Porsche's 718 goes electric-only as its new supercar gets an engine
Porsche's entry sports car turns electric while its future flagship keeps an engine
Porsche presents its Sportwagenschmiede '35 strategy at a Capital Markets Day in Weissach, and the two ends of its sports car range now point in opposite directions. The next 718 Boxster and Cayman will be electric only. Above the 911, Porsche is developing a mid-engined model line around a combustion engine, and the Mission S concept previews it on 15 October.
Porsche 718 Boxster and Cayman go electric-only from 2028
Porsche will build the next 718 Boxster and Cayman only as electric cars, with 2028 named as their first full year of production. The plan to adapt their new architecture for a combustion engine is gone, and Porsche now says a petrol 718 was never formally approved. When Michael Leiters confirmed the electric car in August, he still would not say whether petrol survived. The previous petrol 718 left the line in October 2025, and the electric replacement was first announced in 2022, so it reaches its first full year six years after the promise.
A mid-engined Porsche above the 911, the first since the 918 Spyder
Porsche is developing a mid-engined super sports car platform for a model line above the 911, a position left empty since the 918 Spyder. The 918, a V8 plug-in hybrid, ended production in June 2015 after exactly 918 cars. Leiters told the Capital Markets Day that the new car will use combustion power only and will not be built directly on a Lamborghini, although parts can be shared within the Volkswagen Group. Porsche itself still calls the platform a potential one, so the Mission S on 15 October is a preview, not a production decision.
The Porsche 911 set a record 51,583 deliveries in a falling year
The 911 reached a record 51,583 deliveries in 2025, while Porsche as a whole fell 10 percent to 279,449 cars. The strategy builds outward from that car: more highly emotive 911 derivatives, the 911's character pushed into every model line, and a promise from Leiters that the 911 will never be electric. A new B-segment model with petrol and plug-in hybrid power arrives in 2028 beside the electric Macan, confirming the petrol Macan Leiters announced last week, and Porsche is exploring a larger SUV above the Cayenne.
Porsche targets break-even below 200,000 cars and cuts 9,000 jobs
Porsche wants to break even at fewer than 200,000 cars a year, about 28 percent below the 279,449 it delivered in 2025. The savings come from cost rather than volume. A Future Package agreed with employee representatives removes 9,000 jobs, management positions fall by 40 percent, the workforce by 25 percent in the medium term, and development costs for new model lines by up to 20 percent. Porsche has already sold its stakes in Bugatti Rimac and Rimac, and it targets an operating return on sales of 10 to 15 percent, against 1.1 percent in 2025.
Porsche plans six times more Sonderwunsch sales and a 67% Manthey stake
Porsche plans to increase sales from its Sonderwunsch one-off programme sixfold in the medium term, and has raised its stake in Manthey Racing to 67 percent, from the 51 percent it has held since 2013. Both join Exclusive Manufaktur and Heritage in a new division called Home of Sports Cars. One-offs such as the Flachbau GT2 RS are the template for a wider aim: about 20 percent fewer model variants, each selling about 30 percent more, and an average price on top models about 20 percent higher, backed by more content rather than list price alone.
AutoNext Take
Porsche is putting its engines where buyers have already shown they will pay for them: the 911 set a record in a falling year, and the car planned above it targets the customers who had bought every 918 Spyder by December 2014, six months before the last one was built. The 718 goes the other way because its new architecture was designed around a battery, and reworking it for petrol would have cost money in the same plan that cuts development costs by up to a fifth. The weakness sits at the bottom of the range: the electric 718 now carries the entry into Porsche's sports cars on its own.
The Mission S has the easier brief. Porsche will confirm a production version before the end of 2027 and sell the whole run before the first customer car is delivered, provided the engine Leiters promised is still in it. The 718 decides more, because its first full year in 2028 will show whether Porsche's entry buyers follow a sports car without an engine, or move up to a used 911 instead.
