2018 Porsche Cayenne Tested To The Extreme [w/Video]

With just a little over a week until the next generation Cayenne breaks cover, Porsche has released some insight into its development process.

The images and video reveal several prototypes and pre-series vehicles being tested in some harsh environments, from the sand dunes of Dubai, and dusty slopes of the Death Valley, USA, to the ice and snow of Alaska.

Porsche claims that its test vehicles completed a total of 4.4 million kilometers (2.7 million miles), since 2014, which included everyday conditions in urban traffic, on country roads, and on the motorways, as well as runs on the Nurburgring, Hockenheimring, and Nardo.

"The third generation of the Cayenne also had to endure the stop-start traffic in the hot and humid conditions of Chinese cities, master test tracks in Sweden, Finland and Spain, and was transported to South Africa, Japan and New Zealand to complete extensive on and offroad testing", explains Porsche.

Referred to as the E3 internally, the 2018 Porsche Cayenne will debut on August 29, and it's expected to be displayed at the 2017 Frankfurt Motor Show, next month.

It will adopt an evolutionary design, and it's believed to be powered by a couple of turbocharged V6 and V8 gasoline engines, in addition to a handful of plug-in hybrids that should join the lineup later on. The diesel units will be reportedly delayed, as a repercussion of the cheating emissions scandal, but they will be introduced at a later date, in Europe, at least.