Porsche Sees Chinese Brands as Its Main Competitors

When Porsche name checks you as a competitor, you know you must be doing something right.

This certainly applies to a number of Chinese brands that the traditional German manufacturer recently presented as competitors in the electric vehicle (EV) sector for the new electric Macan.

With the introduction of the first electric SUV, Porsche is entering a market in which there are more competitors from China than in any other segment in which the company operates.

The photo above is from the launch of the Macan EV in Singapore, where Porsche’s global CEO Oliver Blume shows a slide that points out two things: first, Porsche needs to convince many buyers from other EV brands to jump ship, and second, with The company has not competed with some of these other brands in the past.

The Macan EV doesn’t just take on Tesla, BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi; The Germans also consider Geely-owned brands Lotus (Eletre and new variants), Zeekr (X SUV) and Polestar as competitors.

Porsche also sees SAIC Motor’s IM Motors brand and Nio as competitors – both of which come from China.

For Porsche, the Zeekr X is an interesting comparison. It’s a car that’s arriving in Australia around the same time, although the price is likely to be significantly less than the German one (from $133,700).

Polestar has its Polestar 3 and 4, which will likely be in a similar price segment to the Macan EV. Given that they use a similar architecture to the Zeekr (which was also designed in Sweden!), you have to wonder why you’re paying more for pretty much the same thing.

If you’ve read our opinion piece about the incredible size and diversity of brands traveling to Australia represented at the Beijing Motor Show, you’ll know that the future of our automotive landscape here is set to change dramatically over the next decade.

While we have had stable brands in our market for generations, the last decade has seen the launch of more brands than ever before in modern history, with the absolute majority coming from China.

These Chinese brands are coming here not only with new designs and technologies, but also with serious volume ambitions for our market.

Let’s rewind ten years to 2014 and only 4154 Chinese-made cars were sold in Australia. Last year reached 193,433 Australian buyers.

As more and more Chinese brands travel to Australia with high sales goals, this number will only increase.