Tight supply of Cayennes for Porsche

Porsche dealers expect to exhaust their stocks of the Cayenne midsize crossover before a redesigned version arrives in the U.S. this summer.

The third-generation Cayenne's arrival, likely around July or August, is months later for the U.S. than for some other parts of the world.

"I'd love to have the new Cayenne now rather than later, but we can be patient," said Todd Blue, member of the Porsche Dealer Board of Regents. "But that's my only disappointment — that the Cayenne is not available till the third quarter. We'll run out of Cayennes, which I guess is a high-class problem."

Dealer inventory of the second-generation Cayenne could be sold out by May, said Blue, CEO of IndiGO Auto Group, which has three Porsche stores, in St. Louis, Houston and Rancho Mirage, Calif.

Looking at it optimistically, he said, at least Porsche dealers won't be struggling to sell outgoing 2018 models after the 2019s arrive.

In 2019, with a full year of the redesigned crossover available, it's possible the Cayenne could regain its position as Porsche's top-selling vehicle in the U.S., Blue said. Porsche sold 13,203 Cayennes in the U.S. last year, down 14 percent and significantly behind the smaller Macan, which sold 21,429 vehicles in 2017. The Cayenne's peak year in the U.S. was 2013, when 18,507 were sold. The last time the Cayenne was the best-selling U.S. Porsche was 2015.

With the latest redesign, the Cayenne moves to a new platform and becomes lighter and faster. Porsche unveiled the vehicle late last summer. Two models of the midsize crossover will be available at launch in the U.S.: the base Cayenne and Cayenne S.

Additional variants are expected later, including the high-performance Cayenne Turbo and a plug-in hybrid, already available in the current generation. Porsche has said it won't sell a diesel variant in the U.S.