Hundreds of Porsche units across Russia have suddenly shut down

Imagine waking up to start your day, having some breakfast, freshening up, and then starting your car to go about your day. Unfortunately, for several Porsche owners in Russia, they had one heck of a rude awakening.

Hundreds of Porsches in Russia have suddenly been rendered immobilized after owners reported that their vehicles failed to start or locked them out. Based on multiple reports, several Porsche owners shared that they were not able to start the engine or that the car soon shut down after starting. Meanwhile, others stated that they have been locked out of their Porsche vehicles.

According to Rolf, Russia's largest dealership group, the issue appears to stem from affected cars losing connection to their onboard alarms, which are linked via satellite. On the other hand, some owners' groups said the problem appears to be tied to the Vehicle Tracking System (VTS), which is an onboard security module.

Some Porsche Macan owners were able to start their vehicles again after resetting or disabling the onboard VTS. Some dealerships were also able to restore function to certain Porsche vehicles by manually resetting the alarm units.

So far, it appears Russia is the only country being affected by the issue. This led a representative from Russia's largest dealership group to state that the root cause could be deliberate sabotage.

For now, Porsche itself has yet to release any statements regarding the issue affecting Russian customers. However, the issue only appears to affect models built after 2013, which all come with the aforementioned VTS anti-theft system. When the VTS loses satellite connection, the system interprets this as a potential theft happening and immobilizes the engine of the vehicle.