Porsche loses its mind…….

Corporate suicide

 

I agree with the sentiment... but I believe their thinking is that they are already forbidden from selling them in the EU, and the US alone isn't a big enough market to support the entire line.

 

Porsche loses its mind?

What did they do, take 20 years to fix the 911 timing chain tensioners?

Make the IMS bearing smaller when they made the engine size bigger?

Take 10 years to get rid of the IMS bearing?

It does seem crazy given the popularity of the ICE 718, especially for track use and DE. Not the first time Porsche has been crazy though

 

Maybe a way to boost lagging sales?

 

They already extended production and pushed the EV Cayman/Boxster out as far as they could, but sooner or later the bill comes due.

 

Five bucks says they do a 180 on the EV future plan.

 

IMSB?! Stop spending so much time on RL and enjoy your Porsche...life is too short.

 

This is my sentiment as well but we will have to see how govt mandates play out...Porsche does not want to kill the ICE cars.

 

Seems crazy and especially in the day when GM just decided to invest
880mm in the Tawanda V8 engine plant concentrated on building more V8 engines..
While at the same time reducing their electric car commitment substantially as well as renting a electric car plant to another manufacturer I missed the name of it ..
I saw it announced this am…

 

This is the same company that celebrates the 50th Anniversary of the Turbo with a sticker package.

 

Oct of last year.
https://www.autoevolution.com/news/porsche-finally-backtracks-ev-plans-will-develop-new-ice-models-243576.html

 

More information for the discussion: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/porsche-faces-mounting-problems-rattled-081344062.html

 

Maybe if they ask nicely they can build a factory here....
I can't extrapolate more without turning this into P&R....

That will depend on the rules the FIA come up with, if they force teams to race EV's.

Don't forget - Porsche, Audi and Volkswagon are all in the same ownership group.

LOL, I did not know their stock symbol is 'P911', I wonder if that will change???

Yeah, let's kill off our biggest selling product lines...

Annual US sales 2023–2025
Model 2024 2025 Q1 2026
Units % of total Units % of total Units % of total
911 (992) 14,128 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 21%) 19% 2,086 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 8%) 11%
718 5,698 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 26%) 7% 1,476 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 85%) 8%
Taycan 4,747 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 37%) 6% 1,019 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 18%) 5%
Panamera 3,982 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 5%) 5% 1,486 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 184%) 8%
Cayenne 22,432 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 10%) 29% 5,331 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 63%) 28%
Macan 25,180 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 7%) 33% 7,486 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 32%) 40%
Total 76,167 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 1%) 18,884 ( Image Unavailable, Please Login 41%)

 

One of the problems Porsche is faced with is that the 718 platform is well old now and they committed and invested heavily in its EV replacement many years ago. They already stretched production another year while the platform can no longer be sold in Europe and they can only go so long with a hole in their offering that the 718 fills. Porsche can't continue to make the 718 because it is already behind in technology and there are fewer and fewer buyers wanting an aged product like the 718. I jumped at the chance to buy a GTS 4.0 in manual last year and could care less that the technology is a decade old. I love the buttons and tactile design but I also know that I'm an oddity in my thinking that Porsche cannot rely on to keep their Cayman and Boxster customers happy. Porsche gambled wrong on the desire for EV's and they can't just right the ship without a few years development to a modern replacement to the 718.

 

Okay truth time. My wife has a 718 and a Cayenne. She loves both cars. She hates electric and doesn't want to wait at a charging station or turn the house into one. So....Porsche can go down this road and lose more customers because of market research stupidity and political commitments.

When we bought the 718, Porsche told us it would be the last model year with an ICE engine...... That was 2019.

Note to Porsche......are you listening to these experts?

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

In 2024, 718 sold 5698 units, out of a total of 76,167 units. So less than 10% of their sales in the US. In Europe and the rest of the world, it was an even smaller percentage.

https://newsroom.porsche.com/en_US/2025/company/Porsche-reports-US-retail-sales-record-in-2024-38352.html

 

Mark my words......Porsche turning the 718 into an EV will be a financial disaster.

 

My complete guess is that the profit margins on EV's will be much higher than ICE cars simply because the electric cars are so dead simple mechanically. The EV's have a small fraction of the parts of ICE cars, and far, far fewer "per-model" parts. The battery cost is still high for now -- likely will come down eventually when there are battery technology breakthroughs (e.g. solid state batteries) -- but everything else on an EV is very inexpensive to make. This is a total guess on my part, but I can't see how everything but the battery can't be way cheaper to build than the ICE car. The factors that are large issues for lower-priced commuter EV's -- high battery cost and limited volume battery production -- are not really issues for the 718. The battery cost will be low, percentage-wise, relative to the 718 entry price, and the total volume of cars (say 5k a year if sales remain relatively steady) is easy to produce.

I think it's dumb for Porsche to hard-cut the 718 to EV; however, I think it is a good idea for Porsche to offer an EV version in parallel with the ICE car. Why not be the first to offer a legit EV sports/performance car? I just don't know why you'd force it down people's throats by making EV the only option.