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Tesla rival Porsche is starting to realize it’s not easy to produce the Taycan
Porsche recently opened reservations for the company’s first all-electric car, the Tesla Model S-rivaling Taycan (formerly known as the Mission E sedan). In an announcement earlier this month, Porsche Managing Director Alexander Pollich stated that the reception to the upcoming vehicle, whose final production version has not yet been unveiled, has so far been encouraging. Porsche expects to start producing the Taycan sometime in 2019, in order to meet what appears to be a healthy demand for the electric car.
As it turns out, ramping production of the Taycan is turning out to be a challenging task for the veteran automaker. Porsche plans to build its Taycan line at a facility located at Zuffenhausen, a suburb in Stuttgart, Germany. The site is a historic location for the pedigreed brand, considering that it is the location where the Porsche 911, one of the company’s most iconic vehicles, is being produced. Other important cars in Porsche’s lineup, such as the 718 Boxster, as well as the 718 Cayman, are also manufactured in the same facility.
Porsche is aiming to produce 20,000 Taycans per year in the Zuffenhausen site. Starting and ramping the production of the all-electric sedan requires a complex reorganization of Porsche’s facility, especially considering that the Taycan’s line has to be built while the production of the 911, 718 Boxster, and 718 Cayman is running at full capacity. In a statement to Dutch auto publication Vroom, Porsche head of production Albrecht Reimold described the difficulties facing the company.
“Finding the right location is a difficult decision. Transforming the existing factory costs a lot of money, moving to a new location as well. Transforming a factory while the production lines are running at full capacity is not an easy task,” he said.
Project manager David Thor Trygvason elaborated on the complex challenge involved in building the Taycan’s production line. According to Trygvason, the location where the Taycan’s line would be set up has to be overhauled. Apart from this, Porsche’s estimated timeline for the project is 48 months, making the project quite costly and demanding.
“The existing location has to be demolished and rebuilt in a short time, but at the same time the production of the 911 and 718 Boxster and Cayman must continue to run. That makes it not only difficult in terms of time and money, but also in terms of logistics and mobility. After all, we are in a location where there is already a factory, where other companies are nearby and where people live nearby,” he said.
Despite these difficulties, Reimold noted that Porsche employees have expressed a sincere commitment to begin the production of the Taycan as early as possible. According to the Porsche executive, the company’s workers have agreed to help finance the factory overhaul by opting to keep their pay flat until 2026, at which point the employees will start getting their investments back. This means that the employees will not have regular salary raises for the next few years.
“We have agreed with them to invest a part of their wage increase until 2025 in the construction of the new factory. From 2026, they will simply receive their investment back,” Reimold said.
Considering that Porche has dubbed the Taycan as one of the company’s most important vehicles after the iconic 911, sacrifices made to start the electric car’s production appear to be necessary, at least for now. If any, Porsche’s struggles to build the Taycan at scale mirror those that have been faced by Tesla with its Model 3 ramp. Just like Porsche’s factory, Tesla also set up its Model 3 lines in the same facility building the Model S and Model X. The aggressive ramp, which CEO Elon Musk aptly dubs as “production hell,” has been haunting the electric car maker for the past year. Ultimately, Porsche’s current difficulties with the Taycan are an indication that Tesla’s struggles with Model 3 production are not problems exclusive to the California-based electric car maker.
Building cars is not a simple task. Building cars that people want to buy is even more challenging. With car buyers and the auto market steadily shifting its interest to electric vehicles, carmakers with upcoming battery-powered cars are now feeling the pressure to roll out their offerings as quickly as they can. Being one of the legacy carmakers who has committed to releasing an electric car, this is something that Porsche appears to be experiencing now. Nevertheless, with a line of reservations that are growing longer, and with a workforce determined to make sacrifices for the company, there is a good chance that the Porsche Taycan can still make it in time for its anticipated debut next year. According to Trygvason, the work being done in Porsche’s factory might be daunting, but “the good news is that the work is still fully on schedule.”
The Porsche Taycan is expected to feature the legacy carmaker’s trademark performance, with the vehicle listed with a 0-60 mph time of 3.5 seconds, a range of 310 miles per charge, and a top speed of 155 mph.
Elon Musk
Elon Musk spotlights the Starlink rescue that got through where no cell tower could
Elon Musk spotlighted how Starlink helped rescuers reach five people stranded in Kazakhstan’s snowy mountains.
Elon Musk put a spotlight on a mountain rescue in eastern Kazakhstan on Sunday, writing “Starlink saves lives” in response to a post describing how SpaceX’s satellite internet helped five stranded people reach emergency crews.
The post from DogeDesigner, which had been viewed more than 500,000 times by Sunday afternoon, said the group’s SUV broke down about 15 kilometers from the village of Kystau Kurchum in an area with no usable mobile network. Starlink carried their call for help and kept them in contact with rescuers, who used the connection to locate them.
The rescue itself took place in October. Local outlet YK.kz reported on October 22 that Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Emergency Situations responded to the breakdown in the Kurchum district of East Kazakhstan region and noted that the group stayed in touch through Starlink. Rescuers covered roughly 100 kilometers in a Trekol, a low pressure tire vehicle built for snow and marshland, then escorted the disabled SUV back to Kystau Kurchum. Nobody needed medical attention.
Starlink saves lives
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 8, 2026
Conditions in the region were rough at the time. Kazakh broadcaster Channel 7 identified the five as hunters caught in a snow trap and said satellite communication allowed rescuers to pinpoint where they were. A spokesperson for the East Kazakhstan emergency department said a storm warning was in effect and urged residents not to leave populated areas unless necessary. The same weather stranded seven utility workers repairing power lines in the nearby Kuygan rural district, according to Tengrinews.
Kazakhstan has been one of Starlink’s more notable markets in Central Asia. Teslarati reported in 2024 that Starlink was serving 1,731 of the country’s 1,879 schools, with the country’s Education Minister saying it had set a new standard for internet service in schools.
Rescue stories like this one have followed Starlink for years, usually in places where ground networks fail or never existed in the first place. Then Florida CFO Jimmy Patronis called Starlink a “game changer” for search and rescue crews during Hurricane Milton, and SpaceX and T-Mobile switched on Starlink Direct to Cell in North Carolina to push emergency alerts to phones after Hurricane Helene.
The next target is dead zones for people who do not carry a dish at all. SpaceX is building out Starlink Mobile and earlier this week selected Qualcomm to supply core infrastructure for a planned terrestrial 5G network in the United States, which it intends to pair with its next generation satellite constellation.
Sunday’s post is at least the third time Musk has written “Starlink saves lives” on X this week, following identical posts on November 5 and November 7.
SpaceX plans to attempt what will be a defining moment in rocket reusability on Starship Flight 15.
As Elon Musk announced in a recent X post, SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy Booster and the Starship upper stage during the upcoming orbital flight. If successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact, a breakthrough Musk has called essential to making life multiplanetary.
SpaceX will attempt to catch both the Super Heavy booster and Starship on the upcoming flight.
If both are successful, it will mark the first time that all parts of an orbital rocket return to Earth intact.
This is the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2026
Previous flights have demonstrated the tower-catch technique with Super Heavy. SpaceX has successfully caught V1 boosters three times (on Flights 5, 7, and 8), with some even reflown. The Ship upper stage has never been caught.
Returning from orbital velocity after deploying payload makes it a significantly harder challenge due to higher energy, heat loads, and the need for precise belly-flop reentry, a flip maneuver, and a final landing burn to settle between the Mechazilla tower’s chopstick arms.
Flight 15, using Booster 22 and Ship 42 (both Block 3 vehicles), is targeted for no earlier than Friday, November 13, 2026, from Orbital Launch Pad 2 at Starbase, Texas. The 75-minute window opens at 4:45 p.m. CT, pending regulatory approval. After hot staging and separation, the booster is planned to return for a catch roughly 6 minutes and 35 seconds after liftoff.
The Ship will insert into a roughly 275 km orbit, deploy 26 advanced Starlink V3 satellites, complete about 14 orbits over more than 22 hours, and—if systems check out—perform a deorbit burn, reentry, flip, and landing burn for a tower catch at approximately T+22 hours 32 minutes.
SpaceX confirms Starship 15 launch window with massive ambitions
A simulation shown during SpaceX’s October earnings call depicted the Ship descending in a belly-flop attitude, flipping upright with a short engine burn, and being captured by the arms:
From simulation to reality
SpaceX is just ONE WEEK away from attempting its most ambitious Starship catch yet https://t.co/nHrxSX6DSz
— X Freeze (@XFreeze) November 6, 2026
Contingency splashdown zones exist in the Gulf of Mexico (booster) and Pacific (Ship) if a catch is not viable. SpaceX has stressed rigorous health checks before committing the Ship to a return-to-launch-site trajectory.
Musk has described the odds of success on this first dual-catch attempt as “more likely than not,” noting a steady stream of additional flights is already scheduled if needed. Full recovery would enable rapid inspection, refurbishment, and reflight—slashing costs and supporting the high launch cadence required for Starlink expansion, lunar missions, and eventual Mars settlement.
As Musk put it, this is “the critical breakthrough needed to make life multiplanetary.”
Tesla Cybercab is going to get some pretty substantial updates, including improvements to efficiency and a new color.
CEO Elon Musk said in a post on X on Saturday that Tesla would be working to refine the Cybercab even more, following the announcement during the week that the company would eliminate the Cybertruck lines within Giga Texas for more Cybercab manufacturing capacity.
“There are efficiency improvements coming that will allow for a 40kWh Cybercab pack,” Musk posted on X. “We will make this in liquid silver, so the colors are not too monotonous.”
There are efficiency improvements coming that will allow for a 40kWh Cybercab pack. We will make this in liquid silver, so the colors are not too monotonous.
The biggest thing most people fail to understand is that there are a very limited number of smart, dedicated people! They can only do so many things.
If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab, which is the vehicle that will PROFOUNDLY transform the world of terrestrial transport!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 7, 2026
A new, more efficient model of the Cybercab will be engineered, which will only help Tesla’s profitability and margins, and it also boosts the argument for why the Cybertruck should be discontinued, at least from a business perspective.
The current Cybercab that operates in the Robotaxi platform in Austin, Texas, has a 48 kWh pack, and it sounds like Musk believes Tesla is on its way to introducing a version that has fewer cells but can manage the same workload thanks to engineering efficiencies.
Credit: Tesla
Musk also doubled down on the decision to prioritize Cybercab production over Cybertruck, which is a decision that has been extremely polarizing within the community, and many fans have made it abundantly clear that they are not particularly pleased with the plans.
“If we have to maintain a complex production line, supply chain, and allocate engineering for Cybertruck, we can’t use those people or factory space and machinery for scaling Cybercab, which is the vehicle that will PROFOUNDLY transform the world of terrestrial transport,” Musk said.
A good look at Tesla’s new Liquid Silver Cybercab, planned with a 40 kWh battery pack following new improvements
😍 https://t.co/IUYsUcCBMs
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) November 8, 2026
Cybercab is obviously Tesla’s path forward in an automotive sense. It seems that Tesla is less concerned about catering to the passenger vehicle market and is more prone to focus on transforming passenger transportation in a way that prioritizes autonomy. However, this requires some sacrifice on Tesla’s end, and the Cybertruck is unfortunately a victim of this.
Cybercab holds an extremely crucial part of Tesla’s future. With the company already revolutionizing passenger transportation once, this is the next phase, and Cybercab is the path forward.
Elon Musk spotlights the Starlink rescue that got through where no cell tower could
SpaceX will perform Starship double catch attempt with Flight 15
