Porsche starting to take Tesla seriously

[gavine]

What an astonishingly ignorant man. Tesla has solved the EV range issue. Tesla has solved the lack of recharging infrastructure in much of the developed world (including in Germany!) and continues to expand that infrastructure. And Tesla is poised to solve the problem of EV cost with the Model 3 and the Gigafactory.
I've owned 5 Porsche's in my life. Last year I sold my last Porsche to buy my second Tesla. Porsche is stuck in the past. Their hybrids with pitifully low electric range mean nothing.
Porsche is going to be left in the dustbin of automotive history.

Commercial Darwinism

 

[Bangor Bob]

Speed-limits and driving culture (speed-wise) in rest of the Europe are much more in line with the U.S. one than the German one.

My understanding is that in the rest of Europe, a 2L diesel is "the big engine" for any particular B- or C-segment vehicle. In some cases even a 1.6L diesel is "the big one."

For utilities to be "afraid" of a whole new class of high-demand and likely high-margin price-inelastic customers arriving in the next 5-10 years is, frankly, mind-blowing.

 

[smac]

My understanding is that in the rest of Europe, a 2L diesel is "the big engine" for any particular B- or C-segment vehicle. In some cases even a 1.6L diesel is "the big one."

For utilities to be "afraid" of a whole new class of high-demand and likely high-margin price-inelastic customers arriving in the next 5-10 years is, frankly, mind-blowing.

The D sector is probably a fairer assessment of where the 3 will sit, and you'd be looking at something in the 150BHP range as a middle of the line car.

Further confusing matters, there's a definite move afoot to move away from diesels back to petrol in this segment. With certain cities looking to ban/heavily tax diesels, and CO2 based taxation now including a penalty on diesels on the basis of carcinogenic particulates / NoX levels not just pure CO2 output.

Many manufacturers now opting for much smaller forced induction petrol engines, bearing denominations which would imply larger capacity than they have. The next thing along the evolutionary path will be EV augmentation in my view.

Personally I think this is encouraging, as a pragmatic approach to reduce the over all burning of fossil fuels across the vehicle fleet as a whole, it maybe not many on here would want i.e. some sort of overnight switch to full BEV, but we are being gently herded along a path that is deliverable, if maybe not as expediently as some would wish.