Tesla rival Porsche is starting to realize it’s not easy to produce the Taycan

Porsche recently opened reservations for the company’s first all-electric car, the Tesla Model S-rivaling Taycan (formerly known as the Mission E sedan). In an announcement earlier this month, Porsche Managing Director Alexander Pollich stated that the reception to the upcoming vehicle, whose final production version has not yet been unveiled, has so far been encouraging. Porsche expects to start producing the Taycan sometime in 2019, in order to meet what appears to be a healthy demand for the electric car.

As it turns out, ramping production of the Taycan is turning out to be a challenging task for the veteran automaker. Porsche plans to build its Taycan line at a facility located at Zuffenhausen, a suburb in Stuttgart, Germany. The site is a historic location for the pedigreed brand, considering that it is the location where the Porsche 911, one of the company’s most iconic vehicles, is being produced. Other important cars in Porsche’s lineup, such as the 718 Boxster, as well as the 718 Cayman, are also manufactured in the same facility.

Porsche is aiming to produce 20,000 Taycans per year in the Zuffenhausen site. Starting and ramping the production of the all-electric sedan requires a complex reorganization of Porsche’s facility, especially considering that the Taycan’s line has to be built while the production of the 911, 718 Boxster, and 718 Cayman is running at full capacity. In a statement to Dutch auto publication Vroom, Porsche head of production Albrecht Reimold described the difficulties facing the company.

“Finding the right location is a difficult decision. Transforming the existing factory costs a lot of money, moving to a new location as well. Transforming a factory while the production lines are running at full capacity is not an easy task,” he said.

Project manager David Thor Trygvason elaborated on the complex challenge involved in building the Taycan’s production line. According to Trygvason, the location where the Taycan’s line would be set up has to be overhauled. Apart from this, Porsche’s estimated timeline for the project is 48 months, making the project quite costly and demanding.

“The existing location has to be demolished and rebuilt in a short time, but at the same time the production of the 911 and 718 Boxster and Cayman must continue to run. That makes it not only difficult in terms of time and money, but also in terms of logistics and mobility. After all, we are in a location where there is already a factory, where other companies are nearby and where people live nearby,” he said.

Despite these difficulties, Reimold noted that Porsche employees have expressed a sincere commitment to begin the production of the Taycan as early as possible. According to the Porsche executive, the company’s workers have agreed to help finance the factory overhaul by opting to keep their pay flat until 2026, at which point the employees will start getting their investments back. This means that the employees will not have regular salary raises for the next few years.

“We have agreed with them to invest a part of their wage increase until 2025 in the construction of the new factory. From 2026, they will simply receive their investment back,” Reimold said.

Considering that Porche has dubbed the Taycan as one of the company’s most important vehicles after the iconic 911, sacrifices made to start the electric car’s production appear to be necessary, at least for now. If any, Porsche’s struggles to build the Taycan at scale mirror those that have been faced by Tesla with its Model 3 ramp. Just like Porsche’s factory, Tesla also set up its Model 3 lines in the same facility building the Model S and Model X. The aggressive ramp, which CEO Elon Musk aptly dubs as “production hell,” has been haunting the electric car maker for the past year. Ultimately, Porsche’s current difficulties with the Taycan are an indication that Tesla’s struggles with Model 3 production are not problems exclusive to the California-based electric car maker.

Building cars is not a simple task. Building cars that people want to buy is even more challenging. With car buyers and the auto market steadily shifting its interest to electric vehicles, carmakers with upcoming battery-powered cars are now feeling the pressure to roll out their offerings as quickly as they can. Being one of the legacy carmakers who has committed to releasing an electric car, this is something that Porsche appears to be experiencing now. Nevertheless, with a line of reservations that are growing longer, and with a workforce determined to make sacrifices for the company, there is a good chance that the Porsche Taycan can still make it in time for its anticipated debut next year. According to Trygvason, the work being done in Porsche’s factory might be daunting, but “the good news is that the work is still fully on schedule.”

The Porsche Taycan is expected to feature the legacy carmaker’s trademark performance, with the vehicle listed with a 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds, a range of 310 miles per charge, and a top speed of 155 mph.

Article: Tesla rival Porsche is starting to realize it’s not easy to produce the Taycan

I am a huge fan of Tesla, and I applaude the Taycan. I am very happy to see a legacy automaker offering a serious BEV.

That being said, I do have a few points powered by pure schadenfreude.

1} I am not surprised at the difficulties; demand for BEVs outstrips existing battery supplies by about two orders of magnitude;

2} Porsche is targeting ~400 units per week and having difficulties; as much as I support their efforts it is difficult to not take a little joy in that, especially in light of the non-stop trolling and exploding short interest that Tesla has faced for attempting only more than twelve times that;

3} Porsche has started down a very difficult road; there are some few signs that VAG is finally serious about BEVs, but stranding their existing ICE assets is going to be a tough ordeal to work through;

4} The quoted stats at the end of the article seem to put the Taycan competing against the Model 3 Performance — although I am not sure how cargo space compares; that might be a great segment to be in.

I am happy that Porsche is getting strong interest from customers, and I sincerely hope they can get the Taycan to market at a reasonable price and margin. Good luck, folks!

Meanwhile, Tesla is building and selling cars inspite of a negative press (which will rave about Porsche) and Wall Street.

Gives me a new appreciation for what Tesla is able to accomplish in such little time. Wonder if the Porsche CEO will be sleeping on the factory floor to get this line up?

Tesla can help! They are willing to drastically depress sales of all Porsche models to give Porsche workers some spare time to set up Taycan manufacturing! I understand Tesla has already freed Porsche from 11% of its sales and is glad to free it from more of that useless ICE production so that Porsche can focus on what matters – EVs! Glad to do it!

When Macan was announced Porsche was taking almost a year to deliver the orders they received. So nothing new here. Except an EV customer waiting too long will not accept to purchase another necessarily ICE model instead if too long…. He will just purchase a Tesla !

No pay raises for 8 years? That sounds completely insane to me – why would an employee agree to that? Unless the company is going to drop $1M (after taxes) lump sum on you at the end, which I doubt they will, then that sounds terrible. People at start-ups don’t expect to have to deal with austerity measures for that long, and they expect a much higher payoff at the end if they’re successful.

0-60 in 3.5 seconds, 310 miles of range, and a top speed of 155 MPH? Now where have I heard those specs before? Hhhhmmmm… 😉

If this is indicative of the obstacles other makers are facing to get EVs to market, then the future of Tesla looks rosy indeed. They are still the only ones with their own battery factory and charging network on top of what is mentioned above.

Interesting! And it just dawned on me that the Taycan specs are essentially matched by the Model P3D. So, do we know the Taycan mass and size? I wonder if they are more similar to Model S or Model 3?

I’m seeing Taycan mass from 2000 to 2150 kg (4400 to 4700 lbs) so it will weigh in like a Model S, not a Model 3. Porsche is pitching the Taycan to undersell Tesla’s Model S, while Tesla is pitching the P3D to best the Taycan in performance, if not vehicle size. Well, many performance enthusiasts may prefer a smaller vehicle. I know I would.

Maybe they should build the line in a tent…

How they got the name “Taycan”
Porsche Managing Director Alexander Pollich stated “We gotta build an Electric car, those Teslas have Taycan most of our market share.”
&*(really, would I fib about that?) ;)o_O

A groaner…….but good!

The name “Taycan” of course suggests that its creators at Porsche consciously or unconsciously buried a coded meaning in a distorted version of Pig Latin.

“Taycan” translated into English and decoded: “Can’t”

This is most unfortunate for its advertising campaign.

The Porsche Can’t — possess the cachet of a Tesla.

Now we know.

Sad.

This article is trying to suggest that Porsche will be in production hell?

Why not just say that Porsche is only planning to produce 5% (one twentieth) of the BEV volume in 2020 that Tesla will produce in 2019?

Now why would an established company have to get a commitment from their workers to no pay raises for eight years? If Musk tried this you know that the whole Automotive World would be screaming foul. Look at the grief the press gave Musk for asking suppliers to cut prices now that Tesla is producing in volume like all other volume automobile producers. One world for Tesla, another for everyone else.

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