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Production of the Porsche Taycan
Photo: Marijan Murat / dpa
Just two years after its launch, the electric Porsche Taycan is already finding more buyers than the iconic 911 sports car. Since January, the Stuttgart-based company has delivered exactly 28,640 of the electric cars to customers worldwide.
In contrast, only 27,972 customers opted for the classic with a combustion engine, Porsche announced on Friday.
The symbolically charged changing of the guard is representative of the transformation of the sports car manufacturer, which belongs to the Volkswagen Group and wants to sell almost only electric cars by 2030.
Four out of five vehicles will then be equipped with quiet electric motors, which is atypical for Porsche, but this also includes hybrids.
But the 911 has internal combustion engine protection, which is why Porsche is also investing in e-fuels.
Overall, Porsche defied the crisis in the auto industry, which is suffering from the chip shortage and long-term corona consequences.
From January to September, 217,000 vehicles were delivered, more than ever before.
That was 13 percent more than in the same period last year, which was mainly due to the booming US market.
With the Cayenne and Macan, the manufacturer's best-selling models remain two less sporty SUVs.
Only in the third quarter was there a slump in sales, as was the case with competitors BMW and Mercedes.
It went down by 15 percent compared to the previous year.
Head of Sales Detlev von Platen referred to the "challenging" situation in the supply of semiconductors.
With the Taycan, which has been built since 2019, Porsche is also gaining completely new customer groups, said Porsche boss Oliver Blume in the spring.
The car manufacturer wants to build its own factory in Tübingen in Baden-Württemberg for the production of battery cells.
So far, European manufacturers have often been reliant on battery supplies from Asia.
While the luxury subsidiary reported record numbers, it crashed at the parent company Volkswagen this week because of the transformation to electromobility.
Reports of planned job cuts that caused unrest at the Wolfsburg headquarters were denied.
CEO Herbert Diess is said to have previously spoken of 30,000 threatened jobs in a supervisory board meeting.
There was no question of that, it was finally said.
Competitor Tesla will soon also be building in Germany
In November, important decisions about the future of the VW group are due.
"There is no question that we have to deal with the competitiveness of our plant in Wolfsburg in view of the new entrants in the market," said Diess.
It is mainly about the US rival Tesla and its new German factory near Berlin.
Elon Musk's company in Grünheide will “set new standards in productivity”.
For example, Tesla produces with comparatively few battery variants and a special technology in body construction, which makes the production of large quantities more profitable.
In Wolfsburg in particular, Volkswagen is currently idling considerably.
Short-time work had to be extended several times for tens of thousands of employees because important semiconductors were missing.
Regardless of these acute bottlenecks, parts of the workforce are concerned about sufficient plant occupancy in the coming period.
"The debate has now started, and there are already many good ideas," Diess had explained, for example, on the Trinity e-project in Wolfsburg from 2025/2026.
But it is necessary to discuss the cost situation and capacity utilization intensively.
Volkswagen has the chance to "revolutionize the Wolfsburg location and secure jobs in the long term" with concepts like Trinity itself.
fww / dpa
