Porsche Taycan Outsells Iconic 911 Sports Car For First Time 

For the first time, the all-electric Porsche Taycan outsold the high-performance 911 sports car, underscoring the German automaker’s shift towards battery electric vehicles.

Porsche’s sales figures on Friday show Taycan, a competitor to Tesla’s Model S, surpassed deliveries of the 911 sports car for the first three quarters of the year by several hundred. The results were 28,640 Taycans in the January-to-September period versus 27,972 for the 911. 

Taycan is Porsche’s first electric car and was introduced in late 2019. The 911 series was first debuted in 1964 and has been one of the German automaker’s best-selling and most iconic sports cars over the last half-century. 

Other sales figures show the Cayenne led sales with 62,451 vehicles delivered, a 2.8% drop from the same period in 2020. However, strong demand for the Macan saw a 12% increase in deliveries to 61,944 vehicles. It also delivered 20,275 Panameras and 15,916 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman sports cars, all of which increased 1% from last year.

In total, Porsche delivered 217,198 vehicles worldwide in the first three quarters, a 13% increase over the year. Much of the increase in sales was in the US. 

“The order books are well filled and we’re very enthusiastic about the final few months of the year,” Porsche sales chief Detlev von Platen said in a statement. “Nevertheless, the situation on coronavirus globally remains volatile and we’re facing significant challenges on the supply of semiconductors.”

Still, a majority of Porsche’s sales are combustion engines, but electrification is expected to continue with the automaker’s second electric car in 2023, based on the Macan. 

AlixPartners research recently wrote that 2% of all global vehicle sales are electric, forecasting that the share will climb to 24% by 2030. 

We find it hard to believe that Porsche will entirely give up the combustion engine this decade. For those reasons, competitor and German automaker Mercedes recently said its V-8 engine for AMG, Maybach, and G-Class will stay in fashion for the “next ten years.” 

The 911 series is too much of an iconic sports car for Porsche to ditch the flat-six engine that is naturally aspirated or turbocharged, depending on the model, this decade. Otherwise, if it did, there would be a lot of angry Porsche fans out there that would be upset with the company.