Like all car manufacturers, Porsche was impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. However, the German car manufacturer is starting to emerge out of the crisis quite nicely.
U.S. sales for Porsche slipped by 45.8 per cent in April 2020, although they have quickly recovered and in June, were only 3.1 per cent down from the same month in 2019. Surprisingly, U.S. sales of the 911 have jumped by 30 per cent during the second quarter of 2020, no doubt led by interest in the new 992-generation model.
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Autoblog reports that Porsche was hard at work during sweeping lockdown orders across the country, extending warranties, allowing buyers to defer payments and helping dealerships establish home delivery. The company also sold almost 3,000 certified pre-owned cars in June, an all-time record and a rise of 8 per cent over June 2019.
According to the head of Porsche’s North American division, Klaus Zellmer, falling oil prices that coincided with the pandemic could have an impact on the take rate of electric vehicles. However, he does not expect sales of the Taycan to feel this pinch.
“I think that overall, generally speaking, the reasoning that it’s cheaper to fill up your EV with electricity than filling it up with gas has been put on pause,” Zellmer said. “But, there have to be other reasons why people buy an electric car. Price-driven customers will pause with electric, unfortunately, because that one driver is missing. For Porsche, this is not the main driver, and actually you get three years of free charging at any Electrify America station in the United States if you buy a Taycan. It’s not going to affect Taycan sales, but the overall demand for electric cars — with that missing driver of being cheaper than filling up a gas car — is going to be affected.”
