Given I’m not into sensationalist journalism, I’ll take the risk of losing you right here by giving you the answer, which is no. And it’s also not my review of the Porsche Taycan that caused the rumours… However, what’s happening at the legendary car maker right now is quite dramatic and became even more so when Porsche presented its Q3 numbers this week. Therefore the question deserves to be asked, and a deeper look into the current issues at Zuffenhausen is warranted. As it turns out, there is not one, but rather three major issues that together have caused the current situation.

Before going into those issues ni turn, let’s look at what happened last week. Porsche’s Q3 numbers came in at a loss of a bit more than EUR 1bn for the quarter, which is a lot of money. it’s especially bad when it’s about EUR 400m more than the analysts had expected, and corresponds to a spectacular loss QoQ (compared to the same quarter in 2024) of 96%. That does for really nice headlines, as does the decision to sack CEO Oliver Blume and replace him with ex-McLaren CEO Michael Leiters early 2026, slash 2.000 temporary jobs, and announce that you will cut at least another 2.000 in the coming years.

Porsche’s first issue is – of course – the politically forced adaptation to building a car type the public doesn’t want, namely EV’s. According to Porsche’s plans made as late as last year, far more cars powered by electric power were supposed to be produced and sold now than is currently the case. This was part of an electric transition that Porsche has invested many billions in during the last years. However, with not enough people buying EV’s, Porsche is now trying to pedal back quicker than Tadej Pogacar pedals up the mountains in the Tour de France. Still, this will hit profits this year by more than EUR 3bn. Such a change of strategy also takes time, but Porsche hopes things will look up in 2026 with an increase in sales of combustion engines and hybrids.

Contrary to Jaguar, one of the (many) other brands in crisis that you can read more about here, Porsche still builds cars and manages to sell quite a lot of them. A bit more than 210.000 cars have hit the road so far this year per end September, which only corresponds to -8% compared to the same period last year. That however takes us to the next two issues, namely the US and China.

To start with the former, it’s of course the newly imposed tariffs that are the problem. Porsche currently has no production onshore in the US, so all cars sold need to be shipped there from Europe and are therefore hit by the full tariffs, currently at 15%. Porsche has so far partly offset this themselves, resulting in another, estimated EUR 700m hit this year. Going forward, they will have no other choice than to raise prices in the US and pass the cost onto customers, which certainly won’t help sales, especially not of the top models with the highest margins. There is also talk of a possible future US plant.

In China, the issue is not a lack of demand for EV’s, quite the contrary. The one party in the one-party state has told people they should buy EV’s, and that local, Chinese brands should build them. Which they do, and the loyal population buys them. That’s not the issue though, as Chinese brands do not compete in the same segment as Porsche. Rather, the issue is that China has seen slowing growth as well, especially in the luxury segment, and that is very much where Porsche is playing. Or trying to. In Q1 of 2025, Porsche’s deliveries to China were down 42% compared to the same period in 2024. And again, it’s no longer the top of the range cars with the highest margins which are mostly sold.

Luckily, Porsche has a strong balance sheet and is also majority-owned by Volkswagen (around 75%), in turn partly owned by the state of Lower Saxony and by itself, through a cross-holding. That’s never really been an advantage as it’s made the owner structure rather complex, with resulting issues we’ve seen played out at different times in history. However at this stage with all the uncertainties around automotive policies, and knowing how sensible local politicians are to job losses in their region, the partial state ownership probably acts as an additional buffer for both VW and Porsche, should it be required.

Long-term readers of this blog know that I firmly believe that the self-imposed, completely unrealistic ICE ban in the EU from 2035 will not stand, and Porsche as well as other car manufacturers are now increasingly lobbying for the ban to be postponed or lifted. They do so from a different position than when this was originally imposed, as they can now say we did what you asked for and built EV’s, quite nice ones in some cases, but the public didn’t buy them.

Even if the 2035 ICE ban is postponed or lifted, let’s please not forget that bad policies carry a heavy price. Porsche’s shareholders have lost money, the 2.000 employees who have been sacked no longer have a job, and billions of EUR that could have been put to better use have gone down the drain, all because unelected EU politicians took a populist decision not anchored in reality. And whilst I’m at it, the US tariffs certainly won’t help either. It didn’t help in the 80’s when the same trick was tried to counter superior Japanese car imports, it hasn’t helped in other sectors, and it won’t work this time. Ultimately, tariffs make everyone worse off.

It may be a bit early but if I can have one wish for the new year, it would be that we return to free trade in the West, knowing it’s benefited the world more than most things over the last decade, and also, to a world where companies are allowed to produce and build the products their customers ask for. If not, we’ll start looking an awfully lot like China.