With a starting price of $92,400, the Porsche Panamera can hardly be considered cheap. That's why when a Porsche AG dealership in Yinchuan, China, posted an online advertisement for the four-door performance car, offering it for 124,000 yuan, it received a flood of deposits from customers.
It turns out the advertisement was too good to be true. A price of 124,000 yuan works out to approximately $18,000, about the price of a Nissan Versa. The actual listed price for the Panamera in China is 998,000 yuan.
Realizing what had happened, the dealership quickly removed the incorrect information and acknowledged it had made a serious mistake. Then Porsche AG got involved. The parent company reached out to the first person who made an online reservation. No details were provided, but the company indicated it was able to negotiate "an agreeable outcome" on the one vehicle the dealership had in stock.
A spokesperson for Porsche AG spoke to Bloomberg and acknowledged the incident. They indicated representatives from Porsche also personally contacted all of the other online customers to explain the situation and apologize. Reservation fees paid for the promotional price were expected to be refunded within 48 hours.
Even though the dealer and Porsche AG took quick action to remediate the situation, it still caused a flurry of interest on social media. Activity on Weibo, a Chinese blogging and social media platform, spiked as people took to it, expressing dismay and disappointment.
Last year Porsche delivered 93,286 cars in China, down from 95,671 in 2021 due to the lingering effects of the global supply chain shortage. In all, the country accounted for one-third of the luxury car maker's 301,915 global sales and brought in almost $12 billion dollars in revenue.
The Porsche Cayenne is by far Porsche’s best-seller, with a total of 95,604 global deliveries in 2022. It's followed by the Macan, which sold 86,724 units, and the Porsche 911, with 40,410 deliveries. The Panamera accounted for 34,142 sales, lagging the Taycan, which sold 34,801 units.
