Porsche to enter India in 2020 with its first electric vehicle

Luxury car maker Porsche is planning to launch the first electric vehicle in India in 2020. A prototype of the vehicle was already showcased in Frankfurt in 2015. The price points are yet to be determined. Porsche began operations in India in 2012 and has been importing cars from Germany. Pravin Shetty, Director at Porsche India stated that the electric vehicle will be launched either in the first or second quarter of the year. It will be globally launched in 2019 and introduced in India within the next year.

For the creation of necessary infrastructure like charging stations, the luxury car maker will wait and see what the manufacturers and government is doing. Shetty mentioned that they are a small player in the market and they expect the infrastructure to be in place soon with the government pushing for electric vehicles. The German car maker sold 434 units in India in 2017 which is an eight percent growth over 2016. Globally, the company had seen a 4 percent year on year growth. The company is expecting business to remain in the same range this year.

The implementation of GST has seen a rollout of a uniform price structure across different states and it has made operations easier for the dealer. In terms of sales or demand, there has been no impact of GST. Post GST implementation, Porsche cars fall under 28 percent tax bracket and an additional 22 percent less. He also denied reports that the company had stopped making cars with diesel engines. Rather, Porsche was launching a diesel variant of its SUV Cayenne. Its sports car variant 911 remains its flagship model; the automaker has a compact SUV model, Macan. Other models that are sold in India include Panamera which is a four-star Sedan and two variants of 718- Cayman and Boxstar.