It’s also a coincidence that on the morning of my online interview with Porsche China President and CEO Dr. -Ing. Jens Puttfarcken, Tesla released a brand new Model S and Model X.
As we all know, Porsche’s pure electric four-door coupe Taycan series also has several models on sale in China. In the face of the brand-new Model S, whether it is battery life or 100 kilometers acceleration data, Taycan looks a bit worse.
But out of courtesy, I didn’t choose to put this kind of awkward contrast question at the beginning of the interview. It was placed in the greeting near the end of the interview.
So I got this answer:
We would like to congratulate Tesla and affirm the impact of Tesla and the company’s contribution to the global automotive industry. We are very grateful for what Tesla is doing.
But at Porsche, we tend to set our own standards instead of comparing our achievements with those of our competitors.
For Porsche, the value we want to convey is that customers will get a relatively reliable electric car experience. If the car’s cruising range is 400 or 500 kilometers, then consumers should be able to drive this far under any circumstances.
On the other hand, even if you haven’t driven the Taycan for more than one meter, as long as you get in this car, you will feel like you are sitting on a sports car, just like on other Porsches.
If this question is placed at the beginning of the interview, I would definitely think that these are actually brand idioms.
But because of the following dialogues, I began to understand why Porsche seemed so calm and real when faced with such a tough Tesla.
In 2020, Porsche China delivered 88,968 cars, an increase of 3% compared to 2019. This is the sixth time that Porsche China has become Porsche’s largest single market since Porsche entered China.
Compared with previous years, the more interesting data in 2020 is that Porsche delivered more than 10,000 two-door sports cars in China in 2020, 911 deliveries increased by 70% compared to 2019, and 718 increased by 50% compared to 2019.
Such achievements were achieved under the influence of the epidemic.
2020 is the 20th anniversary of Porsche’s entry into China. In 2001, Porsche had just entered China with only one store in Beijing and delivered 170 vehicles. 20 years later, Porsche has 134 sales outlets in China, with an average age of only The 35-year-old Chinese car owner bought nearly 90,000 Porsches.
Dr. Yan Boyu said: 20 years ago, Chinese consumers were more like Western markets, with more older men. Even 10 years ago, the biggest appeal of Chinese car owners to buy Porsche was actually to have a car that demonstrated their social status, so this car must be very large, so Porsche SUV and Panamera are very popular in China.
But nowadays, Chinese consumers will become younger and younger, and Chinese consumers may notWill choose a particularly large car, but choose a lifestyle related to the car that can show the luxury and personality they want. So 911 and 718 are becoming more and more popular.
This reminds me of an article written by teacher Song Siqi, which I have always kept in the WeChat collection: “The best way to like 911 is always: buy one”, there is such a paragraph in it:
The 911 is an inexplicable car. People who like it like it, and people who don’t like it like it for different reasons. But no matter what kind of like, it cannot be denied that this is a car that makes people feel comfortable to drive.
This is far more realistic than buying a beautiful apartment in Xintiandi, or realizing remote financial freedom. At that moment, what we thought was to buy a 911, preferably a convertible. On a comfortable night in Shanghai with more than 20 degrees, we opened the roof and blew the wind, listening to the occasional noise of the horizontally opposite engine behind the buttocks. That’s it.
Most men like 911, because it is like a green water ghost, like a woman’s LV. Whether you like it now or once, there will always be a time when you start to use it and you will be obsessed with it for a while .
If you like it, you own it. There is no better way to show love than owning a 911.
Although this description is not consistent with the real consumers of Porsche, it actually reflects a very important point: even under the current electrification trend, the convergence of various models is becoming more and more serious, and high-end consumption People who want a car that makes people feel comfortable to drive, this demand will not change, and will even become more and more widespread.
In the field of fuel vehicles, as long as Porsche still makes sports cars (obviously it will not fail), this brand will still have a high position in the minds of consumers.
Even for pure electric vehicles, what Porsche provides to consumers is still different from most electric vehicles on the market.
It can be easily verified with such an example.
I asked Dr. Yan Boyu, whether Porsche has been in China for 20 years. Have you ever counted how many car owners have more than one Porsche?
The answer is: We will make regular statistics. What we know now is that about 10% of customers are repeat customers, which means that 90% of customers still appear as new Porsche customers every year.
In the process of selling cars, what we often do is to ask customers how many cars you have before and how many cars you currently have.
A typical Porsche customer has about 2 cars in the family. For example, our Taycan customer owns an average of two and a half cars in the household.
Look, this is why in the Internet public opinion, there are a large number of keyboard men who say that the Porsche Taycan is not as good as Tesla. It is a fool to buy this car, and the price is too low.
But Those who really consider Taycan don’t need the price/performance ratio, and they don’t need to rely solely on a car to meet all their needs.
Only those who treat electric vehicles as pure means of transportation will judge the “sex” in the “price ratio” as the hard indicators of cruising range and acceleration of 100 kilometers. The “price-performance ratio” that Taycan owners regard is the feeling that Taycan, a pure electric four-door coupe, has provided them after completing such a sum, ranging from 1 million yuan as low to more than 2 million yuan.
In fact, the first batch of Tesla Chinese car owners, those consumers who spent more than one million on Model S and were called top-tier leeks on the Internet, were not necessarily right when they chose Tesla. How much do they know about that car, they just think Tesla is cool, although the electric car is> It’s quite euphemistic, but it actually expresses a meaning: Porsche is a sports car brand, a sports car brand, and a car made out of it, even if it is an electric car, it should have a sports car model, with the strength that Porsche has maintained for a century. .
Not everyone wants a cookie-cutter car, but not everyone has the ability to make themselves less cookie-cutter. After all, the concept of “sports car” has only been owned by a small number of people since its birth.
The last sentence: I really want to buy 911.