Taycan

Make
Porsche
Segment
Sedan

Despite not seeing it in the flesh, people are so eager to get their hands on the Taycan Porsche has been gladly accepting preorders for its first EV. One of the benefits of this is that the German carmaker can see where these customers are coming from. After speaking to Porsche North America President and CEO Klaus Zellmer at the 2018 Los Angeles Auto Show, CNET reports that preorders for the Taycan have been "pretty amazing" and are coming from a fairly surprising source.

We don't know exactly how many preorders Porsche has accepted but Zellmer said: "If all the people [who preordered] buy this car, then we are sold out for the first year." Considering how strong Telsa Model 3 sales were following its massive amount of preorders, we aren't surprised to hear that the Taycan may already be sold out. Speaking of Tesla, Porsche was also surprised when it found out where most of these pre-orders were coming from.

"More than half of the people that are signing up for the Taycan have not owned or do not own a Porsche," Zellmer said. "Typically, if we look at our source of business, people coming from other brands, it's Audi, BMW, or Mercedes. The number one brand now is Tesla. That's pretty interesting, to see that people that were curious about the Tesla for very good reasons obviously don't stop being curious."

While the Model S is certainly an impressive car, we've been wondering how Tesla will be able to compete with a well-established brand like Porsche. Aside from Tesla, the Porsche Taycan will also face internal competition from the upcoming Audi e-tron GT, which will actually ride on the same platform as the Taycan.

Porsche doesn't seem to be too worried about the e-tron GT stealing the Taycan's thunder. "When it's about being competitive, it's something that really has to fully speak Porsche. If you drive a Macan, you know that we share a platform [with the Audi Q5], but it's a completely different car. And that's exactly what has to happen and I'm sure Audi has followed the same path," said Zellmer.

No matter how well the e-tron GT sells, we have no doubt the Taycan will be hit for Porsche when it finally arrives in production spec.