Volvo EX90. "From" £96k for a car part-built....

I was at an industry event yesterday where someone referenced the VW EV platform behind the "ID" models (I think its their MEB platform having cost >£60bn to develop. That's 6 months of the totak UK NHS budget. 6 months of all the healthcare costs for 60 million ageing people, sunk into one platform........... It gives you some idea of the scale of the challenge the OEM's face.

And also why critical safety systems fail on many Chinese ones in accidents - I don't believe for one moment they are developed to European standards.

I worry when I see more genius plans from Jaguar about totally stopping production for a pause before new models come out. Didn't we hear that from TVR? And Lotus? I appreciate the scale and backing are very different but I really hope the new models come through in time, in good quality. Mind you they cost the thick end of £100k as well. Given the crappy residuals of EV's, how many people can afford that?  

I worry too that Jaguar will never get back on its feet. All that history and back catalogue flushed down the toilet. They said they were going to be £100k a few years ago. I reckon they could be even more than that at launch. And that's a very small market.... 

They're Doomed, Doomed!

Having been to Goodwood a few weeks ago it is clear that Chinas focus is to take over the automotive landscape. LingWangs, Dongfengs, Hiphis will be the new normal before we know it.

I have a client who purchased a used Taycan Turbo for just under £90K.

Having used it for 4 or 5 months he realised it wasn't for him and took it back to Porsche to trade it in against something like an ICE Macan. They offered him £43K as a trade in.
Needless to say he still has it and just uses his wife's ICE car when he needs to go on longer trips.

With this kind of depreciation, Porsche will have no returning customers for EVs!

The funny thing is I was looking at Taycan prices recently, and they were not as low as I expected, not sure if they bounced back up a bit. But John's example is just insane - the guys buyts a used example already and they offer him less than half what he paid, 4 months later!!!!! And of course its not the % that hurts, its the total, the sums involved are mind boggling.

I actually really like the feeling of instant, linear, relentless acceleration from (powerful) EV. I'm a throttle response tart. The main issue of modern cars for is intrusive driving "aids" - anything that starts messing with the steering wheel in my hands, totally freaks me out, I'm not sure whether I'm sliding to my doom or having a mechanical failure (to my doom) but it gives me an instant anxiety spike. Advanced car control is about feeling the slightest things, all of a sudden the car is manufacturing feedback.

Weight is also a big one for EV. Driving the Alfa more in warm weather and actually on roads with sharp bends (I've done a lot of motorway haul in it) I can really feel its up on its toes and so much more eager to go/stop/steer than the 330e.

When you look at the scale of the auto industry, I'm sure this is indeed a major plan. Whether it actually impacts the West much is down to us, people moan about the UK "not having manufacturing any more" but in fact while UK brands died, manufacturing is still here, for other people's cars. I expect the rest of Europe will follow suit, with tariffs unless cars are made there, in which case most of the £ still goes into the local economy. Industry employment numbers may still suffer as electric cars are so much (mechanically) simpler to build and service. Then again nations like France excel at job creation/maintenance. Indeed Germany is similar, they love a form and a queue and a human operative checking things off...............  It may make less difference than people think. 

I've generally criticsed the "oh no we don't make anything here any more" crowd as economically illiterate (nasty, unsafe, low paid and unpleasant manufacturing jobs in modern industry as per Chinese sweatshops not being something many of us generally aspire to do in the West). But I do accept from a security standpoint we need to make more defence, and tech, kit here - at least keep the capacity available. the Ukraine war has shown up issues in some very basic products like explosives, shells, and gun barrels, as well as the more obvious semiconductor issues that - given so many are made in Taiwan and China - kept some people awake at night before.  

I suspect that is the cost for sourcing all the battery raw materials and outfitting 16 factories to build cars off the platform.

From what I am hearing the Taycans with the old battery are just not moving but the dealers are not discounting them much at the moment. My source says that many have been in stock for 6mths + and they were bought for a lot more than their real retail value now so at some point the dealers are going to have to take the pain and move them on before their values fall further. There is only so long that Porsche can try to control used car values. This history will probably make the PCP GFV much lower even on the new Taycan which is going to push the cost of ownership up further.

At some point, Porsche (just like everyone else) will pull together some razor sharp lease and PCP deals for the crap they can't shift and they will just come back into the network at 3 years old as approved stock.

Battery packs have an optimum storage SoC - as long as someone is keeping an eye on it, should be fine.

I would expect Porsche AG, the National Sales Companies and the respective OPCs to have the relevant policy and process to manage.

If they don't - then they may have some issues to deal with and spending money they don't need to.

For sure.

I think the first time I spotted this was at least six months ago (I like the colour) and it was on at something like £95k (now £79k):

finder.porsche.com/gb/en-GB/details/porsche-taycan-4s-my24-preowned-MQ7OPD?model=taycan&custom-exterior-color=true&order=price_asc

I expect it was north of £120k new at the start of this year!!

They will manage the discounts through heavily subvented finance deals and then protect residuals by controlling the defleet of the returns post lease/pcp.

They then get a 2nd bite at the cherry by doing approved used deals - end of last year/early this year Audi were doing amazing deals on 2 year old e-tron SUVs (Free wall box, low deposit, £300 a month cheap).

Audi UK end up with a big bill, but it's rolled up under variable marketing expense.

Lovely but thats 40K in 2 years isn't it which if your a business customer might be manageable given all the benefits of electric but near 2k a month in depreciation just isn't gonna float.

www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202407212003749?sort=price-asc&advertising-location=at_cars&include-delivery-option=on&make=Porsche&model=Taycan&postcode=GU9%208QX&fromsra

This is very nice but not sure I'd like to go into ownership without the support of a full manufacturer backed warranty for the length of the finance agreement.