Porsche to launch electric car in India in early 2020

Kolkata: Luxury car maker Porsche, part of the Volkswagen group, will launch an electric vehicle (EV) in India in the beginning of 2020, a company official said. Porsche, which started operations on India in 2012, has so far been selling fully imported cars here as the company does have any manufacturing or assembly units outside its home country Germany.

“We will launch a fully electric car in India in the beginning of 2020,” director of Porsche India Pavan Shetty told PTI. The India launch will follow the global launch in the last quarter of 2019, he said, adding that the prototype was showcased at the Frankfurt motor show in 2015. “This is a part of the Mission-E of the company,” Shetty said.

In 2016, the company sold 401 units in India, which went up to 434 cars in 2017 (Jan-Dec). “We are expecting a stable growth in the country as it is difficult to judge the external conditions like exchange rate fluctuations,” he said.

Shetty said post Goods and Services Tax (GST), effective tax rates had gone up for some of its models while for the others, it remained the same. In the luxury segment, which also includes the super luxury brands, Porsche has a market share between 1.2 and 1.5%, he said.

The company will launch a new SUV model—Cayenne E3—in the third quarter of the current year, he said. Porsche had introduced models like Cayenne, Macan, Panamera, 718 series, Cayman, Boxstar, and the flagship 911 in India. The company has eight service centres and six dealer outlets in the country.