Porsche deliveries fall 40% as Chinese put their foot down

Deliveries of Porsche cars fell more than 40 per cent during the first nine months of this year from a year earlier, its owner Volkswagen said.
The steep decline in the luxury carmaker’s figures was driven by a 19 per cent fall in China, where intense competition from local electric vehicle (EV) manufacturers has challenged European carmakers.
Porsche’s electric Taycan suffered an especially sharp 47 per cent decline in sales.
Overall, VW deliveries to customers slid 7.1 per cent in the third quarter, as Europe’s largest carmaker warned of a “particularly intense” market environment in China.
The carmaker has cut its annual outlook for a second time in less than three months and expects to deliver about nine million cars this year, representing an annual decline.
VW and its rivals BMW and Mercedes-Benz have all faced sluggish demand in the country, with Chinese brands such as BYD dominating the market with affordable and innovative plug-in models.
Marco Schubert, part of VW’s extended executive committee on sales, said: “The competitive situation in China is particularly intense, which is the main reason for the global decline in our deliveries”.
VW had cut costs for fully electric vehicle production in China, a spokesman for the group said, adding that the company would not sacrifice profitability for market share. The cost cuts have resulted in fully battery electric vehicle sales growth in China, adding 5.2 per cent in the quarter to 57,500 cars.
But on a global scale, fully battery electric deliveries fell 9.8 per cent to 189,400 vehicles, weighed down by a 41 per cent drop in the US.
Separately Porsche’s brand ambassador, the tennis star Emma Raducanu, has hit back at suggestions that one of her sponsors took back the car it gave her.
Raducanu shared six photographs on her Instagram page on Thursday, including one of herself in a car that appeared to be a Porsche — alongside a printed message that read: “Like I vanished and reappeared.”
Some reports last week suggested that Porsche had reclaimed the £125,000 911 Carrera GTS it had previously lent her, although a spokesman for the company insisted it remained happy with her performance as a brand ambassador.