If you were CEO of Porsche AG how would you fix it? - Page 4 - Porsche General - PistonHeads UK

Serious question, not just a dump on the mistakes, EV strategy and the like: This seems to me to be a pivotal time for the company: Challenges are: -Chinese market collapse. -Miscue on EVs. -Parent company trying to cut product lines in half and cut 100k jobs. -Margins drops from industry-leading to almost zero. -Lots of new competitive product from China, Korea and Japan -Increasing pressure from US to build product there rather than import. -labour costs are much higher than foreign competition. -China making inroads into European markets. Congratulations! you are the new CEO and the stock is already in the dumpster. Investors are screaming. Now, you actually have to do something, initially in the next 90 days and then come up with a 12 month plan. What practical actions do you take??

By the way I would divide this into emergency stuff and long term: (1) Major staff cuts now, protect engineering/development. If necessary take a strike. (2 )Seek a software partner for new product and learn from. Ferrari mess. (3) Merge Taycan/Panamera and Cayenne/Macan (4) Careful look at AI for production and development. Dangerous stuff as Ford found out, but critical as the competition from China is all over it Need to slash development times. (5) 911 is a cash cow but 992 is getting long in the tooth. Hard review on successor platform and whether it can regain its traditional car of the year, Ring lap times etc. Do it at a lower cost. (6) Key decision on market position- do you go upmarket and play the Ferrari game in which case you shed the volume products. If you do you have enough left to support that company? (7) Start to pray. Edited by RDMcG on Saturday 11th July 19:32 Edited by RDMcG on Saturday 11th July 19:32

How do you make your brand and products stand out and justify a premium in a world of electric motors and batteries which are basically commodities. If Evian can brand water Porsche can brand cars. The key issue is the future is devoid of emotion and they all perform well ( in a straight line and lest fasecis as a turbo s owner how often can I use any of the engineering I have paid for ). So low cost must be a major feature.

If someone walks into a dealers and asks to buy a GT product sell them one...take advantage of a model people want to buy. Value for money on cooking models...on a £100,000 car no way should you have to spec options that come standard on a Kia. There needs to be an entry level car...get a new ICE Cayman and Boxster back in the range pronto. And stop ripping us off with the cost of servicing...that's why owners use independents instead of dealers, attract them back in house.

They seem to have cracked it no, release umpteen versions of their most expensive 911 TX.

RDMcG said: Serious question, not just a dump on the mistakes, EV strategy and the like: This seems to me to be a pivotal time for the company: Challenges are: -Chinese market collapse. -Miscue on EVs. -Parent company trying to cut product lines in half and cut 100k jobs. -Margins drops from industry-leading to almost zero. -Lots of new competitive product from China, Korea and Japan -Increasing pressure from US to build product there rather than import. -labour costs are much higher than foreign competition. -China making inroads into European markets. Congratulations! you are the new CEO and the stock is already in the dumpster. Investors are screaming. Now, you actually have to do something, initially in the next 90 days and then come up with a 12 month plan. What practical actions do you take?? I think Porsche is a spent force. They've been dining out on their history for nearly thirty years, and trying to become all things to all men by making all shapes and sizes of car with their badge on. I am only slightly surprised they haven't launched a light commercial vehicle. It has diluted the desirability. Seeing new Porsche now barely registers. That, coupled with the fact that people haven't got so much money now and I am struggling to think what a comeback looks like. It won't look like the past thirty years, that is for sure.

As a porker owner who’s tried a few Chinese vehicles mainly SUV’s I’m not going to pay double for a basic German anymore.

As much as I really hate to say this, but a small hybrid SUV. Base it off one of the Cupras. VAG really need a good hybrid system. Stick that in it. Buy it from Toyota or Volvo/Geely if you have to. Then rub some Porsche magic over the suspension setup to somehow make it at least feel sporty. Then wrap it in Porsche marketing to make it seem appealing. Then make it affordable. It's the same trick that they played with the Cayenne, just at a lower market segment. They'll have to accept lower margins and get the revenue through volume. The 911 is required as a halo, but they'll never sell enough to keep the company alive. Their biggest problem is sunk cost. They're just going to have to take some massive write-downs - economically and reputationally. Axe the Boxster and Cayman - both ICE and the new EV. Maybe partner / buy-out the Caterham/Yamaha EV to get a small, cheap(ish) and fun EV. Axe the Cayenne. Axe the Taycan. Maybe hang onto the EV Macan to meet their manufacturer CO2 requirements. Axe the ICE Macan. Why do they have two Macans anyway...

Taking this seriously as a Porsche turnaround exercise, my answer is that I would not start by announcing another grand EV strategy. Porsche's 2025 operating return on sales fell from 14.1% to 1.1%, with operating profit of only €413 million; China sales fell 26% in 2025 and the shares have roughly halved since the 2022 listing. Those are turnaround numbers, not a minor cyclical wobble. My first 90 days 1. Stop pretending volume is the objective My first instruction would be: We are not trying to sell 300,000 Porsches. We are trying to make exceptional returns selling Porsches. I would immediately review profitability model by model, derivative by derivative and market by market. Anything that is low margin, low volume and adds disproportionate engineering or homologation complexity gets a death sentence. Not in five years. Now. The wider VW Group is already looking at cutting its model offering by up to half and reducing production capacity, against the backdrop of possible cuts of up to 100,000 jobs. Porsche cannot operate as though that restructuring is somebody else's problem. 2. Put the EV ideology in the bin Not EVs. EV ideology. I would formally state that Porsche is powertrain agnostic. Customer demand decides the mix. 911 stays combustion for as long as legally and economically possible. Cayenne gets ICE, hybrid and EV where commercially viable. Panamera stays ICE/PHEV. Macan EV continues, but its economics and pricing get torn apart. Boxster/Cayman would be reviewed immediately. If making them exclusively electric destroys demand or brand desirability, I reverse it. Porsche has already incurred enormous costs changing its EV trajectory, including a €3.9 billion charge associated with the strategy reversal. My view would be: take the embarrassment once rather than defend the mistake for another decade. 3. China gets its own war room I would stop treating China as "Europe, but Chinese". Dedicated Chinese product, software and customer-experience team. Based in China. Reporting directly to me. I would hire senior people from BYD, Xiaomi, Nio, Li Auto and Huawei. Not consultants. Actual product people. I'd ask one question: Why would a wealthy 35-year-old Chinese buyer spend twice as much on our car? And I wouldn't accept "heritage" as the answer. Chinese EV-native manufacturers have become exceptionally good at software, rapid product iteration and matching local consumer expectations. That's a central reason traditional German manufacturers are being punished there. My answer may actually be that Porsche should become smaller in China. That's an acceptable conclusion. What isn't acceptable is discounting £100,000 cars to defend a market-share PowerPoint. 4. Immediate cost and complexity purge I would demand a 90-day report showing: every management layer, every committee, every platform dependency, every external consultancy contract and every project consuming more than €10m. Then start deleting. I'd set a target of removing 20–25% of corporate decision layers and committees, not necessarily 25% of engineers. Porsche's problem isn't that it employs too many people capable of engineering a suspension system. I suspect it employs too many people involved in approving the meeting to discuss the suspension system. The objective is: idea → engineering decision → prototype → production in half the current time. 5. Freeze vanity projects Anything that doesn't: A) make money B) improve the product C) materially strengthen Porsche desirability is frozen. Brand experiences, speculative digital ventures, lifestyle projects and obscure software initiatives all get challenged. I wouldn't cancel them blindly. But the person responsible gets 20 minutes to explain the return. No return? Gone. 6. USA: make a decision Porsche was hit by approximately €700 million of US tariff costs in 2025, according to its reported results and subsequent reporting. I would immediately commission a US manufacturing feasibility programme. But I wouldn't build a Porsche factory in America simply because Trump shouted at me. I'd investigate using existing VW Group capacity for final assembly of the Cayenne and potentially Macan. 911, GT cars and core sports cars stay German. That's important. A US-built Cayenne is commercially defensible. A US-built GT3 risks damaging something incredibly valuable for comparatively little benefit. Then the 12-month plan 1. Re-establish what Porsche actually is This would be my product hierarchy: 911 — the brand 718 — accessible sports car Cayenne — profit engine Macan — younger/customer acquisition car Panamera — specialist luxury GT That's it. Every product must have a clearly defined job. I would be extremely sceptical about endless additional SUVs, seven-seat derivatives and niche EV products. Porsche doesn't need to fill every segment. Scarcity is an asset. 2. Fix software by admitting Porsche shouldn't build everything I'd be ruthless here. Porsche does not need to write every line of code. Buy commodity technology. Partner for infotainment. Partner for AI. Partner for autonomous systems. Use VW Group platforms where customers genuinely don't care. Then spend Porsche money on: steering feel brake calibration powertrain response chassis control seat position vehicle dynamics design. The customer doesn't care whether Stuttgart wrote the Bluetooth stack. They care if their £130,000 Porsche feels special. 3. Massively increase derivative profitability Porsche has historically been brilliant at this. I would double down. GTS. Turbo. Turbo S. GT. RS. Heritage. Exclusive Manufaktur. Paint to Sample. But I would impose discipline. No fake "special edition" with a sticker pack and £30,000 premium. The wealthy customer is not stupid. The product has to have technical or genuine collectible integrity. 4. Reduce inventory and protect residuals I'd rather lose 30,000 units than train customers to wait for a 15% discount. Dealer stock gets aggressively managed. Production follows real orders much more closely. Porsche has to regain the situation where the customer thinks: Can I get one? rather than: What contribution are Porsche putting into the finance deal this quarter? That single psychological change matters enormously to a luxury manufacturer. 5. Change management incentives This is probably my most important change. Senior management bonuses would be based on: operating margin free cash flow residual values warranty cost development time customer retention Not raw registrations. Not EV percentage. Not number of models launched. You get the behaviour you financially incentivise. 6. Accept a smaller Porsche And this is where I think investors might initially hate me. I would publicly say: Porsche may sell fewer cars five years from now than previously planned. But I'd then say: We intend to make considerably more money on every Porsche we sell. Porsche's reported 1.1% operating return in 2025 is utterly incompatible with the economics investors historically associated with the brand. The company itself has said its current realignment is intended to make it leaner and restore earnings power. My blunt CEO diagnosis would be this: Porsche has started behaving like a large car company that happens to own a luxury badge. I'd reverse that. It should behave like a luxury sports-car company that happens to manufacture at meaningful scale. I honestly think the biggest strategic mistake would be chasing BYD and Xiaomi at their own game. Porsche will never beat China by being a more expensive, slower-moving Chinese technology company. I'd make it smaller, faster, less complex and much more arrogant about what deserves to wear a Porsche badge. And, genuinely, I'd be prepared to take two absolutely horrific quarters to do it. Because the stock is already in the dumpster. That's precisely when you do the painful stuff.

Too much ai slop on ph.

limpsfield said: Too much ai slop on ph. Yep - Just wanged it in and that's what it spat out. That said, BMW have emerged very profitable with less volume sales. They promoted their M brand introduced neue klasse to reset and distinguish their brand Porsche cant just carry on with the same stuff as frankly when the world becomes EV only they can't just rely on being Porsche

Porsche have to focused on their USP and get some volume sellers in their line up. They’ve chased margins with huge prices increases combined with huge increases in financing costs and lost a lot of customers as a result, Driving dynamics/engineering and their heritage. As others have said trying to compete with the Chinese is folly, I imagine the next generation of Chinese SUV’s will make life extremely uncomfortable for the European OEM’s. I don’t think the market really wants a £100k Boxster it wants a more affordable 911. Make that more affordable 911 a sports car rather than the GT feel 992’s. I test drove an early 992 S and thought it was a very dull 911 to drive at normal road speeds Focus on making the next ICE Boxster a genuinely superb drivers car and price it where it will deliver much needed sales volumes…it was previously a much lower volume seller than the 911. Design it in such a way that they can deliver a genuinely lightweight version to aim at the enthusiast. They’d sell as many as they could make. Ice Macan has already been withdrawn from sale, I think it’s got much more chance of resisting the Chinese than the Macan EV….again I’d focus on the driving experience. In general they need to keep the accountants out of the room and let the engineers build cars….amazingly increasing prices by 20 to 30% whilst delivering cars of noticeably lower build quality hasn’t worked.

Cheib said: Driving dynamics/engineering and their heritage. In general they need to keep the accountants out of the room and let the engineers build cars .amazingly increasing prices by 20 to 30% whilst delivering cars of noticeably lower build quality hasn t worked. I agree completelythat the 911 needs to be distinguishable not just be raw performance but by the experience of a very communicative,driver-focused car that reflects its history. One of the challenges will be to build this product that is exciting while meeting the plethora of EU regulations. Very small high end people like (say) Koenigsegg or Pagani at the very top end of the market do not have as many compliance regulations I believe. Porsche does not have that luxury. If course we are looking at the company from the outside and do not have a clear roadmap of future products. Beyond the 992 which is at the advanced end of its evolution there is no information even directionally.

That's got to be the underlying question: volume, or profit margin? If we accept that they exist to make money via selling cars, then should they be selling lots of low volume, low profit cars, or a few high margin, high profit cars?? I doubt its going to be the former. As people are used to buying the cheapest car they can and who cares about the brand. So that leaves high margin. We've see the Silverstone edition 911. Will there be a 911 GT3 RS R Silverstone club version, with the 1000km pack, florio pack, Vic Elford pack and ...

Say “by building fewer numbers of cars they will become more exclusive” then put the price up 20% Bring back a petrol macan and cayenne Focus on rich and emerging markets that don’t have salve labour to build their own, like the UAE, Australia and emerging markets Bring out a cheap model like they did last time they where in trouble and the time before that etc Learn that endless growth and more and more sales does not fit in a world of high inflation and high costs.

Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning)

thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) Probably not. And that needs to change, if there are buyers, sell them a car. And as above, bring back petrol Macans and cayennes. The most successful model variants and you stop selling them? Madness.

Bring back the ICE option back. Use the golf as a platform to produce a hot hatch.

If I was CEO I would introduce a 912. A budget version that will fly off the shelves (so to speak) A Porsche-bodied Audi TT/TTS with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. Porsche could retain much of the MQB floor structure, bulkhead, windscreen position, drivetrain and suspension mounting points. A more expensive 912 S could use the TTS s quattro system. Retail for £57,500. For every one 911, you'd sell ten 912's through affordability into the brand without compromise. and my second move would be to back bring Pinky Lai in as chief designer. Edited by Jones the cat on Sunday 12th July 04:14

Jones the cat said: If I was CEO I would introduce a 912. A budget version that will fly off the shelves (so to speak) A Porsche-bodied Audi TT/TTS with a 2.0-litre four-cylinder petrol engine. Porsche could retain much of the MQB floor structure, bulkhead, windscreen position, drivetrain and suspension mounting points. A more expensive 912 S could use the TTS s quattro system. Retail for £57,500. For every one 911, you'd sell ten 912's through affordability into the brand without compromise. and my second move would be to back bring Pinky Lai in as chief designer. Edited by Jones the cat on Sunday 12th July 04:14 They almost did that years back when there were rumours that they were going to adopt the VW BlueSport roadster concept.

darreni said: thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) Probably not. And that needs to change, if there are buyers, sell them a car. And as above, bring back petrol Macans and cayennes. The most successful model variants and you stop selling them? Madness. Bring back diesel I say

darreni said: thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) Probably not. And that needs to change, if there are buyers, sell them a car. I rest my case.

thebraketester said: darreni said: thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) Probably not. And that needs to change, if there are buyers, sell them a car. I rest my case. It wouldn't help them. It would destroy the brand still further.

Dog Biscuit said: Taking this seriously as a Porsche turnaround exercise, my answer is that I would not start by announcing another grand EV strategy. Porsche's 2025 operating return on sales fell from 14.1% to 1.1%, with operating profit of only 413 million; China sales fell 26% in 2025 and the shares have roughly halved since the 2022 listing. Those are turnaround numbers, not a minor cyclical wobble. My first 90 days 1. Stop pretending volume is the objective My first instruction would be: We are not trying to sell 300,000 Porsches. We are trying to make exceptional returns selling Porsches. I would immediately review profitability model by model, derivative by derivative and market by market. Anything that is low margin, low volume and adds disproportionate engineering or homologation complexity gets a death sentence. Not in five years. Now. The wider VW Group is already looking at cutting its model offering by up to half and reducing production capacity, against the backdrop of possible cuts of up to 100,000 jobs. Porsche cannot operate as though that restructuring is somebody else's problem. 2. Put the EV ideology in the bin Not EVs. EV ideology. I would formally state that Porsche is powertrain agnostic. Customer demand decides the mix. 911 stays combustion for as long as legally and economically possible. Cayenne gets ICE, hybrid and EV where commercially viable. Panamera stays ICE/PHEV. Macan EV continues, but its economics and pricing get torn apart. Boxster/Cayman would be reviewed immediately. If making them exclusively electric destroys demand or brand desirability, I reverse it. Porsche has already incurred enormous costs changing its EV trajectory, including a 3.9 billion charge associated with the strategy reversal. My view would be: take the embarrassment once rather than defend the mistake for another decade. 3. China gets its own war room I would stop treating China as "Europe, but Chinese". Dedicated Chinese product, software and customer-experience team. Based in China. Reporting directly to me. I would hire senior people from BYD, Xiaomi, Nio, Li Auto and Huawei. Not consultants. Actual product people. I'd ask one question: Why would a wealthy 35-year-old Chinese buyer spend twice as much on our car? And I wouldn't accept "heritage" as the answer. Chinese EV-native manufacturers have become exceptionally good at software, rapid product iteration and matching local consumer expectations. That's a central reason traditional German manufacturers are being punished there. My answer may actually be that Porsche should become smaller in China. That's an acceptable conclusion. What isn't acceptable is discounting £100,000 cars to defend a market-share PowerPoint. 4. Immediate cost and complexity purge I would demand a 90-day report showing: every management layer, every committee, every platform dependency, every external consultancy contract and every project consuming more than 10m. Then start deleting. I'd set a target of removing 20 25% of corporate decision layers and committees, not necessarily 25% of engineers. Porsche's problem isn't that it employs too many people capable of engineering a suspension system. I suspect it employs too many people involved in approving the meeting to discuss the suspension system. The objective is: idea ? engineering decision ? prototype ? production in half the current time. 5. Freeze vanity projects Anything that doesn't: A) make money B) improve the product C) materially strengthen Porsche desirability is frozen. Brand experiences, speculative digital ventures, lifestyle projects and obscure software initiatives all get challenged. I wouldn't cancel them blindly. But the person responsible gets 20 minutes to explain the return. No return? Gone. 6. USA: make a decision Porsche was hit by approximately 700 million of US tariff costs in 2025, according to its reported results and subsequent reporting. I would immediately commission a US manufacturing feasibility programme. But I wouldn't build a Porsche factory in America simply because Trump shouted at me. I'd investigate using existing VW Group capacity for final assembly of the Cayenne and potentially Macan. 911, GT cars and core sports cars stay German. That's important. A US-built Cayenne is commercially defensible. A US-built GT3 risks damaging something incredibly valuable for comparatively little benefit. Then the 12-month plan 1. Re-establish what Porsche actually is This would be my product hierarchy: 911 the brand 718 accessible sports car Cayenne profit engine Macan younger/customer acquisition car Panamera specialist luxury GT That's it. Every product must have a clearly defined job. I would be extremely sceptical about endless additional SUVs, seven-seat derivatives and niche EV products. Porsche doesn't need to fill every segment. Scarcity is an asset. 2. Fix software by admitting Porsche shouldn't build everything I'd be ruthless here. Porsche does not need to write every line of code. Buy commodity technology. Partner for infotainment. Partner for AI. Partner for autonomous systems. Use VW Group platforms where customers genuinely don't care. Then spend Porsche money on: steering feel brake calibration powertrain response chassis control seat position vehicle dynamics design. The customer doesn't care whether Stuttgart wrote the Bluetooth stack. They care if their £130,000 Porsche feels special. 3. Massively increase derivative profitability Porsche has historically been brilliant at this. I would double down. GTS. Turbo. Turbo S. GT. RS. Heritage. Exclusive Manufaktur. Paint to Sample. But I would impose discipline. No fake "special edition" with a sticker pack and £30,000 premium. The wealthy customer is not stupid. The product has to have technical or genuine collectible integrity. 4. Reduce inventory and protect residuals I'd rather lose 30,000 units than train customers to wait for a 15% discount. Dealer stock gets aggressively managed. Production follows real orders much more closely. Porsche has to regain the situation where the customer thinks: Can I get one? rather than: What contribution are Porsche putting into the finance deal this quarter? That single psychological change matters enormously to a luxury manufacturer. 5. Change management incentives This is probably my most important change. Senior management bonuses would be based on: operating margin free cash flow residual values warranty cost development time customer retention Not raw registrations. Not EV percentage. Not number of models launched. You get the behaviour you financially incentivise. 6. Accept a smaller Porsche And this is where I think investors might initially hate me. I would publicly say: Porsche may sell fewer cars five years from now than previously planned. But I'd then say: We intend to make considerably more money on every Porsche we sell. Porsche's reported 1.1% operating return in 2025 is utterly incompatible with the economics investors historically associated with the brand. The company itself has said its current realignment is intended to make it leaner and restore earnings power. My blunt CEO diagnosis would be this: Porsche has started behaving like a large car company that happens to own a luxury badge. I'd reverse that. It should behave like a luxury sports-car company that happens to manufacture at meaningful scale. I honestly think the biggest strategic mistake would be chasing BYD and Xiaomi at their own game. Porsche will never beat China by being a more expensive, slower-moving Chinese technology company. I'd make it smaller, faster, less complex and much more arrogant about what deserves to wear a Porsche badge. And, genuinely, I'd be prepared to take two absolutely horrific quarters to do it. Because the stock is already in the dumpster. That's precisely when you do the painful stuff. Fixed it for you. You need a subscription to Claude The numbers are grim—2025 operating return on sales fell from 14.1% to 1.1%, China sales down 26%, shares roughly halved since 2022. This needs surgery, not tinkering. Stop chasing volume: make exceptional returns on each car, and cut anything low-margin and complexity-heavy now. Go powertrain-agnostic—let demand set the mix, keep the 911 combustion, and stop defending the EV strategy that already cost a €3.9bn reversal charge. Give China its own product team based in China, and accept being smaller there rather than discounting £100k cars to hold market share. Purge the committees, not the engineers—halve the time from idea to production. On the US (hit by ~€700m in tariffs), explore VW Group assembly for the Cayenne, but keep the 911 and GT cars German. Protect residuals: follow real orders, refuse to train customers to wait for discounts. Don't try to out-tech BYD and Xiaomi—buy commodity software and spend where it shows: steering, chassis, design. Tie bonuses to margin, cash flow and residuals, not registrations. Porsche has started acting like a big car company that owns a luxury badge. It should act like a luxury sports-car maker that happens to build at scale—even at the cost of two ugly quarters.

Furbo said: thebraketester said: darreni said: thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) Probably not. And that needs to change, if there are buyers, sell them a car. I rest my case. It wouldn't help them. It would destroy the brand still further. Yes you can, it might take you an hour of ringing around, but there are winged cars build slots available.. Also while you re on the phone you might get offered a Touring or two that someone has pulled out of cause they can t flip them for a profit anymore..

RDMcG said: Serious question, not just a dump on the mistakes, EV strategy and the like: This seems to me to be a pivotal time for the company: Challenges are: -Chinese market collapse. -Miscue on EVs. -Parent company trying to cut product lines in half and cut 100k jobs. -Margins drops from industry-leading to almost zero. -Lots of new competitive product from China, Korea and Japan -Increasing pressure from US to build product there rather than import. -labour costs are much higher than foreign competition. -China making inroads into European markets. Congratulations! you are the new CEO and the stock is already in the dumpster. Investors are screaming. Now, you actually have to do something, initially in the next 90 days and then come up with a 12 month plan. What practical actions do you take?? Re: 90-day / 12-month plan as new CEO Fair question, and a genuinely hard one. Here's my take. First 90 days: Stop the margin bleed before anything else. Pause new EV platform spend and freeze any hybrid programme investment too, don't just trim, freeze. Sunk cost is sunk either way, but the ongoing burn on multiple powertrain strategies at once is what's killing margins. Do a full line by line portfolio review. Anything outside the brand's core USP gets killed or sold off, no sacred cows. This is the moment to admit the company spread itself too thin trying to be all things to all markets. Get in front of investors fast with a plan that's credible and boring rather than a big flashy pivot. Markets punish uncertainty more than they punish bad news they can price in. Start quiet conversations with US policymakers and customers about localised production now, before it's forced on you later on worse terms. On EVs and hybrids Agree with the original post, the EV strategy has been a miscue and the ICE ban timelines being softened or pushed back gives real cover to correct course. But I'd go further than just canning EVs, I'd can hybrid too rather than using it as a halfway house. Hybrid complexity eats margin without giving you a clean story. You end up carrying two powertrains' worth of engineering, tooling and parts inventory for a segment that's increasingly a stopgap rather than a destination. If the ICE bans are genuinely being relaxed or pushed out indefinitely, the company is better served doubling down on what it's actually known for rather than hedging in the middle and doing neither well. 12 month plan: 1. Rationalise the lineup around core USP models only, the ICE product where the brand has genuine engineering heritage and pricing power. Everything else gets cut, badge engineering, EV halo cars, hybrid trims, all of it. 2. Reinvest the freed up capex into making the ICE core class-leading again, refinement, efficiency, performance, the things Chinese and Korean rivals can't easily copy overnight. That's a stronger differentiator than chasing them into EVs where they already have a cost and battery supply chain advantage. 3. The labour cost gap doesn't close in 12 months by moving jobs around alone. More realistic is productivity and automation investment plus renegotiating where you genuinely can. 4. In China, compete on brand and driving credibility rather than price or EV tech. You will lose a straight price or EV arms race there every time. The risk people will raise is regulatory whiplash if bans come back. Fair, but a company can't run a 5 year product strategy hedging against every possible policy swing. Better to be excellent at one thing than mediocre at three. Updated to add: https://www.thetimes.com/business/companies-market... Bans certainty to be relaxed / extended despite the continual nonsense eternally spewed by the eco-zealots. Edited by Mar5hall on Sunday 12th July 10:50

Bizarrely I think I saw what was coming for Porsche more that 11 years ago when I asked this question https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&... In my view the answer to the OPs question in this instance is quite simple. Focus on what you're good at and get rid of everything else. If it's better than anything else at the right price and quality it will sell like hotcakes. They've been here before and came out with some remarkable products which saved the business on more than one occasion. The second part of the answer is that if you manage to achieve the first goal, don't get greedy and recognise that a long term customer is far more valuable than you seem to think they are at the moment.

thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) I am not so sure. I give you Ferrari,Rolex,Hermes and others who also have limited product where people will do all sorts of contortions or pay massive premiums for a given model which tends to promote the perceived exclusivity of the brand across the general range.

This is an interesting video on the subject https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mySbDj4M0-A

Just get their salespeople to call you back would be a reasonable strategy point . Despite being with the same OPC for 30 years , all my sales and servicing there , they never call back . Also massive turnover of sales staff . Products are fine but service is simply terrible .

thebraketester said: Can I walk into a Porsche dealer and order a 911 GT3 right now? (Well... Monday morning) I think if you call a few dealers in Germany you can order one. Friend of mine just did, but it is a Q2 2027 build slot (PTS Touring)

I think I would pivot back to being predominately a sports car brand with much lower volume and much higher margin per car. It will hurt for a while, but hopefully with time you can get closer to the P/E ratio of a luxury brand as opposed to the multiple of a car brand. It would also mean, I'd probably actually be interested in their new products again - now it seems there is a Porsche at every street corner, even my dad has a Cayenne Hybrid as company car - that would not have happened 20 years ago as he would not be willing to show up at a client's place in a Porsche. I read somewhere that Koenigsegg is valued at something like 1bn, that must be a huge multiple on profit (and probably on revenue as well), obviously not a good comp, but at least try to get closer to Ferrari (not that they do not have their own issues to deal with)

It is a product led business..Porsche have a very strong brand but it is not Ferrari and never will be. Porsche have to remember why people buy their cars and deliver that experience. They got greedy ahead of IPO and went for significant price increases combined with big volume increases and the accountants specifying build quality…..not something many companies in any sector have pulled off successfully. Customers have got burnt financially, cost of ownership for people buying on finance has doubled and seen the quality of the product decline markedly. Pure EV’s like 718 and Macan were a disaster because that is not what Porsche buyers wanted….it is easy to say that it is a wider problem with the EV market…that is a secondary issue….Porsche customers never wanted an EV Boxster. Make cars people want and they will buy them. Taycan seems dead in the water. Sales collapsing, the Tursimo versions pulled because of a lack of U.S. demand which anecdotally seem to be very popular in Europe. Packaging of the 4 door is s te for a 5m long car in my opinion. Panamera is a great barge but have no idea why they make them. The immediate problem they have is that for two or three years there’s no ICE Macan ot Boxster/Cayman to sell. That’s a huge percentage of their sales volume. They have two cars people really want to buy at the moment the Cayenne and the 911.

MDL111 said: I think I would pivot back to being predominately a sports car brand with much lower volume and much higher margin per car. It will hurt for a while, but hopefully with time you can get closer to the P/E ratio of a luxury brand as opposed to the multiple of a car brand. It would also mean, I'd probably actually be interested in their new products again - now it seems there is a Porsche at every street corner, even my dad has a Cayenne Hybrid as company car - that would not have happened 20 years ago as he would not be willing to show up at a client's place in a Porsche. I read somewhere that Koenigsegg is valued at something like 1bn, that must be a huge multiple on profit (and probably on revenue as well), obviously not a good comp, but at least try to get closer to Ferrari (not that they do not have their own issues to deal with) There probably isn't the demand per 911 to support that 'much higher margin per car' as the 'typical' 911 buyer isn't going to stomach paying Ferrari level amounts for the car I think. Porsche's commercial success has been built on being a SUV maker (that's perceived as being 'better' and more 'high-end') with a sideline in sports cars. Any fix for PAG mainly revolves around fixing the former while ensuring the latter keeps up the supposed Porsche halo that feeds into that.

Just had an AI summarise the thread with the most popular suggestions, results are quite telling... 1. Reverse or de-prioritize the EV push Near-universal agreement that going pure-EV on 718/Macan was a mistake, since core buyers didn't want electric versions of those cars. Suggestions range from "powertrain agnostic, let demand decide" (Dog Biscuit) to "kill EV and hybrid both, go all-in on ICE while regulations soften" (Mar5hall). 2. Shrink to grow: fewer cars, higher margin, embrace scarcity The dominant theme across nearly every serious poster (Dog Biscuit, Mar5hall, Voodoo Blue, MDL111, Cheib). The argument: Porsche chased volume ahead of/after its IPO, diluted the brand, and now has margins collapsing (1.1% operating return vs 14.1% prior year cited in one post). The fix is to cut low-margin, high-complexity derivatives, accept selling fewer cars, and make more profit per unit — closer to a Ferrari/Rolex model than a mass manufacturer. 3. China needs its own strategy, not more discounting Multiple posts argue China should get a dedicated, locally-run product/software team rather than exported European thinking, and that it's acceptable to become smaller in China rather than discount six-figure cars to defend share. 4. Cut internal bureaucracy, speed up decision cycles Dog Biscuit's post specifically targets management layers and committees (not engineers) to compress the idea-to-production timeline. 5. Protect residual values / stop overproducing Several posts (Dog Biscuit, Cheib) want production tied tightly to real orders so customers are chasing availability, not waiting for discounts — seen as core to luxury-brand psychology. 6. US tariffs → selective local assembly Suggestion to assemble profit-driver models like Cayenne in existing VW Group US plants, while keeping 911/GT cars German-built for brand integrity. Side debate (less strategic, more anecdotal): A recurring sub-thread argues about whether you can actually walk in and order a 911 GT3 today — some say no, others say a phone call gets you a build slot or even a Touring someone's flipping. Tied to the broader "can you even buy the car you want" complaint, plus a couple of gripes about poor dealer service/communication (peterdent). Overall consensus: go back to being a smaller, more expensive, more desirable sports-car brand rather than a mass-market SUV company with a Porsche badge — echoing the classic Ferrari/Hermes exclusivity playbook a couple of posters name directly.

isaldiri said: MDL111 said: I think I would pivot back to being predominately a sports car brand with much lower volume and much higher margin per car. It will hurt for a while, but hopefully with time you can get closer to the P/E ratio of a luxury brand as opposed to the multiple of a car brand. It would also mean, I'd probably actually be interested in their new products again - now it seems there is a Porsche at every street corner, even my dad has a Cayenne Hybrid as company car - that would not have happened 20 years ago as he would not be willing to show up at a client's place in a Porsche. I read somewhere that Koenigsegg is valued at something like 1bn, that must be a huge multiple on profit (and probably on revenue as well), obviously not a good comp, but at least try to get closer to Ferrari (not that they do not have their own issues to deal with) There probably isn't the demand per 911 to support that 'much higher margin per car' as the 'typical' 911 buyer isn't going to stomach paying Ferrari level amounts for the car I think. Porsche's commercial success has been built on being a SUV maker (that's perceived as being 'better' and more 'high-end') with a sideline in sports cars. Any fix for PAG mainly revolves around fixing the former while ensuring the latter keeps up the supposed Porsche halo that feeds into that. I think you are correct, they won't get to Ferrari levels of margin / desirability. But a Turbo S costs about the same as a 296 (and I think quite a bit more than the Amalfi) list price, so the question will probably be if they can get their customers to do more customisation / spend more on high-margin options than they currently do [the trend seems to go in that direction with more PTS orders / different leather / various lightweigt packs etc]. I was thinking more shrink back to say 100-150k cars (not the 10-15k that Ferrari sells), something along the lines of 911 line [probably starting at the "S / GTS" level] Cayenne [only offering the Turbo and Turbo S to move the product line upmarket] a mid-engined car above the 911 competing with the Testarossa and Revuelto I suspect the ship has sailed for such a reversal in approach, but I think that would make the brand more attractive again. They do have the advantage that they can sell quite a lot of 911s, so there is a baseline figure of car sales to keep your factory running that the likes of Aston Martin, McLaren etc will never truly achieve.

Some rumours that there will be no 718 replacement apart from the EV. This strikes me as a major blow to the brand equity in the product.

Mar5hall said: Just had an AI summarise the thread with the most popular suggestions, results are quite telling... You missed the clear winner - to introduce a budget entry to the brand with a 912 model.

RDMcG said: Some rumours that there will be no 718 replacement apart from the EV. This strikes me as a major blow to the brand equity in the product. Like with the 944, models come and go.

Aren't Audi doing their own thing in China, with: China-only EV SUV: https://www.audi.com/en/press-releases/audi-e7x-ch... China-only EV Saloon: https://www.audi.com/en/press-releases/audi-e5-spo... Both being badge-engineered versions of SAIC product/platform, as far as I can tell. Maybe VAG need to transfer that thinking over to Porsche.

Fire all the OPCs (in the U.K.) and move to a direct to consumer model (like Tesla) and take ownership of fewer OPCs myself. I once had the pleasure of sitting next to a Dealer Principle of OPC Bordeaux (fully kitted out in Rothmans / Rough Roads ski gear which was naff) and he mentioned how despised UK dealers are in the rest of Europe. “They don’t sell cars, they just take orders and treat their customers badly” (in more colourful language). Oh and on product: they desperately need a hybrid Macan, Cayenne and Panamera for both the U.K. and American market)

Yeah, hybrid, preferably PHEV, is what I would suggest for the more comfy cars. Does someone spend £100k on a luxury car to then worry about paying 4p per kWh? I'm not in the market so maybe they do. I mean, I've spent under £10k on a PHEV and don't mind paying 28p per kWh. Ok, someone might argue that this exact mindset is why I can't drop £100k on a shopping car/MPV/rugrat van. Worry about 26p and the pounds look after themselves etc? I wish they'd do a PHEV to rival the Renault 5.

I 8 a 4RE said: Fire all the OPCs (in the U.K.) and move to a direct to consumer model (like Tesla) and take ownership of fewer OPCs myself. I once had the pleasure of sitting next to a Dealer Principle of OPC Bordeaux (fully kitted out in Rothmans / Rough Roads ski gear which was naff) and he mentioned how despised UK dealers are in the rest of Europe. They don t sell cars, they just take orders and treat their customers badly (in more colourful language). Oh and on product: they desperately need a hybrid Macan, Cayenne and Panamera for both the U.K. and American market) do you not have a hybrid Cayenne? My dad just bought one of those in Germany (new order, so definitely still for sale here)

Hoofy said: Yeah, hybrid, preferably PHEV, is what I would suggest for the more comfy cars. Does someone spend £100k on a luxury car to then worry about paying 4p per kWh? Our Macan EV has done 10k miles…costs about £5 to charge it. Does 300 miles on a charge So £165 to do 10k miles Our old petrol Macan did about 350 miles on an £80 fill at a petrol station. So it would have cost £2285 to do the same miles. I care !

Can it be fixed? Porsche obviously played a blinder from a business point of view with the Cayenne but that revenue generator is fading now. They would need to find another Cayenne to keep things going. Whatever that might be. They can tweak some things. More or less EVs, ditch some models, fire some people, do some specials and maybe go towards supercars, etc. But I can’t see it materially turning the business around to what it was.

Took a call on Friday, circa 170 unsold 992’s available in the uk all with large discounts. Short term Easy / fastest solution is to offer 0% or low rate finance, many need finance nobody is buying at 10.9/ 11.9/ 12.9% Then build what makes money and what people want, eg SC, ST, Gt3 club sport. I’d introduce a limited edition 992 Club sport, stripped out base 992 with door pulls, in white only, striped cloth, red wheels, sports suspension , sports seats. Medium I’d group options in to more affordable packs, as spec is adrift of market. I’d scale the colour palette for cars, increase PTS and make it slightly more affordable, so it’s taken on more cars and those cars are more individual. I’d introduce a 718 replacement in phev / ice / EV sharing a platform with group brands I’d consolidate panamera and taycan product lines and offer phev / EV Longer Term Introduce a 944/968 front engined coupe as an entry step in to the marque. I’d build an achingly desirable small suv as another entry step on a platform shared across group. I’d bin all the vw group plastic switchgear I’d bring out a limited run hypercar every 5 years to showcase the brand, akin to what Ferrari do.

Benno. Agree 100%!!!

bennno said: Introduce a 944/968 front engined coupe as an entry step in to the marque. Exactly that .... and a modern day budget 912

This is interesting. https://www.topgear.com/car-news/business/top-gear...

VW group Q2 results are grim...............https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/24/business/volkswagen-profit-fall-job-cuts

RDMcG said: VW group Q2 results are grim...............https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/24/business/volkswagen-profit-fall-job-cuts I am feeling a bit Eeeyore about the global economy and the domestic one to boot. VAG has lived through the party years of cheap money and Porsche leveraged its badge to sell to the transiently affluent. The money has run out and Porsche has run out of new stuff to stick a badge on. It's over now and I will be surprised to see the like of it again in my remaining lifetime.

It's all very well knocking the OPC dealer network but I'd have thought that's actually one of the significant attractions of the brand. High rollers can buy their flashy car and get it maintained with a minimum of hassle. Take a VW group product, tarts it up a bit, stick a Porsche badge on it and sell it for a lot more money. Sounds a a workable strategy to me. They'd need the right stuff available from VW/Audi to start with which is where the group is struggling against competition from the far east. Hence the current strategy to rationalise product ranges.

Tbf Volkswagen managed to do the Cayenne trick twice or maybe three times which is quite impressive. First Cayenne, then Urus, and then Bentayga. Some serious money making going on there. If they can find another niche like it, all is good. If not, less good.

Porsche to axe one in five jobs https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/por...

bennno said: Introduce a 944/968 front engined coupe as an entry step in to the marque. Zero chance of that, I'd say. The whole point of the Cayster was that it didn't just "share parts" with the 911. It was on the same platform. It was more like the same car with some different parts than a different car with shared parts. Anyway, a front-engine sports car would need a bespoke platform, instantly walloping economies of scale shared with the 911. Which is why they dumped the 924/944/968 platform and went mid-engined on a shared platform with the 911 in the first place. The only realistic option for an entry-level ICE car is something based, like previous Caysters, on the 911 platform. And that really dictates mid-engine. Porsche nearly went bust trying to build sports cars on separate platforms years ago. The company turned things around by consolidating the full sports car line up on a single platform. If anything, costs of developing car platforms are even higher now. It really is hard to imagine a bespoke front-rear sports car platform would be commercially viable. And unless I'm missing something, can't think of a compact front-rear platform that's available within the wider group. Would be nice to see them bring the ICE Cayster back. But it's a nightmare for product planners right now. The EU is making is very hard to introduce that kind of car into Europe. Porsche could just offer it in the US, but would that deliver enough sales to make it all worthwhile? I'd love to see a simple de-featured, fairly light Cayster with, say, a 3.0 300hp NA flat six. But I suspect EU regs and tax regimes in most EU countries make that a non starter in Europe. And that probably means the overall market isn't big enough and that kills any prospect of such a car. Rumours go back and forth on whether they've cancelled the Cayster ICE reboot. If I was running Porsche, I'd do it even if the immediate numbers didn't look great, just because I think the brand needs more than just increasingly premium 911 models to maintain authenticity as a sports car brand in the long term. But then I haven't got access to all the numbers and maybe that's just not a goer. That said, what I probably would do is US-specific variants. I wouldn't just saddle the US with powertains forced by EU regs. I don't think that need be hugely costly. Lightly revised versions of existing engines without the EU baggage would be pretty fantastic. And then, you never know, maybe some deal could be made with the EU to make more allowances for home market brands to sell such cars in the EU.

but if they did How Porsche Could Build The ‘Affordable’ Sports Sedan That The VW Group Desperately Needs https://www.theautopian.com/how-porsche-could-buil...

Well, it looks terrible and it's a rebodied Audi A5 with not terribly well optimised weight distribution due to the engine still being pushed forward to allow for Quattro implementations. Of course it's FWD on 2WD models. And it weighs over 1,800kg with a 2.0 four pot and over 2,000kg with a V6. But apart from that! I really don't think there's a suitable donor platform within the group for a 924/944 type entry level car.

944 render: definitely cr**py Citroen Xantia vibes. If this were Porsche's solution, then god help them.

In case you hadn’t read this https://www.electrive.com/2026/07/23/porsche-appoi...

If you look at these articles in detail rather than just the headlines, they are describing actions by 2035 - and many of the labour saving ones are delivered by essentially paying the remaining workforce more because of the strong influence of the unions. It’s very hard to see how any of this is going to resolve the product driven issues they have NOW - looks pretty difficult to create a new, cheaper model and bridges (and much money) have been burnt with poor decisions around electrification. In the meantime everyone else is busy eating Porsche’s lunch. It seems a bit odd to me that the “new” CEO is being given 9 or 10 months to come up with a revised strategy. It is a good job they are part of VAG - on their own they’d be sunk.

Jon_Brown91 said: In case you hadn t read this https://www.electrive.com/2026/07/23/porsche-appoi... From the Der Spiegel article linked in that post: "Leiters plans to whet investors' appetites for Porsche's future strategy in October with an in-house development: a new two-door sports car, internally dubbed "S1." Based on the 911 platform and powered by an eight-cylinder boxer engine, it is expected to cost around 500,000 euros and generate substantial profits. However, at most a design study will be ready by October, and the car is apparently not slated for completion before 2031." Generally the piece says Porsche is basically going full-on ICE but also that "Critics complain that Leiters makes a lot of noise about minor issues but fails to push through major strategic decisions," which is a bit contradictory. No details on 718 / Cayster ICE, but the implications look fairly positive, I would have thought.

€500K? blimey.

Recent Harry s garage video got me playing with AI. New 928, I m guessing something based on Panamera chassis, V6, Hybrid and V8, Turbo options. Usual model lines. I d love to see a front engined GT coupe from them. I d probably put it in similar pricing to the 911. Different front treatments for the DRLs.. Edited by LM240 on Wednesday 29th July 02:05

Cheaper front-engined sports car required? Audi successfully built the TT on a Golf platform for years.

LM240 said: Recent Harry s garage video got me playing with AI. New 928, I m guessing something based on Panamera chassis, V6, Hybrid and V8, Turbo options. Usual model lines. I d love to see a front engined GT coupe from them. I d probably put it in similar pricing to the 911. Different front treatments for the DRLs.. Edited by LM240 on Wednesday 29th July 02:05 That isn't good and doubt that it would be the model to save the business. Panamera wheelbase is 50cm longer than a 992 and almost a metre more than the 718, not the recipe for a new sports car.

Maxym said: Cheaper front-engined sports car required? Audi successfully built the TT on a Golf platform for years. The TT just had to look nice. A Porsche needs to be a great drive and be credible in engineering terms. Sticking on a FWD hatchback platform is fine for the TT. A pretend sports car on a FWD platform is hardly the car to revive Porsche.

MisterJD said: LM240 said: Recent Harry s garage video got me playing with AI. New 928, I m guessing something based on Panamera chassis, V6, Hybrid and V8, Turbo options. Usual model lines. I d love to see a front engined GT coupe from them. I d probably put it in similar pricing to the 911. Different front treatments for the DRLs.. Edited by LM240 on Wednesday 29th July 02:05 That isn't good and doubt that it would be the model to save the business. Panamera wheelbase is 50cm longer than a 992 and almost a metre more than the 718, not the recipe for a new sports car. It s not meant to be the one shot wonder. But it raises what else does Porsche do. Essentially, I think it needs to remember what the core of the business is. Porsche make cars you aspire to own for the way they are engineered, quality, how they drive, how they look and they ve tended to be value in terms of punching against the more exotic manufacturers. I see that some profit margin has returned for the first part of this year. But also news of job cuts. An awful lot of money has been ploughed into EV development which doesn t seem to be paying off. It s a big topic area, but what would I do in summary form; - Make cars for the core market. Lose the fan base, love for what the company does and you ve lost your heritage and brand value. - Have research into EV tech, but apart from a saloon and SUV offering as an EV, the most would be hybrid. Legislation means some offset if required. - Do people want an EV Porsche sports car. I don t see a majority customer base asking for this. Don t pump money into these products at this time. - Boxster and Cayman return offering entry level, usual product lines up to RS. Platform / Cabin sharing with 911. No EV. - Continue broad mix with the 911. No EV. Does the company always keep the 911 as top of the model tree. Is this limiting other options. Should there be something closer to Ferrari 849 as another model line. - Mid engined 849 segment car. - Integrate Panamera / Taycan into one model. Saloon / Turismo options. Usual line up of models. - Macan and Cayenne continue if markets continues to support SUV sales. ICE, Hybrid and EV. - I would create a larger GT model along the lines of the 928. This is a luxury sporting GT. Does it sit in line with the 911 or priced above? - A cycle of super cars to compete with the likes of F80. - Chase purity of driving rather than a horsepower war also. - Limit the limited editions. They only exist with proper substance. - Maintain presence in top line endurance racing. Factory HyperCar or GT3. Customer cars also. Edited by LM240 on Wednesday 29th July 18:41

Porsche profit jumps 34% https://eletric-vehicles.com/vw-group/porsche/pors...

Why don’t they copy what Singer does but using their own tech/engineers? Charge even more than Singer. Cars would be factory. Surely if they start putting modern engines in old cars they comply with modern emissions regs and don’t bump into production targets for modern cars? If they could substantially up production wouldn’t that be a massively profitable income stream?

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