Even as the leader of the automotive industry, the deep-rooted Volkswagen brand can not avoid the huge impact of the chip shortage, in the face of the annual sales target of 9 million units, the Volkswagen Group's inner OS may be: I am too difficult. According to Volkswagen's latest data information, the brand's global deliveries reached 616,300 units in November, down 31.5% year-on-year, and in mid-November, whether it was the core Volkswagen or Audi and Skoda, car deliveries decreased by 1/3 compared with the same period last year, and the delivery of light commercial vehicles decreased by 1/5. Of course, the Volkswagen Group has received not only bad news, at least its ultra-luxury brand Porsche has played a stable role.
In the past November, Porsche's total sales reached 6411 units in the month, down 18.1% from the previous month, accounting for 2.1% of the sales share of the mainstream luxury brand market in China. It is worth noting that the Porsche brand sold nearly 81,000 new cars in the middle of January and November, an increase of 3.6% year-on-year, and the brand is also the most profitable sub-brand in the Volkswagen Group. Of course, it is undeniable that Porsche's sales data has declined in the past two months, and this month is also a downward trend, and this year's sales level is likely to be the same as last year. So as an ultra-luxury brand, why does Porsche continue to decline in sales? Today we will explore this problem.
An important reason for the continuous decline in Sales of the Porsche brand is the chip shortage, as early as last year, Volkswagen had to give up the production of some low-end models due to the shortage of chips, and this year, the brand chip shortage problem has not been effectively solved, and the production capacity has been continuously limited, which has further affected the overall sales of the Volkswagen brand. Although Porsche is the highest positioned existence in the Volkswagen Group and has a higher priority in chip supply, the chip problem still has a certain impact on it.
In the face of the current complex market situation and the declining sales data, the Volkswagen brand did not want to sit still, but actively responded, in the recent meeting of volkswagen supervisory board, Volkswagen executives made a decision: executive officer Herbert Diess will continue to stay, Ralph Brandstadt will enter the board of directors in the new year, and will take over the Chinese market next year. It can be seen that Volkswagen has made personnel adjustments for the Chinese market, hoping to reverse the decline.
In addition to personnel changes, Volkswagen is also actively laying out the new energy vehicle market and investing 89 billion euros in European factories for the expansion of electric vehicles and digitalization, and the Volkswagen Group expects that a quarter of its cars sold will be equipped with battery-powered systems by 2026. Obviously, in the eyes of Volkswagen, new energy is an important growth point for this car company in the future. Although these have little to do with Porsche, they reflect the extremely low proportion of the Porsche brand in Volkswagen's future strategy, and the priority is further reduced.
In addition to the factors of the parent company Volkswagen Group, the Porsche brand itself has some problems. This year, Porsche successfully set off the reform of new energy in the Porsche car system with a Taycan, if the 911 is a classic model of the Porsche fuel era, then the Taycan shows a strong potential to become a classic model of Porsche's new energy faction. During the Munich Motor Show, Porsche Group CEO Obermou said: "We originally planned to have a production capacity of 20,000 Taycans this year. In the first half of this year, the sales volume of the car was quite impressive, and there were still a large number of orders in the follow-up. The car also performed very well in the Chinese market. ”
Now, in the face of rapidly growing orders, the pick-up time of its order customers has been extended to 6 months, and according to the past practice, the Taycan's usual waiting time for pick-up is 4 months, and the capacity limit is one reason, but it is undeniable that the Porsche brand is also suspected of starvation marketing. In addition, the problem of the price increase of Porsche's models has long been complained about by the majority of car owners. Porsche optional accessories are extremely "crazy" has long been known, in the case of not selecting any accessories, Porsche cars can be described as "rough room", if you casually add some accessories, the final price will rise by hundreds of thousands of minutes, if you add a little more, the extra money can even buy a porsche car, then Porsche optional accessories are really worth such a price? I'm afraid everyone has the answer in their hearts!
According to the general direction of the development of the Volkswagen brand and porsche's recent operations, the brand has also shifted the focus of development to the field of new energy, and the Taycan mentioned above is very illustrative. The guiding price of this model is 88.80 ~ 1.808 million yuan, its price is as high as ever, but the product power of the car is very worrying, taking the entry-level model as an example, its official zero hundred acceleration performance is only 5.4 seconds, and the endurance is 414 kilometers, which is less than the 300,000 yuan model created by the new car-making forces. For comparison, the 2020 Xiaopeng P7 562E performance version priced at 349,900 yuan is compared, the official zero-hundred acceleration performance of this version of the model is 4.3 seconds, and the pure electric mileage can reach 562 kilometers.
In general, the problem of insufficient chip supply has spread to the world, the major car companies are seriously affected by the production capacity, Porsche is also facing this problem, at the same time the brand is also facing internal and external troubles, in the critical transformation period of new energy, its main model Taycan is considered by many car owners to be a chicken rib. In this context, Porsche is still insisting on playing quotas, and it is normal to wait for cars for half a year, especially high-heat models such as The Palmela and the 911. At present, the impact of many factors has been concentrated, and Porsche should indeed take a good look at it.