Porsche has made it clear that Tesla has intruded on their market. With the upcoming new electric Porsche, the Taycan, Porsche looks to take the lead back.
“We have lots of respect for Tesla – and, yes, I’m sure there are some Porsche customers, that in terms of connectivity, digital stuff in the car and electric battery in the vehicles, didn’t find the car that they wanted with Porsche so they bought somewhere else”
Porsche is entering the electric car market with the Taycan and a similar line up to Tesla. Three performance and range options, a base model, 4S, and Turbo. They’re also looking to be in a similar price point as the Tesla Model S with new reports ranging from $90,000 for the base model to well over $130,000 for the Turbo model. The new electric Porsche is set to have up to 600 horsepower and 300 miles of range.
Porsche opened up reservations with a roughly $2,500 deposit earlier this year and they’re now claiming to be sold out for the first year of deliveries. CNET asked Porsche North America President and CEO Klaus Zellmer where they stood on Taycan reservations.
“If all the people [who pre-ordered] buy this car, then we are sold out for the first year.”
He went on to state that the majority of customers placing deposits are new to the Porsche family and a large portion are actually current Tesla owners.
“More than half of the people that are signing up for the Taycan have not owned or do not own a Porsche. Typically, if we look at our source of business, people coming from other brands, it’s Audi, BMW, or Mercedes. The no. 1 brand now is Tesla. That’s pretty interesting, to see that people that were curious about the Tesla for very good reasons obviously don’t stop being curious.”
Zellmer did not give an estimate as to how many reservations have been made but we do know that in 2016, Porsche estimated they would sell 20,000 Taycans annually. After strong demand, they later increased their production goals to an undisclosed amount, but rumors suggest that it is at least 30,000 units. Porsche has stated that in Norway alone, they have received over 3,000 reservations. For reference, Porsche sells around 600 cars annually in Norway between all of their models.
The Taycan is set to go into production late 2019. Porsche is also set to release a Cross Tursimo version of the Taycan soon after. Additionally, Audi is also planning an electric sports car named the E Tron GT based on the Taycan platform for 2019.
In 2017, Tesla delivered over 50,000 Model Ss. Porsche has a long way to go before actually making a dent but with the Volkswagen Group’s ambitious plans, it is a start. Porsche is one of the few with an electric car history so if anyone were to topple over Tesla’s empire, my money would be on them.
