When a Porsche AG dealer in China placed an online advert for the latest Panamera sports car, it wasn’t the smooth curves of the motor that got the most attention, but the bargain price.
Dreaming of a little luxury, the driver thought he was in luck after the dealer appeared to offer the car at a bargain price of 124,000 yuan ($18,000).
After hundreds of enthusiastic consumers paid the 911 yuan reservation fee, Porsche admitted that a dealer in the northern city of Yinchuan had uploaded information containing “serious errors in the displayed retail price.”
It signals an embarrassing backtrack by the company and a lot of disappointment on the social media platform Weibo.
A spokeswoman for the Stuttgart, Germany-based automaker told Bloomberg News that it removed the erroneous information as soon as it became aware of it.
Gaffes weren’t bad for anyone. Porsche said it reached out to the first person to make an online reservation and “negotiated a satisfactory outcome” for the one vehicle the dealer had in stock. It didn’t elaborate.
Porsche will contact all other bidders individually to explain the situation, apologize and refund the booking fee within 48 hours, the spokesperson said.
In the first half of 2022, Porsche’s sales in China totaled $6.2 billion, making it the largest market for the luxury car company. During the period, in China he sold 46,664 cars. This represents approximately 30% of global sales.
