Porsche will continue developing internal-combustion engines longer than planned, including potentially adding hybrid variants to some planned all-electric models, CFO Lutz Meschke said during a Q&A session with Automotive News and other media on the automaker’s third-quarter financial results.
Porsche previously said that it expected 50% of its global sales to be electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids by 2025. It would then begin winding down its gas-powered era in 2026 with the discontinuation of the combustion version of the Macan SUV and the 718 Boxster and Cayman sports cars, on the way to 80% EV sales by 2030.
2024 Porsche Macan EV Turbo
But, citing slower-than-hoped-for EV sales, Porsche will continue to develop internal-combustion versions of the Cayenne SUV and Panamera sedan, Meschke reiterated, and may extend new combustion-model development further than planned.
“We are currently looking at the possibility of the originally planned all-electric vehicles having a hybrid drive or a combustion engine,” Meschke said. “We are currently in the middle of making conceptual decisions. What is clear is that we are sticking with the combustion engine for much longer.”
2024 Porsche Panamera
Porsche has already largely committed to a strategy of overlapping its gasoline and electric models. The electric Macan shares showroom space with the gasoline version for the 2025 model year before the latter’s planned exit in 2026. The next-generation Cayenne will also be electric, but will be sold alongside the current third-generation model for a period of time as well. In an interview earlier this year, Porsche research and development boss Michael Steiner indicated that was the plan for the Panamera as well.
And while developing new combustion-engine variants of what were supposed to be all-electric models would be a significant retrenchment, Meschke’s comments do echo ones from earlier in the year. In July, Porsche announced that the EV transition was taking longer than expected, and that it would extend development of combustion engines due to lagging customer demand.
