Porsche seeks further growth with electric mobility

BERLIN - German luxury carmaker Porsche aims to achieve further growth in its business by building a new purely electric "Mission E" sports-car, the company told press on Friday.

Speaking during the publication of the Stuttgart-based company's annual earnings figures, chief financial officer (CFO) Lutz Meschke said the "Mission E" would enable additional increases in revenue and sales from its release in 2019 onwards. Until then, Meschke set a more modest goal of merely "stabilizing" strong earnings figures recorded in 2017 in the course of the coming year.

Porsche achieved an operative return of 17.6 percent in the 2017 fiscal year, up slightly from 17.4 percent in 2016, making it one of the most profitable carmakers in the world. Around 246,400 total luxury vehicles were delivered to international customers, marking an annual increase of 4 percent.

"Mission E" will be the first purely electric-powered vehicle ever built by the Porsche. The luxury-oriented Volkswagen subsidiary aims to build 20,000 cars per year, but noted that it could also expand manufacturing capacities beyond that figure if required. At the recent Geneva Motor Show, Porsche further unveiled a new Special Utility Vehicle (SUV) called "Mission E Cross Turismo" with a battery range of 500 kilometers which will complement its growing electric portfolio.

In its recent pivot to e-mobility, the automotive company is placing high hopes in future sales of the two "Mission E" vehicles in China which is already the world's largest market for New Energy Vehicles (NEVs). More than 600,000 electric cars were newly-registered in China alone in 2017, marking an annual increase of 72 percent. At the same time Chinese electric vehicle production accounted for 41 percent of global total.