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Cayenne Hybrid gives headaches to Porsche
By Yoann Besnard on 18 December 2007 | 
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At the last Los Angeles Motor Show, Porsche had announced that its engineers were working hard on a hybrid Cayenne, a top priority for the German car maker. Since then, the company has changed its mind and and sounds rather sceptical.
First the market doesn't look so promising as first surveys have revealed that only 5% of Porsche customers were ready to buy a hybrid Cayenne. “The most optimistic forecast still only calls for a market share of 5 percent” said Porsche’s head of distribution, Klaus Bering in a recent interview given to Automobilwoche.
Secondly, Porsche's progress on the hybrid system aren't as good as it claimed it was at the last Los Angeles Motor Show. Indeed, executive said that the Cayenne Hybrid was able to run at 75mph on battery but it is rumoured that the hybrid model can only top 50mph. Moreover, Porsche is seriously concerned by the cost generated by the technology. The company is not sure about the potential profitability and not everybody is ready to lose money on hybrid cars like Toyota did. Unlike the Japanese giant, Porsche doesn't need to build a brand image which is among the strongest in the world. In other words, the Cayenne Hybrid is still considered but its production version won't be available before the next-generation due to appear in 2010.
