Porsche has already turned 10,000 Taycan reservations into orders

Porsche had been accumulating a lot of pre-orders for the Taycan even before the unveiling with the specs and pricing announcement, but now the automaker confirms that it has already turned 10,000 Taycan reservations into orders.

After unveiling the Taycan in September, the company quickly announced the start of production at a new plant at their Zuffenhausen site, which they have been working on for the past four years.

However, Porsche announced delays in bringing the Taycan to production last month.

In a new interview with Handelsblatt, Porsche CEO Oliver Blume commented on the production ramp-up (translated from German):

Every production startup has its challenges. The Taycan is about a new product, completely new technologies, a new factory, a new team, and a new structure of suppliers. And legal requirements are increasing worldwide. In this interaction, we lowered the startup curve by about 1,000 vehicles in the first few months in a quality-oriented manner. The decisive factor is that we will be supplying the first dealers in the USA with the Taycan as scheduled this year. The market launch in the directly following markets is on schedule. By 2020, there will be over 20,000 vehicles. More than we originally planned.

In short, it sounds like Porsche is planning for a slower start of production, but a faster ramp-up into higher volume next year.

The CEO also commented on the number of orders for the Taycan.

Porsche previously confirmed having received 30,000 Taycan electric car reservations, but that was before the unveiling in September, and reservations are not always a good indicator of actual orders.

That said, Blume confirmed Porsche already received “more than 10,000” actual orders for the Taycan:

We have about 30,000 interested parties who have paid in Europe each €2,500. We are now converting this interest into concrete orders. We currently have more than 10,000 fixed contracts — and the trend is steadily rising. This number is well above our expectations. Now we start production.

Now Porsche is working to fulfill those orders by the end of 2020.

Electrek’s Take

This is a solid number of orders.

After the unveiling, I was worried about how many of the more than 30,000 reservation holders would convert to orders with the higher-than-expected prices.

It appears I underestimated how much people are willing to pay for an electric Porsche.

I’d be curious to see the order mix between the Turbo, Turbo S, and the new and much less expensive Taycan 4S.