Porsche has invested a significant amount of time and money into bringing electric versions of the 718 Boxster and Cayman to life, even phasing out the petrol-powered generation to make room for the new pair. Yet despite years of preparation, fresh reports indicate the project could be cancelled before a single customer car is delivered.
Michael Leiters, previously at the helm of McLaren, took over as Porsche’s CEO on January 1. According to sources referenced in a recent report, one of the early calls on his desk is whether the electric 718 twins still make business sense. Rising development bills and ongoing delays have reportedly put the programme under serious review.
Porsche is also tightening its belt after softening its earlier plan to go heavily electric. The situation has not been helped by a 26 percent slide in Chinese sales during 2025. Bloomberg notes that Porsche is now considering expanding its plug-in hybrid offerings, which would mean new platforms and another large investment cycle.
All of this creates a knock-on effect for the next-generation 718 range. Timelines could shift again, and there is a real risk that even if the cars arrive, they may not feel as fresh as originally intended.
Leiters steps in after Oliver Blume’s decade-long tenure as CEO. The company’s recalibration around EVs is said to have erased €1.8 billion in operating profit last year. Added to that are new US tariffs and broader market headwinds, which recently saw Porsche dropped from Germany’s DAX index.
The electric Cayman and Boxster have already been pushed back multiple times. Early in 2025, Blume admitted Porsche was struggling to secure suitable high-performance battery cells. Part of that problem traces back to Swedish supplier Northvolt entering bankruptcy. While sales were once pencilled in for this year, that target now looks optimistic.
Reading the market carefully, Porsche signalled last September that top-tier versions of the upcoming 718 could retain combustion power. That would likely cover successors to models like the Cayman GT4, GT4 RS and 718 Spyder RS.
Soon after, reports suggested petrol options might not be limited to halo models alone, but could spread across a wider portion of the 718 family. In other words, the future of the 718 may end up far more mixed than purely electric.