hybrid’s 771 hp and 737 pounds-feet of torque, but the mid-range Panamera is in a bit of an odd spot when it comes to sibling rivalry. Note the 4S E-Hybrid outpowers and out-torques the more expensive, and notably more aggro, Panamera GTS by 43 ponies and 67 pounds-feet — and that non-hybrid Panamera uses a twin-turbo 4.0-liter V-8 that’s down on power but up two cylinders and a whole lotta character. This hybridized V-6, meanwhile, is just good. Power and performance are stellar, of course, but the handoff between all-electric operation and internal combustion power is less consistently smooth than I’ve experienced from the hybridized V-8s in the associated Turbo/Turbo S family tree. Consistency is the key here; there was a slight but noticeable lurch during the transition from electric to gas roughly a third of the time, usually when I was more aggressive with the accelerator pedal than I perhaps expected to be due to traffic.
I found myself using the Panamera E-Hybrid’s Sport drive mode more often than I expected around town, as it keeps the V-6 fired at all times. Sport Plus was reserved for my time on Angeles Crest Highway, where Active Ride went from impressive to dumbfounding. To get a feel for it, apply all of what I described above to managing high-speed body transitions, then add in the system’s spooky ability to tilt the body toward the inside of a bend that feels not entirely unlike driving on a mildly banked surface.
How Much Does Porsche Active Ride Cost?
- Takeaway: It starts at $7,790 (and it’s worth it).
Much like the gimbaled sensation imparted during normal driving, when driving this car at higher speeds you’ll be hustling significantly faster than its muffled body motions indicate. Angeles Crest is flush with fast sweepers, which I suspect suits the system more than the kind of tight, technical canyon roads that snake through Malibu’s Santa Monica Mountains. I was a silver flash among the pines on Angeles Crest, the stable view over the hood and unnatural body motions a contrast to a landscape blurred by speed. At $7,790, Active Ride is one of the more expensive options on the Porsche configurator, so I can understand some reticence — particularly if you already dropped $13,870 on Paint to Sample and a veritable ransom on Exclusive Manufaktur extended leather. But if you’re torn between adding Active Ride or deviated stitching to your build, I implore you to see if you can borrow a buddy’s Active Ride-equipped Panamera and take a spin through the rough(ly paved) side of town. You’ll see what I mean.
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