Porsche Flexes Its Electric Power With Racing

For Porsche, one big transition may inspire another. The carmaker is flirting with the idea of an IPO to fund a push into electric vehicles.

Porsche AG CEO Oliver Blume seemed to debate the idea in public with the CEO of its parent company, Volkswagen AG, with Blume saying on March 19 that an IPO is an “interesting” idea. VW CEO Herbert Diess later said “there was no immediate need” for an IPO to fund the electric transition. 

Volkswagen AG is undertaking its own $87 billion push into electric vehicle manufacturing and software. Porsche, like other automotive powerhouses, has shown its embrace of cleaner power through high-profile racing.

• Porsche returned to the all-electric Formula E race in the 2019-2020 season with its 99X model. The series, which takes place across diverse locations that are directly impacted by climate change, resumes in April.
• Nissan recently committed to Formula E electric vehicle race series through 2026.
• BMW has also simultaneously gone into EV racing and consumer production.

Porsche also recently sought to juice sales of its electric Taycan model by adding it to the models available in its subscription service, in which customers pay a monthly fee and can swap their vehicle for other models.

Electric vehicles emit more tons of carbon dioxide in production, but they break even with gas-powered cars at around 20,000 miles and trounce other cars in efficiency over the life of the vehicle, per the Wall Street Journal.