Porsche says EV intransigence will lose it $6B. Its solution? Move even slower
Porsche has announced a delay in some future EV models, which parent company VW says will cost it $6B in forward profits. It’s doing this amid a global boom in EV sales, instead committing to an inferior powertrain choice that will only make it more irrelevant as a company.
The world auto industry is currently electrifying rapidly. That electrification is largely being led, in this moment, by Chinese players, who are offering low-cost EVs with the latest battery and infotainment technology, not held back by a century of old-style combustion-engine thinking or by entities in government that are actively trying to kill their own country’s competitiveness.
The rapid rise in Chinese EVs has caught Western automakers by surprise, even though it has been clear for more than a decade that EVs are the way to go (as we’ve been saying here at Electrek for that entire time).
It’s resulting in huge disruptions in the global automotive market, with Western automakers being squeezed out of overseas markets, and even having trouble selling to their own domestic markets. Western countries have responded with emergency tariffs (a concept which never really helps), but Chinese brands continue to grow in Europe.
We’ve even seen some directly embarrassing moments, like a smartphone company, Xiaomi, deciding about three years ago to go from building smartphones to building cars, one of the most complex products known to man, and then beating Porsche on its home turf by setting the fastest-ever four-door lap record at Nürburgring with a stripped-down Su7 Ultra, beating the Porsche Taycan by over 20 seconds (Xiaomi later went back and beat the Taycan with a stock model by 2.5 seconds).
Remember: Xiaomi makes smartphones. Meanwhile, Porsche has been making cars for a century (and its founder even made a hybrid in 1902).
And so, in recognition of the fact that Chinese brands are eating their lunch, Porsche and VW have just announced that… they’re going to move even slower.
When competition moves too fast, keep up by… moving slower?
Porsche CEO Oliver Blume (who is also CEO of parent company VW) cited the “massive changes within the automotive environment,” on a call on Friday, some of which are detailed above in this article. His response to these massive changes, though, is to go in the opposite direction.
Porsche said it would slow down its EV rollout, delaying the launch of some EVs, and instead offering a planned ultra-luxury SUV positioned above the Cayenne as a combustion or hybrid model, rather than an electric one. An electric version may still come later, though.
Availability of current combustion engine models, including the Panamera, will be extended into the 2030s.
Porsche said as a result of these changes, its forward margin outlook would drop, and VW said that this would result in a reduction of around $6 billion in profits for 2025.
The move also reportedly has thrown the VW/Rivian software partnership for a loop, as VW’s new commitment to polluting combustion models means it will have to find another source for software, since Rivian’s software is meant for EVs, not combustion vehicles.
According to Manager Magazin, there is even a possibility that VW’s doomed internal software project, Cariad, will have to be tapped to build software for these combustion models.
Cariad was the darling of former VW CEO Herbert Diess, who was one of the industry’s most ardent EV advocates. But difficulties with Cariad resulted in Diess being ousted and replaced by Blume, who reorganized the division, adding significant irony to the situation that Cariad may now be thrust into increased relevance due to Blume’s delay in EV models.
Porsche is in opposite world on EV demand
Porsche says that “weak demand” for EVs is forcing it to make this move, even though EV demand continues to rise globally and specifically in Europe and Germany where Porsche calls home. EV sales are up 30% year-to-date in Europe and up 43% in Germany, along with being up 27% globally.
And for Porsche specifically, we have one very clear measurement of whether consumers want electric or gas cars: the Macan. Porsche sells both gas and electric versions of the Macan, and it turns out, the Macan version does way better: nearly 60% of the Macans Porsche sells are electric.
Porsche has seen sales declines itself this year, but those sales declines occurred in territories where EV sales are booming the most (Germany, China), and were driven by declines in sales of Porsche’s combustion models, not its EV models. In fact, electrified Porsche sales are up, while combustion-only sales are down.
CEO Oliver Blume said that he’s counting on “more flexibility” from the EU to soften its emissions standards and allow Porsche to keep putting these polluting vehicles on the road – vehicles which will continue to poison you well into the 2050s.
Blume says this despite the EU’s commitment last week to maintain the emissions targets Blume wants changed, and despite Blume’s cohort, Gernot Döllner who is CEO of Audi (also a VW subsidiary), correctly stating that bickering over emissions standards is “counterproductive” and that “the electric car is simply the better technology.” The EU did say it will review its 2035 zero-emission target early, but seemed open to only minor flexibility.
Meanwhile, climate change continues apace
Meanwhile, the background of all of this is that climate change (which transportation is the largest contributor to in rich countries) continues apace, and that polluting vehicles continue to poison humans globally in costly and destructive ways.
The world needs a solution to climate change, and the faster that solution comes the better. No matter how expensive it seems it might be to solve the problem that we collectively have spent the last century and a half causing (and have supercharged in the last 30 years), that cost will only get higher as time goes on and as more damage is done.
Many studies have pointed out that the faster we solve this problem, the cheaper it will be to fix, so every moment lost as a result of companies misjudging trends and committing to more-polluting models while hoping government will change to let them continue to pollute only represents more cost, death, and disruption for humanity and for all species on Earth.
In total, fossil fuels kill 8 million people per year and receive $7 trillion in subsidies from the ignored costs of this pollution. Porsche is committing to be a greater part of those deaths and health costs into the future with its move, and harming European industry in doing so, by giving up the future of the industry to faster-moving international competitors.
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An Angus ranch in southern Oregon has become the test case for a new kind of cattle-friendly solar, hosting RUTE SunTracker’s first commercial project.
The one‑acre, 120‑kilowatt array is the first real‑world installation of RUTE’s patented, cable‑stayed solar tracker designed specifically to coexist with grazing cattle. RUTE supplies the hardware and is also acting as the developer for its first regional cattle‑plus‑solar demonstrations.
What makes the setup different is the clearance. The tracker system provides about 10 feet of headroom, with panel heights reaching up to 16 feet across the array. That gives cattle full access to the pasture underneath while allowing ranchers to keep managing the land as usual. The project is interconnected to Pacific Power’s grid in Jackson County, Oregon.
Projects like this are getting more attention as the solar industry runs into land‑use limits. In the US alone, about 30 gigawatts of new solar capacity installed last year covered roughly 150,000 acres. Meanwhile, the country has close to 120 million acres of cattle pasture, much of it facing rising heat and water stress.
That’s where agrivoltaics come in. By adding solar to working pastureland, ranchers can create a second revenue stream while improving growing conditions for forage through partial shade.
“Within weeks of installing the RUTE canopy, the crew observed leafier forage and increased legume presence inside the array compared to outside,” RUTE president Doug Krause said. “Even on irrigated pasture, direct summer sun can be too intense.”
RUTE’s work has been supported by grants from the US Department of Energy’s American‑Made Solar Prize and the US Department of Agriculture. In October, Oregon State University’s Agrivoltaics Program began quantitative studies at the site to measure pasture production, adding hard data to what ranchers are already seeing on the ground.
Next, RUTE plans to take the project on the road. This winter, the company will present at cattlemen’s association meetings as it looks for ranch partners with onsite electric loads, such as irrigation pivot systems.
“In the near term, our focus is on regional, behind‑the‑meter installations so ranchers and power producers can see the equipment operating in real conditions,” Krause said. “While interconnection timelines are long, these projects allow us to build momentum as we connect with developers and ranches on utility‑scale pipeline.”
Read more: Sunrun + NRG launch a virtual power plant to ease Texas power demand
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Environment
Tesla rental fleet that bought into Elon Musk’s self-driving lies goes bankrupt due to depreciation
Dutch leasing company Mistergreen, known for its “Tesla only” fleet and bold bets on a future of autonomous robotaxis, is reportedly facing bankruptcy. The company’s financial collapse highlights the danger of buying into Elon Musk’s claims that Tesla vehicles would become “appreciating assets”—a prediction that has faced a harsh reality check in the used EV market.
According to reports from Europe, the Dutch Tesla-only car rental firm Mistergreen has wiped out its bondholders and is selling off its operations.
Mistergreen had built its entire business model around the premise of operating a fleet of Tesla vehicles that would not only hold their value but eventually generate revenue as robotaxis.
Instead, the company has been forced to write down millions in fleet value as Tesla aggressively cut new car prices over the last two years, pulling the rug out from under used EV prices, and never delivered on its promise of consumer vehicles becoming robotaxis.
Back in 2019, Elon Musk famously claimed that Tesla vehicles were now “appreciating assets” because of their Full Self-Driving (FSD) capability. He stated:
“I think the most profound thing is that if you buy a Tesla today, I believe you are buying an appreciating asset – not a depreciating asset.”
He even went so far as to suggest that a Tesla Model 3 could be worth $100,000 to $200,000 as a revenue-generating robotaxi. Mistergreen bought into that claim and was essentially a leveraged bet on this exact scenario.
They wrote their annual report in 2022:
Our focus is driven by the fact that Tesla’s electric vehicles are currently the highest quality electric vehicles on the market (in terms of battery quality, software updates, efficiency and range, charging network and speed), their hardware and software are prepared for future self-driving cars, and the quality and range of the Tesla (supercharger) charging network is superior. As a result, there is a significant market demand for Tesla’s and we anticipate that Tesla’s will have better residual value in the future due to the good quality of the Tesla’s currently on the market.
However, as we discussed in an article earlier this year about Elon Musk’s biggest lie, the reality has been the exact opposite. Tesla vehicles have depreciated faster than the industry average, exacerbated by Tesla’s own decision to slash prices to maintain demand and by the fact that it never delivered on its promise that software updates would make its consumer vehicles autonomous without supervision.
At its peak, Mistergreen had a fleet of over 4,000 Tesla vehicles, which is impressive, but it meant that it was hit even harder by the depreciation.
For buyers, a cheaper Tesla is great news. For owners or leasing companies holding thousands of them on their books, with high residual-value guarantees, it’s a death sentence.
Mistergreen had issued bonds to buy the Tesla vehicles, but it hasn’t been able to repay them since last year. It’s unclear how much of investors’ money has been wiped out by the bet, but it is in the tens of millions of dollars.
A couple of Dutch, Belgian, and German leasing companies will purchase the remaining fleet.
Electrek reached out to CEO Florian Minderop and co-founder Mark Schreurs for comments, but we didn’t hear back by the time of publishing.
Electrek’s Take
They believed Elon and they lost tens of millions of dollars worth of investors’ money for it.
We have been saying for years that while FSD is impressive, there’s no evidence that it can reach level 4 autonomy in consumer vehicles. Banking on it turning cars into appreciating robotaxis in the near term is financial suicide.
Musk has been promising “1 million robotaxis by the end of the year” since 2020. It’s now late 2025, and while we have seen progress, we only have a small pilot program in a geo-fenced area in Texas under constant supervision, and certainly don’t have a fleet of appreciating assets.
If you bought a Tesla for $50,000 in 2022 expecting it to be worth $100,000 today, you are likely disappointed. If you bought 4,000 of them with borrowed money, you are Mistergreen.
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Kia is offering generous discounts on its EVs with low finance rates and thousands in savings across its entire lineup.
What deals is Kia currently running on its EVs?
After launching a promotion in the US offering over $10,000 off the EV6, EV9, and Niro EV this month, Kia is now extending the savings overseas.
Kia introduced a New Year’s offer in the UK on Tuesday, offering savings across its entire range, including electric vehicles.
The new deal offers generous finance deposit contributions (FDC) of up to £3,000 ($4,000) toward all EV3 models, plus the EV4 GT-Line and GT-Line S trims. A £1,500 ($2,000) FDC is available toward the EV4 Fastback (sedan), EV5, EV6, EV6 GT, EV9, and EV9 GT. The EV4 Air grade is available with a £1,000 ($1,300) FDC.
Kia is also offering a low 3.9% APR across its entire EV lineup, considerably lower than the 5.9% APR for the new Sportage and the 7.9% APR for the Picanto, K4, Niro PHEV, and Sorento.
And that’s not all. Current Kia drivers looking to upgrade can save an extra £1,000 ($1,300) with the “Kia EV Finance Upgrade” loyalty incentive.
The New Year’s EV deals run from December 17, 2025, to March 31, 2026. Kia is also offering two years of free service on all electric models through its “Discover Your Kia EV” campaign, available on all EV3, EV4, EV4 Fastback, EV5, EV6, EV9, and PV5 Passenger grades and variants.
On Friday, the EV4 and PV5 Passenger became the brand’s first vehicle eligible for the UK’s Electric Car Grant. Buyers can now earn £1,500 ($2,000) off the on-the-road purchase price for the EV4 Air and PV5 Passenger Essential and Plus trims.
Although not exactly a promotion, Kia launched the EV4 as Canada’s most affordable EV this week. Starting at under $40,000, Kia’s electric sedan (fastback) is even cheaper than the tiny Fiat 500e.
For those in the US, don’t worry, Kia is offering some pretty great year-end deals, including over $10,000 in savings across its entire EV lineup.
The 2025 Kia EV6 and Niro EV are available with up to $11,000 in customer cash, while the larger EV9 is listed with $10,500 in customer cash.
If you’re looking to finance, Kia is offering 0% APR for up to 72 months, plus $3,500 APR Bonus Cash on the EV6 and Niro EV. The three-row Kia EV9 is available with 0% APR for up to 60 months and a $3,000 APR Bonus Cash offer. In the US, Kia’s “New Traditions” sales event runs until January 2, 2026.
Kia’s deals are generous, but its sister company, Hyundai, may have it beat. You can lease a Hyundai IONIQ 5 right now for as low as $189 per month. That’s about as cheap as EV leases get right now.
If you’re wondering what deals are available in your area, you can find local offers using the links below.
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