Pavan Shetty has sold two of the biggest sports car brands for over seven years in one of the world’s toughest automotive markets. He has been with the Volkswagen group since March 2012, first selling Lamborghinis, and has been Director of Porsche India since January 2016.

Shetty is now attempting to expand the reach and appeal of the brand at a time when all luxury carmakers are faced with lacklustre growth rates. He is also preparing the ground for Porsche’s first all-electric car, Taycan, due to debut early next year. Excerpts from an interview on the sidelines of the recently held Porsche World Road Show at the Buddh International F1 Circuit:

What has been Porsche India’s sales mix over the last year?

It has been what it was over the last few years. SUVs contribute upwards of 60 per cent, sports cars, which are basically the 718 and 911, make up 24-25 per cent and the remaining comes from the Panamera.

This has been the break-up for a long time and I think it will continue to be this kind of a mix in the future up until we get the electric car next year and then maybe there will be one more contributor with a few points of its own. The Cayenne continues to be the top seller among all our models in India.

Do you see any emerging trends among Porsche buyers and their preferences in India?

Taking all our vehicles together, we still see the average age of the buyer being 40-46 years and most of them are businessmen. What I have seen a change in, though, is the usability of our cars has gone up, and that is showing in how much some of our customers are clocking on their Porsches.

For example, in one of the cities in South India, a customer has already logged over one lakh kilometres. The same customer also bought a GT3 and that has logged 13,000 km in six months. So, the change that is happening is that a Porsche is no longer a showpiece.

People are driving these cars more often than you would imagine. Also, they have understood the global trend, and in the last two years, particularly in the South, the demand for GT cars has gone up exponentially. And these are indicators that the brand is in a very good position.

What is going to happen to your diesel engines, with the current regulatory issues? For your top selling product, Cayenne, you only have the petrol and hybrid models.

I think when somebody buys a Porsche, they buy the brand and the brand promise. And the promise of performance and usability doesn’t hinge on a diesel powertrain.

I did have some doubts initially when I took over the reins. But when we did the pre-launch exercise for the Cayenne, we were all proven wrong. The number of bookings we had was quite overwhelming despite the absence of a diesel.

Yes, people’s perception of diesel being the cheaper fuel is there and so, if the performance promise is similar to a petrol model, they may want to choose diesels. That may have been the reason why Cayenne diesels were outselling petrols when they were on offer. But now, even globally, only 12 per cent of all Porsches sold are diesel. The Panamera Hybrid’s sales in Europe have been steadily rising; and I see the sales of the Cayenne Hybrid similarly seeing an uptick in India. They offer a good combination of torque, efficiency and performance.

How informed and focused are your 911 buyers in India? Is it often that an alternative to the 911, in the mind of the buyer, is another Porsche?

Definitely not in the case of the 911! They are so focused on the car that often they will postpone the purchase if they don’t get the colour of their choice. We are usually only working out the logistics of the buy; the choice of the 911 has already been made clearly in the minds of the buyer. That is also the reason why we do events like the Porsche World Road Show, so that select customers can take time out to experience these cars and understand the reasons for the reputation of the 911.

Somebody who wants to buy the Cayman will not look at the 911. Somebody who wants to buy a compact SUV will not buy the Cayenne. That way, in Porsche’s portfolio, interchangeability is very low.

Yes, at one point in time we did have a problem with the price of Macan being very close to the Cayenne, making the former less attractive. But that will change with the arrival of the new Macan in July this year. The price positioning has been improved and I see a lot of traction from the new design and package of the compact SUV.

Will the Taycan make it to India? Will it be a challenge to sell an electric car of this calibre in India with the current lack of charging infrastructure, etc?

The Taycan will make it to India in Q1 next year. I think, and am hopeful, that with the profile of our customers, they should be able to manage the infrastructure in their homes.

The process is also very different from what we do now. We do a home check before we sell this car to a customer and see if the infrastructure makes it possible or then ask them to upgrade. It doesn’t look like it’ll be a big challenge.

These cars will start from Tier-I and then move to Tier-II and Tier-III cities in India, as the infrastructure progresses. We already have some interest in this car from people who want to be environment-friendly and those who want to try a new technology from Porsche.

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