Porsche has said it would ditch plans to produce its own batteries due to weak demand for electric vehicles, a setback that also highlights the difficulty faced by carmakers in scaling up battery production.
The German sports-car maker said on Monday the decision to pull the plug on its independent battery project Cellforce was made after sales of EVs in China and the US fell “short of expectations”, despite a stronger performance in Europe.
The retreat from battery production is a blow for chief executive Oliver Blume, who oversaw the establishment of Cellforce in 2021, when he said it would put Porsche at the “forefront” of battery technology and “shape the future of the sports car”.
But on Monday Blume cited “challenging conditions” in the US, where the company has been hit hard by President Donald Trump’s tariffs, and China, where the market for luxury EVs had “not yet developed”. Porsche does not have a manufacturing presence in North America.
In the first half of the year, 57 per cent of the vehicles delivered by Porsche in Europe were electrified — either full EVs or hybrids — compared with 36 per cent globally, highlighting weakness in the US and China.