New Porsche CEO – I guess I’ve been living under a rock for the last week. I didn’t realize that this inevitable transition had already taken place. Looks like Michael Macht got “promoted” (I didn’t realize moving a person from CEO to a lesser position could be considered a promotion) to Volkswagen AG’s production chief starting Oct 1st. Matthias Mueller has been crowned as the new Porsche AG CEO. Here’s what VW CEO, Martin Winkerkorn, had to say about the transition: “We have to make progress with Porsche. Mueller is the right person to deliver it. He has excellent ideas and a very clear concept of how new products have to be brought in line.” He did a good job with Audi. Maybe this will bode well for Porsche. [Via BusinessWeek.com]
Porsche 918 Spyder Hybrid and ‘baby’ Porsche Cayenne could be approved next week – Porsche SE’s supervisory board is meeting next week. Supposedly on the agenda are two models we’ve been hearing about for a while. The mini Porsche Cayenne I could go either way on, however the Porsche 918 Spyder Hybrid I would LOVE to see go into production. It’s already garnered a reported 2,000+ non-binding submissions of interest, so I can’t imagine Porsche will pass up the opportunity. Porsche is not confirming or denying the meeting nor the agenda, so hopefully we see this happen and have a new Porsche supercar to look forward to. [Via Bloomberg.com, egmCarTech.com]
Porsche will guarantee 9,000 jobs for German workers – You gotta love seeing news like this, especially given the ups and huge downs of the job market these days. Porsche stated last week that it is planning to invest more than 500 million euros in its German operations and guarantee 9,000 jobs at three German sites until 2015. This also includes hiring 100 apprentices per year at the end of their training periods. Never heard of a company guaranteeing jobs before, but maybe it’s a common occurrence. [Via AFP]
UK Porsche dealer offers customers something different while waiting for their Porsche to be serviced – Car dealers the world over try to make it easy and enticing to get your car serviced with them. The fact of the matter is, though, it just sucks to have to sit and wait for your car. It’s especially tough for moms who have to take in the family Porsche Cayenne. To address this problem, a dealer in the UK is taking a different approach. They’re now offering a shuttle service to a nearby luxury shopping center for customers that would rather do something other than sit in the dealer’s showroom during a service appointment. Gotta hand it to them, that’s a great idea and one that will surely be popular with the ladies who have to manage the family’s Porsche maintenance. [Via Springwise.com]
2011 Porsche Cayenne is selling like hotcakes – In just one month, Porsche received over 16,000 orders for the new Porsche Cayenne. This includes orders across all of the Cayenne models. The most popular model was the Cayenne S Hybrid which accounted for about 15% of the orders. Quite honestly, this surprises me. I know the Cayenne is a reasonably popular Porsche and that the new S Hybrid brings some short-term hype to the game, but that’s a lot of orders for a Porsche SUV. [Via 4WheelsNews.com]
Porsche owners rank their cars as the Ideal Vehicle for the 3rd year in a row – Every year, AutoPacific conducts an Ideal Vehicle Awards survey. What exactly IS an ideal vehicle? According to the president of AutoPacific, George Peterson, “An ideal vehicle is one that meets the owner’s expectations for the product. They do not want it changed. They don’t want it bigger. They don’t want it faster. They don’t want its styling changed. When asked what they would change about their new vehicle, buyers who want the least change are driving their ideal vehicle. This means Porsche has created cars that owners essentially say are perfect.” What’s more, the Porsche Cayman was chosen as the winner of the Ideal Sports Car. No surprise here. [Via PRNewswire.com]
India may get some Porsche assembly love – I found this pretty interesting for a couple of reasons. First, that seems like an interesting choice for Porsche, especially given the recent commitment to the local facilities in Germany. Sure Porsche has outsourced some components of the car manufacture and assembly process in the past, but this seems like a strange location for it. Second, I’m surprised Porsche hasn’t considered India in the past. With the huge outsourcing trend from a decade ago, I kind of thought Porsche would capitalize on inexpensive labor sooner. The CEO of Porsche India is denying any assembly plant plans. [Via IndiaTimes.com]
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