Porsche has learned one critical thing since Taycan deliveries began in 2020: customers want fully electric vehicles. Last year, the Taycan outsold the 911 and now has the title of being Porsche's third best-selling model behind the Macan and Cayenne SUVs. An all-electric Macan is due later this year and the 718 is likely the next model to become purely battery-powered.

Meanwhile, Porsche has been working on a new BEV flagship that's part of parent company Volkswagen Group's Project Artemis, a highly advanced platform and technology being led by Audi. The plan was to build three models off that platform, one for Audi, Bentley, and Porsche. The latter was slated to be manufactured by VW's van division in Hanover, Germany.

Not anymore, according to Automotive News Europe. Porsche has reportedly backed out of the deal following management's conclusion that customers firmly want performance models, not the autonomous tech-packed Project Artemis. It's simply the wrong fit for Porsche. However, Porsche will now be paying around $113 million to VW Commercial Vehicles in order to buy itself out of the project.

Porsche's new EV flagship, internally called K1, is still very much happening but is now slated to be built at the company's factory in Leipzig, Germany beginning in 2026. The Project Artemis-based Porsche was set for a 2025 debut but company executives feel the one-year delay is well worth it.

Instead of the Audi-developed architecture, the K1 flagship will utilize the Premium Platform Electric platform jointly developed with Audi. This is the same setup that'll underpin the aforementioned Macan EV and an electrified Panamera that'll arrive in either 2024 or 2025. Paying VW's commercial vehicle division is a fair solution as it was originally set to manufacture 25,000 Porsche EVs annually.

But the Hanover facility has another major project starting up soon: the VW ID.BUZZ, set to be revealed on March 9. It'll also build ID.Buzz variants, including the California camper van. At this time, specifics regarding the K1's makeup remain a mystery. We don't know whether it'll be a sedan or an SUV.