Cars and Drivers

Porsche's American Evolution Now Handily Dominated by SUVs Over Sports Cars

Jon C. Ogg

Published: February 1, 2017 2:20 pm

Last Updated: January 12, 2020 3:16 pm

For most American adults who have grown up before the last decade, Porsche is a brand that probably rings highly with luxury sports cars. That was then. Now Porsche is a car company that is effectively an SUV and crossover car company.

Trends change over time. Porsche’s North America unit has been showing more and more that its sales are being dominated by Macan and Cayenne SUVs. The company delivered 4,602 vehicles in January, the strongest January sales month ever recorded.

Total January sales in 2017 were up 5.7% over January of 2016. The company showed that this was a well-balanced sales result across model lines, and even said that its sports car model sales were robust as 911 sales were up 12.6% and 718 sales were up 2.8%.

As far as what is driving the growth in SUVs look no further than the relatively new Macan. Its 1,960 Macan units sold represented a 33.4% gain over January of 2016. Porsche did show that its all-new Panamera models are expected to arrive in the coming weeks, and that may explain why the unit sales were 35 last month versus 336 in January of 2016.

When you tally up the total units of 4,602 cars sold in January of 2017, the Macan and Cayenne sales came to 3,310 units combined. The total 4,355 Porsche units sold in January of 2016 was made up 2,864 units of combined Macan and Cayenne sales. That is about 72% of the total fleet being SUV sales, versus almost 66% of total fleet sales in January of 2016.

If we look back at all of 2016 as a whole, total Porsche North America sales were 54,280. Its total 2016 sales of 34,715 in combined Macan and Cayenne sales made for a total SUV share of 63.9% in 2016. The 2015 numbers of 30,006 total Macan and Cayenne sales were almost 58% of all 51,756 Porsche sales in North America.

It has been known for some time that SUV sales are among the most profitable and the highest in demand. Now you know why Jaguar, Maserati, and even Rolls Royce are going deeper into SUVs.

24/7 Wall St. has covered numerous changes for Porsche. Its newer Macan crossover may have saved the company from a mediocre 2016. Porsche is also hoping for 20,000 electric car sales.

As far as what this evolution to SUVs from sports cars means for Porsche, the MSRP for the 2017 Porsche Cayenne is from $59,600 versus from $47,500 for the 2017 Porsche Macan. To show how low the “from” is from the time you pay for all of your add-ons, the Cayenne GTS model starts at $97,200. There are two Cayenne models (platinum and the S editions) which are priced at $65,600 and $76,200, respectively. Cayenne Turbo models are priced above $100,000.

The 2017 Jaguar F-PACE is priced from $41,990 and the S model starts at $57,700.  The 2017 Maserati Levante is priced from $72,600 and the Levante S edition starts at $83,800.