The sports and luxury electric car market has been in a week like no one remembered for a long time. Mercedes and Ferrari have presented two supercars that anticipate their next steps regarding their zero emissions and that confirm their commitment to this technology.
Porsche, however, is taking the opposite path: it has temporarily suspended production of its Taycans.
What has happened? Porsche has temporarily stopped production of its most advanced electric car, the Taycan. At the moment, we know that at the end of last week the production chain stopped and more closures are anticipated in the short term, explain our colleagues from Motorpassion.
And the reason is as simple as that they do not sell. They point out in Automotive and Sportwhich in the first quarter of the year barely 3,420 units have been delivered (19% less than in the same period of the previous year). If these figures hold, at the end of the year Porsche would have sold about 14,000 electric supercars, the lowest figure since its launch.
We better stop. They say that a withdrawal in time is a victory. In the case of the automobile industry, it is totally true. When overproduced, the product accumulates in warehouses, takes up space and depreciates. In the end, it is best to give it a way out with suggestive discounts that can eat into the profit margin.
This is a problem that Stellantis has experienced firsthand, which even came to “give away” the electric Fiat 500 in the United States to get them off your back. Honda has preferred cancel its upcoming electric launches and assume more than 2,000 million dollars in losses due to the expected low demand.
This is a problem for any company but it is much more so for a brand like Porsche whose value is based on exclusivity and brand image. Finding dozens of Porsche Taycans online at ridiculous prices (as ridiculous as the price of a car that starts at over 100,000 euros can be) would be killing its position as a brand that one longs to achieve at some point in their life.
Have we reached the limit? The Porsche Taycan was a success in its first years. In a few months of 2020, it already placed more than 20,000 units and in its first full year it exceeded 41,000 units. After a small drop in 2022, in 2023 it once again surpassed that barrier of 40,000 units and everything seemed to be going smoothly. In fact, the company based its strategy for the future on electricity as a fundamental pillar.
But 2024 arrived and the crash began. Sales fell by half that year. In 2025 they remained at just over 16,000 units and the accounts say that it looks even worse for the remainder of the year. Along the way, the Chinese public that was essential for Porsche has turned its back on itfocusing on luxury cars much cheaper they are faster and that, above all, They offer other types of experiences.
Chinese market closedeverything indicates that in the United States and Europe the market is already full of Porsche Taycan. It must be taken into account that the brand also has to deal with the tariffs in the United States which forces them to raise the price of the car or assume a narrower profit margin.
We might think that we are facing the usual drop in sales of a product at the end of its commercial life, but the Taycan was renewed in 2024 and there is no announced replacement model that would make it lose its appeal.
a trend. The production stoppage of the Taycan is just one more example of how the market is retreating. The company opted to convert the Macan, its great best-seller, into electric and the bet has gone wrong in numerical terms. Also they seem to have gone backwards to its “electric-only” project for the future Porsche 718. “We were wrong,” its former CEO has come to point out.now president of the Volkswagen Group.
On the same wavelength, Lamborghini has stopped its plans to put an electric supercar on the market. Lotus, which within Geely was betting everything on pure electric, will also return to the combustion engine although with hybridization. And Mercedes is going the same way because does not sell its most expensive models.
a problem. The electric supercar has a problem: it is not sold. In China, where electric has been assumed as the only future, it seems that there is no turning back but in United States emissions regulations have been eliminated and in Europe it will be allowed to sell cars with combustion engines in a movement that limits them to the most expensive and exclusive vehicles.
That is to say, in Europe combustion sports cars will be even more exclusive, as the general fleet of vehicles is rapidly electrified. But, also, an electric can’t match the experience of its sound, its smell and its touch. It may be faster but it doesn’t sell the same experience.
a clue. In the last week, Mercedes has presented the new Mercedes-AMG GT in its fully electric version. Without noise, they have recorded the sound of the legendary V8 that until now was under the hood to include it as a soundtrack. An attempt to make the car more than just a fast but aseptic product.
The other great failure among the public has been the Ferrari Luce. On social networks and even the most renowned voices within the Ferrari orbit They have skinned him. But the movement is interesting because the new electric points to a different strategyto an audience that Ferrari does not have right now. It doesn’t want to be an electric supercar, it wants to be a fashion accessory. And only from there is its launch understood.
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