1978 Porsche 911 on 2040-cars

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Porsche production will stay in Germany, says sales chief

At Porsche's recent opening of its new North American headquarters in Atlanta, we had a chance to chat with Bernhard Maier, the brand's head of sales and marketing. In our interview Maier opens up about Porsche's global growth, relationship with other Volkswagen Group products, and some of Porsche's future video. Read on for more. Autoblog: You're on a smooth trajectory of increasing sales in the US. Do you think there's an ultimate cap for Porsche in terms of volume? Bernhard Maier: If you look at the last couple of years, we have really seen a rapid growth in US, as we have seen in many other countries as well. Put that in perspective with our strategy for 2018. When we released that in early 2011, we said there are opportunities to grow for the brand in a number of ways. We are growing by entering new markets where we are not yet in, by taking part in the overall development of individual mobility, and in going in new segments where we are not yet in or that we were not yet in, such as the B SUV segment. And the Macan is, I think, a through-and-through success story. Let's take the US. Out of 1,000 inhabitants compare that with 700 cars on the marketplace. If we go to China, there are only 70 cars out of 1,000 inhabitants. So this is a huge potential, which we still have for the entire automotive industry and, again, we are in China now for 14 years. We started off in 2001, selling 226 cars. Last year, we did more than 27,000 units. With the economic recovery of the United States, we saw a tremendous comeback of the entire economy and also for the car industry. We took advantage of that as well in handling new segments like the Macan and in bringing more varieties in our already existing cars, so it gave us the opportunity to grow in America as well. AB: In terms of the portfolio, and speaking of Macan, are there other segments that Porsche will be expanding? Are any segments off limits? BM: We do have the number of ideas I can tell you, but we are not decided on what level [and] we are not talking about them. Let's look at our current model line-up. I think it's the most interesting one we've ever had in the history of the company. We do have a lot of derivatives in the 911 model lineup, we do have some derivatives in the Boxster and Cayman segment. There are some new ideas, which, as I've mentioned already, have not been decided yet. AB: Right. Is there any potential that we'd see something from the group MQB platform?

Hyundai, Porsche top J.D. Power APEAL study

Just as they did in the Initial Quality Study, Porsche and Hyundai have taken the premium and non-premium crown, respectively, for the 2014 J.D. Power APEAL study. This is the tenth consecutive year for that Porsche has been rated the best premium make in the APEAL study, which attempts to figure out how pleased owners are with their purchases. For 2014, it asked 86,000 owners of MY2014 cars to rate their vehicles in 77 different categories 90 days after their initial purchase. The resulting figures were plugged in deliver the APEAL score, which is rated on a 1,000-point scale.
The industry average sits at 794 points for 2014, although that's a one-percent decline over last year's rating. In this year's study, premium brands averaged 840 out of 1,000, while non-premium makes average 785. For their part, Porsche netted an impressive 882 points, while Hyundai earned an 804. Interestingly, only four non-premium brands (Hyundai, Ram, Volkswagen and Mini) finished above the industry average for 2014.
It's also interesting to see the clear delineation between premium and non-premium brands, with an eight-point gap between the non-premium champ, Hyundai, and the lowest-rated premium brand, Volvo.

Porsche-Piech buy 10% stake in VW's holding company

In August, 2009, as the scuttled merger of Porsche and Volkswagen had gone bad and Porsche was backed up against the ropes, Porsche Automobil Holding SE (PAHSE) relinquished a ten-percent stake in itself to Qatar Holdings as well as options it held on 17 percent of VW shares. The sale meant that, for the first time since the founding of the company 61 years before, an entity outside the Porsche and Piech families had a say in the running of PAHSE.
Buying that ten-percent stake back returns full ownership to the two families, the holding company's sole possession being ownership of 50.7 percent of VW's common shares. The price paid wasn't disclosed, but at market rates the purchase would be worth close to $1.25 billion. Qatar intends to hold onto the 17-percent stake it has in Volkswagen.