porsche news

[papasmurf]

Originally Posted by tonycarreon

2. porsche ceo recently stated that they plan on building porsches in china and/or the us soon and owner VW needs to build another 5 or 6 plants worldwide to be able to supply the 10M-11M vehicles VW plans to sell in the near future, including an extra 10k 911s (last year they sold 20k).

Building them in either the US or china would be a mistake IMO. There is a certain cache about having an automobile built in europe regardless of where the parts may ultimately be sourced from. Call it snob appeal or whatever you like, but I would not expect to pay a premium (like new porsches sell for) for a vehicle built outside of europe and I doubt owners of any other exotic marque (ferrari, lambo, etc.) would as well.

[thstone]

This is all about meeting CAFE mileage goals. Each mfg has to sell a certain number of high mileage vehicles in order to offset their low mileage performance cars and still meet the mandated average mpg for the fleet. Same thing is happening at BMW with their upcoming 4-cyl engines. Aston Martin is going so far as to source an iQ and rebadge it.

[JTP]

Originally Posted by papasmurf

Building them in either the US or china would be a mistake IMO. There is a certain cache about having an automobile built in europe regardless of where the parts may ultimately be sourced from. Call it snob appeal or whatever you like, but I would not expect to pay a premium (like new porsches sell for) for a vehicle built outside of europe and I doubt owners of any other exotic marque (ferrari, lambo, etc.) would as well.

I agree but some BMWs are built in South Carolina, VWs in Brazil, South Africa, and Mexico. Many people felt the same way about American made Toyotas during the 80's too but most people don't really think about it anymore.

[papasmurf]

brands that are built in the US (bmw z4, camry, etc.) and I think porsche could source production of the cayenne and/or the smaller suv "roxster" they are planning on producing to the US and there would be no harm done but moving production of the 911 or something similar to somewhere outside europe would not be seen as favorably by the ever dwindling ranks of the "enthusiasts". In general, people that would purchase the SUV's, I think would be less likely to care where their porsche was manufactured.

[schnellman]

The first cars developed by Ferdinand Porsche were electric.

[jdiba]

Well, at least we'll be able to say ours were built in Europe.