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Porsche goes counter to industry with planned price hike

Credit: Porsche AG

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Porsche has announced that it will be dramatically increasing the price of its vehicles, specifically its upcoming EVs.

Price cuts have quickly become a defining feature of the first quarter of this year. Perhaps the best example of this movement has been the Chinese market, where brands have been slashing thousands off the price of new EVs.

However, this also extends to western markets, where Tesla has initiated a downward movement.

Counterintuitively, Porsche now plans to do the exact opposite, increasing prices by 10-15 percent on some upcoming EVs, according to a report from Autocar.

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The announcement of the price increase comes from the company’s CTO delivering a message to investors regarding the premium German automaker’s goal of achieving a profit margin of 20% in the coming years. Porsche reported yesterday that it had reached a record 18% profit margin last year, and it now looks to double down on those gains.

“We will see significant price increases in the middle of the year for the new model year. That will help a lot to make sure we make strong group operating margins,” said Lutz Meschke, Porsche’s Chief Finance Officer, in his message to investors. “We set ourselves a very ambitious goal when it comes to group return on sales of 17-19 percent in the mid-term, and that means we have to reach parity between BEV and ICE as soon as possible, otherwise, this forecast wouldn’t work.”

The models primarily affected by the price increase will be upcoming EVs, which will be 10-15 percent more expensive than ICE variants. This includes the Porsche Macan EV, 718 EV, Cayenne EV, and the upcoming unnamed larger electric SUV sibling of the Cayenne. Porsche’s CFO didn’t mention if these price increases will also affect the Porsche Taycan, but if the brand hopes to continue to grow profit margins, it may have no other choice.

Porsche does not believe that demand will be affected by the substantial price increase, thanks in large part to the marketing success the brand has had.

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Besides the recent trend of price cuts, Porsche is technically following the long-lasting trend within the auto industry of increasing vehicle prices yearly, even if they plan to do so far more dramatically.

This price hike coincides with a peak in R&D investment from the company, primarily into EV technology and sustainable fuel production, which Porsche has become the champion of.

Strangely, the new price hike comes as the brand hopes to achieve 50 percent EV sales by 2025, which could be particularly difficult if brands like Tesla continue to cut prices and offer compelling vehicles. Furthermore, Porsche is going counter to its traditional rivals, including BMW and Mercedes, who have introduced price cuts in China and have been forced to implement similar (if less aggressive) price adjustments in western markets.

Porsche has likely gained significant confidence following its 2022 earnings report, in which it reported record earnings and continued growth of vehicle sales, up 2.6 percent compared to the previous year.

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The reaction from Porsche investors has been mixed. While still elevated from its IPO price late last year, Porsche stock has fallen slightly following the announcements over the past few days. However, as Porsche has not yet instituted its price hikes, it is impossible to predict how the car market or investors will react in the long run, especially as the brand continues to grow in popularity, particularly within the enthusiast market.

What do you think of the article? Do you have any comments, questions, or concerns? Shoot me an email at william@teslarati.com. You can also reach me on Twitter @WilliamWritin. If you have news tips, email us at tips@teslarati.com!

Will is an auto enthusiast, a gear head, and an EV enthusiast above all. From racing, to industry data, to the most advanced EV tech on earth, he now covers it at Teslarati.

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Tesla reveals huge Cybercab detail in new guide for First Responders

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Credit: Tesla

Tesla revealed a major new Cybercab detail in a guide it released for First Responders, showing new territory in its beliefs and intentions for the ride-hailing-focused vehicle that entered production in April.

The First Responders Guide is released to give fire departments, paramedics, and other emergency personnel the proper guidance on what to do in the event of an accident, entrapment, or other situation that would require immediate attention.

On one of the pages of the First Responders Guide, Tesla revealed a stark detail about the Cybercab, which could help personnel enter the vehicle more easily in case of an emergency.

Tesla Cybercab has one important piece that AI4 cars might need for FSD

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It shows Tesla has no intention of releasing any Cybercab units that were initially proposed for ride-hailing services for the general public with any manual controls, meaning a steering wheel or pedals:

“A Cybercab equipped with steering wheel, brake pedal, and an acceleration pedal is typically an engineering or test vehicle, and operates at SAE Level 2 autonomy. Cybercab is not typically equipped with a steering wheel or acceleration and brake pedals.”

This is a major development for those who continue to believe Tesla planned to release the Cybercab with any sort of manual controls so that passengers could take over if needed. However, when Tesla started manufacturing production versions of the Cybercab in Giga Texas earlier this year, they were spotted without a steering wheel or pedals.

It essentially confirms the company has no intentions of bringing manual controls to the car’s production versions. Some have argued that the likelihood of Tesla having something

There still are some Cybercab units out there with a steering wheel and pedals, and as Tesla said, these cars are engineering or test vehicles, which have Safety Monitors on board to help the car out of a precarious situation or emergency.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ Release Notes: new capabilities and features

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(Credit: Megan Gale/Twitter)

Tesla released the Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite to owners of Hardware 3 or AI3 vehicles today, adding several new features to the vehicles that were once believed to be capable of unsupervised self-driving.

Now, Tesla has released this modified suite to older Tesla vehicles, adding plenty of new features and capabilities.

Here are the full release notes for the suite:

  • Distilled the intelligence from HW4 V14 into HW3. This allows HW3 to directly learn how to handle scenarios using HW4 V14 as a guide. This process unlocks the improvements that have been made to HW4 including Reinforcement Learning (RL) and offline models for HW3.
  • Improved both proactive and reactive responsiveness across a wide variety of categories including navigation handling, merges and forks, pedestrian interactions, traffic lights, and vehicle cut-in scenarios.
  • Improved general comfort in nominal scenarios through fewer false slowdowns, smoother steering and more consistent lane centering.
  • Introduced parking, unparking, and reversing capabilities.
  • Added Arrival Options for you to select where FSD should park: in a Parking Lot, on the Street, in a Driveway, or at the Curbside.
  • Speed Profiles are now available at all times, to further customize driving style preference.

These improvements, according to Tesla’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, help distill the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of AI3.

Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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He added:

“It includes destination options and speed profiles on city roads, but more importantly significantly improved safety. We hope you’ll enjoy it, once the build ships wide.”

Tesla will continue to roll out the v14 Lite suite more widely in the coming weeks, the company said.

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Tesla Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ for older cars finally gets released

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tesla model 3 model y
Credit: Tesla Inc.

Tesla has finally released its Full Self-Driving v14 ‘Lite’ suite for older cars that equip the Hardware 3 or AI 3 chip, which have not been able to handle the newest versions of the company’s driver assistance software.

Tesla officially started releasing the v14 Lite suite to owners in the Early Access Program last night. The company’s Head of AI, Ashok Elluswamy, said that the rollout will continue over the next few weeks. The build distills the driving behavior from AI4’s v14 series into both the camera and compute configurations of an AI3 car.

It also includes a variety of new features that were available to AI4 cars running v14, including:

  • Start Self-Driving from Park
  • Arrival and Parking Options
  • Speed Profiles

The release is highly anticipated because those owners with AI3 vehicles were early adopters into the FSD platform and were promised that their cars would be capable of achieving Full Self-Driving.

However, Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted during the company’s recent Q1 Earnings Call that these vehicles would not be capable of achieving unsupervised Full Self-Driving, which is what Tesla had originally said.

Owners were not pleased with this answer, or the idea that their commitment to buying the suite outright for thousands of dollars would not yield the ability to drive without operating the car. Tesla gave some solutions for this, including a discount on a new car, or an upgrade to an AI4 or AI5 self-driving computer and new, upgraded cameras.

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Tesla owners do not seem pleased with these options, as they require giving the company more money.

Nevertheless, it is important to note that Tesla came through for owners here by releasing v14 Lite before the end of Q2, something it had promised owners during the previous Earnings Call. Tesla has had trouble keeping up with timelines, but this is a big achievement for the team.

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