Well, that didn’t take long, did it? Porsche EV U-turn, the proud flagbearer of Germany’s electric dreams, has just posted a massive quarterly loss, you know the kind that makes accountants reach for the schnapps. After years of breathless marketing about “the electric future,” Stuttgart’s finest has quietly slammed the brakes on its EV-only fantasy and is pivoting back to the good old internal combustion engine.
In reports carried by the likes of Reuters it would seem that the Giant from Zuffenhausen have disappeared into a billion Euro black hole, and that is just in the past quarter.
It turns out that customers don’t want to spend supercar money on a silent appliance that have the soul of a washing machine that takes half an afternoon to recharge and loses half its value faster than a politician’s promise. The Taycan, once touted as the Tesla-killer, has become more of a slow-motion financial wreck. Sales are down, battery costs are up, and dealers are reporting unsold EVs stacking up like unsold bratwurst at Oktoberfest.
Porsche executives are now admitting, in corporate-speak of course, that “market realities have shifted.” Translation: the public never bought the electric hype, literally. They still want a flat-six that growls, not a motor that hums. They want smell, sound, and soul, all the things lithium-ion just can’t deliver.
This U-turn is being spun as “a balanced strategy,” but let’s call it what it is: a retreat, an admission that ideology never beats plain old common sense. Porsche’s accountants have seen the writing on the factory wall. The billions poured into battery research and infrastructure have yielded a handful of overcooked electrons and red ink thick enough to fill a crankcase.
Now, Porsche plans to bring back updated petrol engines, even hybrid versions of the 911 and Cayman. The ICE is back, not because of nostalgia, but because it works. Customers trust it, engineers understand it, and enthusiasts love it.
The hemp trouser-wearing EV evangelists will call it betrayal. I call it common sense. When performance, range, and driving joy matter, petrol still wins. Porsche has finally remembered what made it great in the first place not saving the planet, but making the driver smile.
Welcome back to reality, Porsche. We missed you.
