Battery suppliers are struggling to cope with buoyant demand for Porsche’s Panamera hybrid sedan. The sales share of the Panamera hybrid, which combine a conventional combustion engine with electric propulsion, of the model’s total output has doubled in the past 12 months.
Following its diesel emissions scandal in 2015, Volkswagen announced a huge investment in electric and self-driving vehicles, gambling that demand was finally about to take off.
The success of the strategy has become all the more important, with new European regulations set to penalize carmakers that do not curb their CO2 emissions. Porsche’s stablemate Audi said this week it could face 1 billion euros (USD1.2 billion) of fines if its average fleet emissions exceeded EU limits by 11 grammes per kilometer.
Porsche, a key contributor to Volkswagen’s profit, is spending about 1 billion euros on its first battery-only model called “Mission E” and is considering a purely electric version of its top-selling Macan SUV to help lower CO2 emissions across its fleet, which includes big emitters such as the Cayenne and 911 Turbo versions.
Production of an all-electric vehicle at Leipzig, where over 4,000 staff make the Panamera and Macan models as well as body shells for VW’s ultra-luxury Bentley brand, would require a larger three-digit million-euro” investment in an all-new body shop.
