What The Porsche EV Decision Says About Porsche And About Us

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did not find her attractive when i was a teenager, less certain about that now

Yesterday, Reuters confirmed that Porsche will terminate production of its gasoline-powered entry-level models. This covers the 718 Boxster and 718 Cayman, which will terminate in 2025, and the RAV4 Macan minivan dynamic sport-action-vehicle, which will terminate in 2026. Porsche claims that production of these vehicles for European customers has already terminated, although its websites don’t reflect that and, indeed, continue to encourage visitors in the configuration of conventional 718 and Macan models.

I don’t think it’s possible to overstate the significance of this strategy, at least for people who care about sporting cars in general and Porsche in particular. It’s the precise opposite of what Cadillac is doing right now with its hyper-flagship CelerySticQ. (Apropos of nothing, I have to laugh at how Cadillac’s new advertisement for this 6000SUX equivalent is addressing the Current Thing societal mandate to have every couple in every ad be interracial; they found the whitest man in America and the lightest Black woman in America.) Most manufacturers are pretending that electric vehicles are aspirational. Porsche, by contrast, is very pragmatically declaring that electric vehicles are a punishment.

For Porsche, it’s a “That’s So Raven” moment, because since the Seventies the company has wavered between ambivalence regarding its entry-level vehicles and outright contempt for the people who purchase them. This is doubly true for Porsche Cars North America, which wouldn’t or couldn’t use the VW-Porsche “VoPo” badging and therefore had to express its disdain for strivers in the more subtle fashions of advertising and available equipment. I feel for them, really. The 914 and 924 were forced on PCNA by poor business decisions overseas. The 912E, possibly the worst “Stuttgart Porsche” ever built and a US market “exclusive”, came off as a deliberate insult to anyone stupid enough to buy it; you could get the same performance at one-third the price anywhere else. It was literally no faster than a Chevette.

In the early Nineties, with the 944-to-968 transition, Porsche re-achieved the dream of having all its cars built in the same factory to its own desired standards of quality, but that didn’t pay the bills — so the 996 had to spawn the Boxster. Take a minute to appreciate what a ridiculous, in the original sense of “easily ridiculed”, the name Boxster is. This car cost about 2.5 Honda Accords when it came out, but Porsche still punished the buyers with a stupid name. Oh, it was also slower than it had any right or reason to be.

For the next twenty-five years, Porsche hobbled and handicapped its mid-engine derivatives every way possible. Unnecessary reductions to displacement and power. Ugly headlights. Not enough tire. Playskool interiors. Contract-building them in Finland. And now, the final insult: literally castrating them and turning them into golf carts.

this is how everyone’s going to look at you in your dorky new 718 ev

How can Porsche indulge itself in this stupidity? Let’s put all the pieces together:

• It is no longer an independent company. Like most of the “luxury” watch manufacturers out there, PORSH is now just an appendage of a larger mass-market operation. The days of needing to sell slapped-together Boxster CKDs to make payroll are long gone.

• Porsche can now sell every upscale 911 it can build, thanks to a fresh new-money upper class of tech nerds and IB dorks who use them mostly as garage ornaments.

• The Boxster and Cayman have always been a “drag” on Porsche’s ability to sell the 911 for big markups, because they are too obviously similar to the more expensive product.

• The Cayman, in particular, also undermines the credibility of the 911 in an era where trackday capability is at least dimly perceived by most owners.

• Each 718 sale, therefore, represents a double loss of income. It takes a slot away from 911 production, which costs money. And it hurts the upscale pretensions of the Porsche brand, which reduces possible 911 markup.

If all of the above is true, why not just stop 718 production entirely? Well…

• Some of the dealers really like what they see as additional volume, especially dealers in (relatively speaking) lower-income areas. Consider, if you will, my home dealership, Midwestern Auto Group. Were the 718 to stop production, not all the Ohio buyers would be able to switch to a 911. Instead, that 911 production would go to the coastal dealers. The same is true for America as a whole, which compares poorly to China in terms of what people will pay for a car.

• The media would see it as a retreat and/or failure. “Buff books” would whine about the lack of entry-level cars, while the business press would wonder if Porsche had the leadership it needed.

• There’s always the chance that the current rocketship financial ride of the 0.1 percent will come to some kind of halt, either globally or in specific markets, leading to the reanimated need for an entry-level product.

Viewed in this light, the EV decision actually has some terrible, in the original sense of “inspiring terror”, logic to it.

• Porsche needs to get on the EV bandwagon to appease the Eurocrats. Why not do it with a product they already despise?

• Anyone who wants a real Porsche will now have to step up and pay 911 money. Remember that there’s very little difference in production cost between the 718 and the 911. It’s like an extra $30-50k in the company’s pocket every time someone “upgrades”.

• Some percentage of Tesla-typa people will actually buy the stupid things, although Porsche would likely prefer their numbers be few because I doubt the company has figured out how to build EVs at a profit.

• If the economy sags, they can always just put the gas engines back.

In short, this is the kind of coldly pragmatic, customer-hating thing that Porsche has been doing as long as I’ve been alive. And usually with some measure of success, I would add.

So. If you buy an EV Porsche, you’re going to be disappointed. If you really want a gas engine, but you buy a 911 as a result instead of a competing vehicle, then congratulations! You just bought the whole scam. You’re like the people who kept paying the monthly bill for the Columbia Record&Tape Club.

The funniest thing about this whole process will be watching Lieberman, Cammisa, and the rest of the captive media suck the dicks right off the electric 718s and Macans. The saddest thing will be watching “Porsche people” do the same thing. Not because it puts money in their pocket, but because they have an emotional relationship with a corporation. It reminds me of something I read recently:

I heard some professor put googly eyes on a pencil and waved it at his class saying "HI! I'm Tim the pencil! I love helping children with their homework but my favorite is drawing pictures!" Then, without warning, he snapped the pencil in half. When half his college students gasped, he said "THAT'S where all this AI hype comes from. We're not good at programming consciousness. But we're GREAT at imagining non-conscious things are people."

Not only have I watched something similar happen with “Porsche people”, I’ve also fallen prey to it myself. I’m easily capable of thinking that a particular brand really “cares about” X, Y, or Z. So let’s open that bottle of Hard To Swallow Pills:

• Porsche AG, the company that built the 2.7 Carrera RS and the 917 and the 930 and the 993, does not exist in any meaningful sense. It’s a brand of the VW Group.

• All of the people who designed and built the great Porsches are long gone. Their “spirit” is not still there, because “spirit” is not a real thing in this context.

• Everything that Porsche, a Division Of Volkswagen, A Firm Partially Owned By The Government Of Lower Saxony, does to obscure the above facts should be called out as loudly and as often as possible. If you’re willing to laugh when some venture capital firm buys a defunct watch brand then slaps it on new designs built in a greenfield facility, or if you are willing to publicly point out that the “Rolls-Royce” of today has precisely nothing to do with the Rolls-Royce that built the Silver Shadow, you should accept this as well about Porsche.

• Porsche has repeatedly demonstrated that it has no interest in any “Porsche person” who is not willing to buy a new top-tier product from them in the next 12 months. That’s something that I’ve heard directly from Porsche executives, one of whom chastised me for being a “used-car owner” because I had the temerity to still be driving a 2004 Boxster S in… 2006. I mean, stop being poor, am I right?

• Everyone with the funding and desire to buy an $85,000 sports car in the next few years is going to have to determine if they are Porsche people or driving enthusiasts. You won’t be able to be both.

• When the EV hustle collapses, or the economy falters, and Porsche “rediscovers its heritage” by reintroducing lower-priced gas cars, don’t be the sucker who buys one.

There is one good thing that will come from this real-718 discontinuation. Porsche has done a remarkable job of building its brand in the past few years, especially when it comes to making it look upscale. Its decision to make EVs a punishment rather than a reward will resonate with the public at some level. It sends a useful message. Which, in turn, may hasten the collapse of this whole “inEVitable” scam. Should that come to pass, then God bless the “wizards of Weissach” or whatever we’re supposed to call them nowadays.

Now, if only Cadillac would do the same. Can you imagine a world in which their crummy little RAV4s were EV-only and the massive, bustle-backed CeleryStiQ was powered by… a V-12? Which leads us to today’s final point: Porsche’s leadership may be despicable, but GM’s leadership is stupid, and that’s worse.