Porsche is pumping the brakes on its electric-only plan – and it’s not the only major manufacturer running petrol engines
- Porsche could introduce engines in its pure EV models
- The V8 petrol engine will live on into the 2030s
- Lotus, Bentley and Volvo have all returned to pure EV plans
Porsche plans to stick with combustion engines for much longer than originally intended, according to company chief financial officer Lutz Meschke – and it’s not the only major EV manufacturer making these noises.
In 2022, Porsche said 80% of its new deliveries would be battery electric vehicles (BEVs) by 2030, marking the transition to electric power for some of its most popular models.
Citing declining sales of electric vehicles and a cooling in customer demand, Porsche is now backtracking on its plans, Meschke says. Automotive news Europe that there is a strong possibility that the pure electric models that will come onto the market in the future will also come with a combustion engine or a hybrid option.
“What is clear is that we are sticking with the combustion engine for much longer,” he explained in an interview following the German brand’s third-quarter earnings figures, which showed the all-electric Taycan model experiencing a sales decline of 50 % had experienced compared to the previous quarter.
More recently, Porsche said the V8 gasoline engine found in the most powerful Cayenne and Panamera models will remain in production “well into the 2030s,” while future models previously touted as BEVs (Macan, Boxster and upcoming Cayman) It seems increasingly likely that internal combustion engines will be deployed in the near future.
“Many customers in the premium and luxury segments are looking towards cars with combustion engines, there is a clear trend,” Porsche CFO Lutz Meschke told journalists during a conference call last month.
It is highly unlikely that the latest Macan will feature an internal combustion engine in its current form as it is built on the Premium Platform Electric (PPE) platform specifically for electric vehicles.
Similarly, a huge investment has been made to ensure that future Boxster and Cayman models would also ride on the same platform, although Meschke said the company is “very flexible” and its production line in Leipzig, Germany, is capable to produce different models. options include internal combustion engines, hybrids and electrified cars.
Lotus makes a U-turn
Porsche isn’t the only high-profile automaker to backtrack on plans for an expanded range of electric vehicles. Ford pulled the plug on a new version of the F-150 Lightning in the US earlier this year, citing the fact that it wanted to focus its attention on hybrids, which it said are proving to be more popular among customers.
The Blue Oval subsequently slowed production of its Explorer and Capri EV models in Europe due to declining sales, causing massive layoffs and redundancies among staff. It has led some industry insiders to believe that Ford may not even sell passenger cars in the near future, but instead become a commercial vehicle specialist in Europe.
To make matters worse for BEVs, the new boss of Lotus Europe, Dan Balmer, also said Auto Express that the company’s recently announced ‘Hyper Hybrid’ system would offer its customers an “EV-focused driving experience” but with the security of a petrol engine for longer journeys.
Since being purchased by China’s Geely Holding Group, the British sports car maker has been vocal about the importance of electric vehicles to its range, currently only offering the Emeya (above) and Eletre as pure battery EVs.
There’s currently no word on which models will be the first to receive Lotus’ ‘Hyper Hybrid’ system, but the flexibility of the Electric Premium Architecture doesn’t rule out the introduction of an internal combustion engine to the aforementioned pure EVs.
Bentley also recently pushed back the date to phase out the internal combustion engine by five years, now citing 2035 as a target, while Volvo also said it hopes “to have 90 to 100 percent” of its global sales electrified by the end of the year will be. decade, with plug-in hybrids still high on the agenda.
