Porsche says the Taycan EV remains a “success story,” but ICE sales still carry the weight
After deliveries reached 27,885 through the first nine months of 2023, Porsche says the Taycan EV “is and will remain a success story.” Meanwhile, with nearly 243,000 total vehicles delivered, Porsche’s ICE vehicles continue carrying the bulk of sales.
Porsche delivered 242,722 vehicles in the first nine months of the year, up 10% compared to 2022.
The luxury sports brand achieved growth in every region except its most important – China. From January to September, Porsche’s overall deliveries rose by 23% in Europe (excluding Germany), 23% in overseas and emerging markets, 19% in Germany, and 14% in North America.
In China, sales fell by 12%. Porsche attributes the decline to a continued “challenging economic situation” in the country.
Excluding China, Porsche’s deliveries were up 19% globally compared to last year. Meanwhile, deliveries of its sole EV, the Porsche Taycan, increased by 11%.
With deliveries reaching 27,885 through September, Lutz Meschke, Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board at Porsche, said, “The Taycan is and will remain a success story.”
| Jan – Sept 2020 |
Jan – Sept 2021 |
Jan – Sept 2022 |
Jan – Sept 2023 |
|
| Porsche Taycan deliveries | 10,944 | 28,640 | 25,073 | 27,885 |
However, the Taycan’s growth has been fading for nearly two years now. Sales of Porsche’s sole EV fell 16% last year and were down another 4.7% through the first half of 2023, and they are still down from 2021.
Taycan sales did pick up slightly over the past few months, with 9,894 units sold in the third quarter. But does that make the Porsche Taycan a success story?
Porsche says Taycan is a success yet ICE sales dominate
Through the first nine months of the year, the Taycan accounted for 11.5% of overall Porsche sales. That number is up from 10.8% through the first half of 2023 but still down from 13% last year.
Recent reports claim Porsche will rely on its ICE vehicles to continue carrying the weight for some time. An Automotive News report from June suggested Porsche will keep the gas-powered Macan around despite plans to launch an electric version next year.
The automaker also plans to keep the 911, its best-selling vehicle, in its lineup through the EV transition.
Porsche is sticking by its goal of reaching 12% to 14% EV share this year. Before launching the Taycan in 2019, Porsche said it expected sales of around 20,000 cars annually. “We have always clearly exceeded this goal – despite difficult circumstances in the supply chain and sales regions, where development in terms of e-mobility can vary significantly,” Meschke explained.
However, 2019 was four years ago, and the auto industry has shifted significantly. The share of electric cars has more than tripled over the last three years, from roughly 4% in 2020 to 14% in 2022.
Porsche’s sales rose by 12.6% to 30.12 billion euros ($31.9 billion) through September. Meanwhile, operating profit was up 9%, while Porsche’s operating margin was 18.3%.
The luxury sports automaker confirmed its forecast for the year. Porsche expects an operating margin between 17%-19% on revenue of 40-42 billion euros ($42-$44.5 billion).
Electrek’s Take
It’s hard to call the Porsche Taycan a success story with deliveries still down compared to two years ago.
In 2021, Porsche delivered 28,640 Taycan models through the first nine months of the year. Two years later, Porsche has delivered 27,885 Taycan EVs through September.
Porsche’s growth is coming almost solely from ICE vehicles right now. The automaker continues to say it expects “significant” increases in Taycan sales, but the numbers have yet to show it.
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Environment
Elon Musk Tapped to Lead New ‘DOGE’ Department—Despite the Government Already Having One for Efficiency
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is to officially join Trump’s administration as the co-head of the new US Department of Government Efficiency – a second federal department with the goal of making government spending more efficient.
You can’t get more ironic than that.
Throughout the elections, Musk, who is already CEO of Tesla, and SpaceX, a well as the defacto head of X, xAI, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, has been floating the idea to add to his workload by joining the Trump’s administration to lead a new department aimed at making the federal government more efficient.
He has been calling it the “Department of Government Efficiency”, which spells out ‘DOGE’, a meme that Musk appears to enjoy.
Well, now Trump appears to want to be going through with this idea.
He announced the new department and Musk as head, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, in a statement today:
I am pleased to announce that the Great Elon Musk, working in conjunction with American Patriot Vivek Ramaswamy, will lead the Department of Government Efficiency (“DOGE”). Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my Administration to dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies – Essential to the “Save America” Movement. “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!” stated Mr. Musk.
What’s most ironic is that there’s already a federal department with the goal of cutting government waste and ensuring efficiency: the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
The GAO’s main objectives are:
- auditing agency operations to determine whether federal funds are being spent efficiently and effectively;
- investigating allegations of illegal and improper activities;
- reporting on how well government programs and policies are meeting their objectives;
- performing policy analyses and outlining options for congressional consideration;
- issuing legal decisions and opinions;
- advising Congress and the heads of executive agencies about ways to make government more efficient and effective
It sounds similar to what Musk described when talking about his DOGE, but Trump hasn’t gone into many details other than it will “cut waste.”
He also has a confusing message as he compares the initiative, which is supposed to cut government spending, to “The Manhattan project”, a massive and expensive government project.
Trump said that DOGE will help the government “drive large scale structural reform”:
It will become, potentially, “The Manhattan Project” of our time. Republican politicians have dreamed about the objectives of “DOGE” for a very long time. To drive this kind of drastic change, the Department of Government Efficiency will provide advice and guidance from outside of Government, and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large scale structural reform, and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.
The statement also noted that DOGE will only operate until July 4, 2026.
Musk has previously claimed that he could cut at least $2 trillion dollars of the $6.5 trillion dollar US federal budget.
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A pump jack in Midland, Texas, US, on Thursday, Oct. 3, 2024.
Anthony Prieto | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Oil prices may see a drastic fall in the event that oil alliance OPEC+ unwinds its existing output cuts, said market watchers who are predicting a bearish year ahead for crude.
“There is more fear about 2025’s oil prices than there has been since years — any year I can remember, since the Arab Spring,” said Tom Kloza, global head of energy analysis at OPIS, an oil price reporting agency.
“You could get down to $30 or $40 a barrel if OPEC unwound and didn’t have any kind of real agreement to rein in production. They’ve seen their market share really dwindle through the years,” Kloza added.
A decline to $40 a barrel would mean around a 40% erasure of current crude prices. Global benchmark Brent is currently trading at $72 a barrel, while U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures are around $68 per barrel.
Oil prices year-to-date
Given that oil demand growth next year probably won’t be much more than 1 million barrels a day, a full unwinding of OPEC+ supply cuts in 2025 would “undoubtedly see a very steep slide in crude prices, possibly toward $40 a barrel,” Henning Gloystein, head of energy, climate and resources at Eurasia Group, told CNBC.
Similarly, MST Marquee’s senior energy analyst Saul Kavonic posited that should OPEC+ unwind cuts without regard to demand, it would “effectively amount to a price war over market share that could send oil to lows not seen since Covid.”
However, the alliance is more likely to opt for a gradual unwinding early next year, compared to a full scale and immediate one, the analysts said.
Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double.
Martoccia Francesco
Energy strategist at Citi
The oil cartel has been exercising discipline in maintaining its voluntary output cuts, to the point of extending them.
In September, OPEC+ postponed plans to begin gradually rolling back on the 2.2 million barrels per day of voluntary cuts by two months in an effort to stem the slide of oil prices. The 2.2 million bpd cut, which was implemented over the second and third quarters, had been due to expire at the end of September.
At the start of this month, the oil cartel again decided to delay the planned oil output increase by another month to the end of December.
Oil prices have been weighed by a sluggish post-Covid recovery in demand from China, the world’s second-largest economy and leading crude oil importer. In its monthly report released Tuesday, OPEC lowered its 2025 global oil demand growth forecast from 1.6 million barrels per day to 1.5 million barrels per day.
The pressured prices were also conflagrated by a perceivably oversupplied market, especially as key oil producers outside the OPEC alliance like the U.S., Canada, Guyana and Brazil are also planning to add supply, Gloystein highlighted.
Bearish year ahead for oil
The market consensus is that there’ll be a “substantial” oil stock build next year, said Citibank energy strategist Martoccia Francesco.
“Should the producers group proceed with their production plan, the market surplus could nearly double… reaching as much as 1.6 million barrels per day,” said Francesco.
Even if OPEC+ doesn’t unwind the cuts, the future ofl prices is still looking break. Citi analysts expect Brent price to average $60 per barrel next year.
Further fueling the bearish outlook is the incoming administration of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, whose return is associated by some with a potential trade war, said analysts who spoke to CNBC.
“If we do get a trade war — and a lot of economists think that a trade war is possible, and particularly against China — we could see much, much lower prices,” said OPIS’ Kloza.
Trump has also touted a “drill baby drill” policy for U.S. producers, vowing to cut energy prices in half.
For that to happen to retail gasoline prices, oil would need to drop to “below $40” per barrel, said Matt Smith, Kpler’s lead oil analyst.
Right now, retail gasoline prices are at a “sweet spot” at $3 per gallon, where consumers do not feel the pinch and input prices are still sufficiently high for producers, Smith added.
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