Everrati Builds the Electric Porsche 911 of Your Dreams

As any Porsche lover knows, the automaker produces an electric sports car, the Taycan, which in GT Weissach form (US$231,995) develops 1,019 peak horsepower and takes just 2.1 seconds to reach 60 miles per hour. But what Porsche doesn’t do is produce an electric version of its absolutely iconic 911.

At the moment, that’s a job for the British company Everrati, which installs electric power into examples of the 911 built between 1988 and 1994 (code named 964). Everatti also transforms Land and Range Rovers, as well as classic Mercedes-Benz SLs, and an interpretation of the Ford GT40. The 911s have carbon-fiber body panels for lightness and are built in California through a partnership with Aria. That company creates concept and pre-production vehicles for global automakers.

Everrati’s latest creation is the Porsche 911 Signature Wide Body. With the hard-to-miss ducktail, it resembles a 1980s Porsche Turbo—but handles better. For a price that starts at £290,000 (US$360,467) customers get a car with 500 horsepower and 368.78 pound-feet of torque. The car has a 62-kilowatt-hour battery pack from LG Chem, yielding in this lightweight configuration approximately 200 miles of range. A single motor is connected to a limited-slip differential.

Also available is a Legacy model with 247 horsepower and 228.64 pound-feet. These cars look like earlier 911s (without the wide body and ducktail, for instance) and are built in a time-consuming restoration process. Given the work required, the price is the same as the Signature.

The Everrati Porsche 911 Signature Wide Body offers 500 horsepower and 368.78 pound-feet of torque from an electric drivetrain.
Everrati

Features on the Signature include electronically adjustable suspension, regenerative braking, a “Porsche inspired” five-gauge cluster, and DC fast-charging capability. Everrati is also offering a Signature Gulf Edition of the 911, painted in the iconic blue-and-orange livery of the Gulf racing team (as seen at Le Mans and other venues).

The first Everrati 911 to go to a U.S. customer this month is a Mexico Blue Signature model delivered to California resident Matt Rogers, who co-founded the smart thermostat company that eventually became Google Nest. Rogers said in a statement that his car “captures the zeitgeist perfectly, being sustainable and environmentally conscious while also keeping the character of [Porsche’s] air-cooled era.”

Justin Lunny, Everatti co-founder and CEO, tells Penta that the company “doesn’t ‘convert’ cars to electric; instead, we redefine them as electric vehicles, worrying about such factors as driving feel and weight distribution. We hire very-experienced EV engineers and use the highest level of electric components, such as batteries and motors you would see in EVs from OEM manufacturers such as Rimac or Lotus.”

The gauges look like Porsche items, but are altered to monitor battery performance
Everrati

Lunny says that Everrati puts motor and batteries in the back, where Porsche located the engine and transmission on its 911s, with more batteries and power electronics up front, where the original gas tank resided.

U.K. customer cars will still make the trek to California. Lunny explains that right-hand-drive 911s are sourced in Britain and shipped to the U.S., where they’re stripped to the chassis and slowly built up with the new carbon-fibre panels. They then go back to the U.K. for finishing.

“EV is not the only answer, but we do believe it will become the predominate powertrain,” Lunny says.

The company concentrates on a few models, but it’s willing to entertain bespoke one-off commissions, such as an electric Lamborghini for a customer in the Middle East. Such projects require a huge engineering commitment, and the resulting vehicle isn’t by any means inexpensive, costing US$500,000 or more. But it will be fully developed as an EV.

Porsche, too, is mostly going electric, with plans to have EVs make up more than 80% of new car sales by 2030. In 2021, more than 40% of the cars delivered in Europe were at least partly electric, either plug-in hybrids or full EVs. The 911 has no plans for full electrification, though a hybrid version appears likely. Lunny himself drives a battery-powered Porsche Taycan.

AI agents like Muse can already find you the cheapest hotel room in Paris. But they can’t locate a cheaper version of that Catskills cabin you’ve been eyeing, because it might only be available on Airbnb ABNB -1.43%decrease.

Investors should pay attention to that distinction. When Meta Platforms META 3.38%increase launched its Muse agent last month, travel stocks including Booking Holdings BKNG -1.19%decrease, Expedia and Airbnb all fell sharply.

Airbnb, though, has a real chance to emerge as a winner from the upheaval. The catch: Its stock already reflects above-industry growth. To justify its valuation, Airbnb will need to turn repeat customers into loyal ones.

Online travel companies make much of their money by simplifying search and collecting fees on bookings. AI agents threaten that model.

But not all travel marketplaces are equally exposed. Booking and Expedia largely sell hotel rooms that travelers can also book directly or through competing sites. If an agent can find the same room elsewhere, it has little reason to favor either Booking or Expedia.

Booking and Expedia also sell sponsored listings that steer travelers toward particular properties. Wells Fargo estimates those will account for about 8% of Expedia’s revenue and a much higher percentage of profit next year.

Airbnb has more ways to adapt. More than half its listings are available only on its platform, and more than 90% of its traffic comes directly to its app or website.

The customer relationship doesn’t end after booking, either. Bernstein analyst Richard Clarke notes that 90% of Airbnb guests go on to message their hosts about arrival times, keys or local taxes, giving Airbnb a connection to both sides of the transaction.

How the companies have responded to the possible agentic future is telling.

Expedia quickly signed on as a Muse partner. Airbnb hasn’t, and Chief Executive Brian Chesky says AI chatbots have so far been a boon, sending customers to Airbnb’s website.

Chatbots might work for buying paper towels, he quipped at a Skift conference last month, but people enjoy planning trips. He argued that browsing dozens of homes isn’t something a text-based chatbot is well suited for.

Still, the AI jitters arrived just as Airbnb was persuading investors it deserved its pricey multiple. For years after its 2020 initial public offering, the stock—which trades around 25 to 30 times forward earnings—went nowhere. Investors saw a mature operator trading at a growth premium.

This year, Airbnb growth seems to be accelerating. The stock jumped in August after the company raised its full-year revenue-growth guidance with its second-quarter results. Wells Fargo analyst Ken Gawrelski credits a run of product improvements under a revamped leadership team.

Among the changes: letting guests reserve now and pay later, adding hotels, and a redesigned home page and app. Investors were also betting on what comes next, including thousands more hotels, car rentals and, eventually, advertising.

The irony is that some of those growth drivers push Airbnb closer to the kind of business Booking and Expedia run—the kind of business AI agents could threaten. Even if AI agents capture a large share of travel planning and booking, Airbnb would capture the demand. But it and others would slowly lose control over how customers find and choose properties.

That would undermine the advertising opportunity investors are counting on. The bigger point for Airbnb and other marketplaces is that losing control of customer acquisition could mean surrendering some of their pricing power and margins.

To bulletproof itself, Airbnb might look to another e-commerce giant that has so far kept AI agents at arm’s length: Amazon.

Like Amazon, Airbnb has a loyal customer base and hard-to-match supply. But it has nothing like Prime membership to make customers think twice before taking their business elsewhere.

That is where loyalty comes in. Business travelers stick with Hilton or Marriott because enough nights earn them perks. Leisure travelers rarely accumulate stays with one chain. Airbnb has millions of listings and plenty of repeat customers, but no broad rewards program. It has begun experimenting with credits on hotel stays, but it should make loyalty a priority, not just a promotion.

Airbnb also plans to launch its own AI agent next year. But travelers using an agent might still want it to search Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking and hotel websites alike, rather than limit itself to one company’s inventory.

Eventually, Airbnb might have to strike deals with agent makers, using its unique homes as leverage to negotiate favorable terms, says Gawrelski. Such deals, along with rewards for loyal guests, could over the long term eat into the company’s roughly 13% take rate, he adds. But if they bring in enough additional bookings, the trade-off could be worthwhile.

History offers a reason not to panic. The shift from desktop to mobile unsettled investors in Alphabet and Amazon, but both emerged as major beneficiaries. Companies with valuable assets can come out of a platform shift stronger, if they adapt quickly enough.

Airbnb has homes the bots can’t easily replace. Now it needs to give guests a reason to insist on booking them there.

Everrati Builds the Electric Porsche 911 of Your Dreams

AI-powered travel agents are challenging online booking platforms, but Airbnb’s exclusive listings and direct customer relationships could give it an edge. Its next challenge: turning repeat guests into loyal customers through stronger rewards and innovation.