Porsche adds all-electric flagship SUV to its growing EV lineup

Porsche said Monday it will add a full-sized all-electric SUV to its lineup — slotting above several other upcoming EVs — as part of its goal for 80% of all new sales to be EVs by 2030.

Porsche didn’t share many details about the all-electric SUV, including its name, price point or specific production date. The SUV will be the fifth EV in the Porsche portfolio when it comes to market sometime before the end of the decade. It will be based on the Volkswagen Group Scalable Systems Platform (SSP), a modular next-gen platform meant to be used across all of the VW Group brands.

Porsche launched its first EV, the Taycan, in 2019. The all-electric Macan is expected to go on sale in 2024 followed by the Porsche 718 EV sometime near 2025 and then the Cayenne EV. Porsche hasn’t disclosed a go-to-market date for the Cayenne.

Porsche CEO Oliver Blume confirmed in a media call following its annual conference that the SUV would be bigger than the Cayenne, a size designed to appeal to consumers in North America and China. He also said it would come before the end of the decade, suggesting a launch date between 2027 and 2028.

“It will offer a very luxurious experience for our customers,” Blume said, adding it would still have the sporty feel and fly line design found in the Porsche brand even though it is based on the SSP Sport platform for EVs. “And so on the one hand it’s a very new approach for Porsche, but combined with traditional values, which has always been important for Porsche.”

This new SUV EV will also be designed with automated driving features in mind, he said without providing further details.

The SUV EV is part of Porsche’s Road to 20 strategy, which aims to increase operating return on sales to more than 20%. Porsche’s return on sales improved from 16% to 18% in 2022.

On Monday, the German automaker reported 2022 revenue of 37.6 billion euros ($40.22 billion), a 13.6% year-over-year increase. Porsche’s operating profit also rose 27.4% to 6.8 billion euros ($7.3 billion) year over year. Those positive results were driven by an increase in sales. The company delivered 309,884 vehicles in 2022, a 2.6% increase from the previous year. However, sales of the Taycan did dip, which the company has said was related to supply chain constraints, not demand.

“With the Road to 20 we are making Porsche even more resilient and our brand stronger than ever,” Lutz Meschke, deputy chairman and executive board member for finance and IT, said in a statement. “And we’re going to take a fresh look at everything, from our product range and pricing to our cost structure. We want to increase the quality of our contribution margins and make our products even more attractive.”