RE: Porsche shelves plan to produce EV batteries
Tuesday 26th August
Porsche shelves plan to produce EV batteries
Blaming weak global demand, Porsche says it will now focus on R&D rather than its own dedicated factory
Want to know how tough it is to scale up battery production as a European OEM in the current climate? Even a brand as wildly successful as Porsche, with a proven track record in transitioning to the sort of EVs that people claim to want to buy - including the current Macan, but also with the Cayenne and electrified 718 pending - apparently cannot hope to generate sufficiently attractive economies of scale to pursue its own dedicated manufacturing of battery cells.
We know this because on Monday Oliver Blume, Porsche’s CEO, confirmed as much in a statement that was unusually candid about the problem. While Europe was said to be pulling its weight in the transition to battery power - fully 57 per cent of the models delivered there in the first half of 2025 were electrified - the global quota was made to look stagnant at just 36 per cent. Porsche suggested that ‘challenging conditions’ in North America and China were chiefly to blame for the shortfall and that it would ‘no longer [be] pursuing its own production of battery cells’ as a result.
Of course, this does not mean that EVs will feature any less prominently in the manufacturer’s lineup, but the long-term plan for the Cellforce Group GmbH (effectively Porsche’s independent battery division) to operate a ‘start-up factory’ in Kirchentellinsfurt before scaling up its efforts at a second location have been permanently shelved, with some job losses to follow. Given the current shortfall in predicted volume, the strategy was no longer deemed realistic.
Instead, Cellforce’s reduced footprint will be tasked with the research and development of future high-performance batteries, and feed the results back into PowerCo - the VW Group’s much larger battery venture - as part of the wider investment in EVs and the supply chain that creates them. In the short term, Porsche promised that it would still bring ‘trend-setting technologies in electromobility’ into series production - but also reiterated that combustion engines (alongside hybrid and EV solutions) would remain part of its powertrain mix ‘until well into the 2030s’. New derivatives of the 911 using the same V4Smart booster cells as the GTS are apparently being primed for imminent launch.
Discussion
Difficulties they are facing as well as other German brands are due to weak sales of electric cars. They gambled too much on them. Forecast is not good either. So much that Porsche is even reconsidering their business strategy relative to electric transition. See more in Stuttgart local press:
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/porsche-unter-d...
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/stuttgart-vor-d...
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/porsche-unter-d...
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/stuttgart-vor-d...
Edited by alex_2015 on Tuesday 26th August 08:35
Edited by alex_2015 on Tuesday 26th August 08:41
Edited by alex_2015 on Tuesday 26th August 08:42
This shouldn't be a surprise - would you expect a car producer to be in the oil refining business? Similary a large number of parts are outsourced to suppliers - its been a long time since iron ore went in one end and came out as cars at the other. Batteries are a huge r&d and production feature of the world now and not an add on to a core business. It seems a strange decision originally to try such a venture, but also easily done with a new EV sector trying to work itself out. Good that they changed tack before it was too late.
Global Nomad said:
This shouldn't be a surprise - would you expect a car producer to be in the oil refining business? Similary a large number of parts are outsourced to suppliers - its been a long time since iron ore went in one end and came out as cars at the other. Batteries are a huge r&d and production feature of the world now and not an add on to a core business. It seems a strange decision originally to try such a venture, but also easily done with a new EV sector trying to work itself out. Good that they changed tack before it was too late.
Clearly a quiet news day for PH 
I guess with so many new cars being world premiered at Munich motor show in a couple of weeks we’ve entered a bit of a dry spell!
plfrench said:
Global Nomad said:
This shouldn't be a surprise - would you expect a car producer to be in the oil refining business? Similary a large number of parts are outsourced to suppliers - its been a long time since iron ore went in one end and came out as cars at the other. Batteries are a huge r&d and production feature of the world now and not an add on to a core business. It seems a strange decision originally to try such a venture, but also easily done with a new EV sector trying to work itself out. Good that they changed tack before it was too late.
Clearly a quiet news day for PH I guess with so many new cars being world premiered at Munich motor show in a couple of weeks we’ve entered a bit of a dry spell!
Xenoous said:
I'm hardly surprised. Surely the best way forward is modular packs that a host of manufacturers can all use... That'll drive down prices and be a more sustainable approach.
But, that's not really what all this is about...
That's a bit like a crate engine option the challange for firms is to have a unique product historically Ferrari had v12's Mercedes V8s an some 12s BMW straight six's and porsche it's flat 6 an turbos. Now they all have batteries and so do many other firms from China who make nice looking stuff (Jaecoo 7 looks like a velar)But, that's not really what all this is about...
Global Nomad said:
This shouldn't be a surprise - would you expect a car producer to be in the oil refining business? Similary a large number of parts are outsourced to suppliers - its been a long time since iron ore went in one end and came out as cars at the other. Batteries are a huge r&d and production feature of the world now and not an add on to a core business. It seems a strange decision originally to try such a venture, but also easily done with a new EV sector trying to work itself out. Good that they changed tack before it was too late.
Exactly. Car companies building their own cells was bloody stupid from the outset but these ideas all came about from around 2019 when shareholders saw what was happening to the Tesla stock price and demanded that their investments did the same. We are now in a new economic era where those same shareholders have changed their tune, or rather the intelligent ones are being heard again over the lunatics. A company such as Porsche must use the latest commercially viable cell technology within their products in order to deliver the results expected of their customers which means being able to switch cell supplier on a whim dependent on who has the best commercial product at the time. Even Tesla learned that quickly enough.
This doesn't mean that Europe shouldn't be investing in cell manufacturing but that like China it needs multiple competing and dedicated firms to do so.
911Spanker said:
The UK and EU need to drop their EV mandate nonsense and recognise economic reality.
If people in the U.K. were to actually recognise economic reality then they'd want more EVs more quickly and more domestic renewables. 
. They would also probably appreciate that this article actually has nothing to do with that. alex_2015 said:
Difficulties they are facing as well as other German brands are due to weak sales of electric cars. They gambled too much on them. Forecast is not good either. So much that Porsche is even reconsidering their business strategy relative to electric transition. See more in Stuttgart local press:
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/porsche-unter-d...
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/stuttgart-vor-d...
The problem is the global sales of EVs has now hit 25%, and this will continue to rise...projection is somewhere are around 50% by 2030. And that is a massive slice of the pie to be missing out on. If they dont compete they will not survive...Im not sure what the answer is, but obviously the bulk of the costs reside in the battery packs, so clearly, this is where the key strategy decisions need to be made. Go modular?, invest in new offshore battery factories, use other companies to product batteries?....Who knows!.https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/porsche-unter-d...
https://blackout-news.de/aktuelles/stuttgart-vor-d...
Edited by alex_2015 on Tuesday 26th August 08:35
Edited by alex_2015 on Tuesday 26th August 08:41
Edited by alex_2015 on Tuesday 26th August 08:42
I think we can safely say that electric cars definitely aren't very desirable globally, but I'd love to know why that is though? Because on paper electric cars do at least make a bit of sense in terms of them not having exhaust emissions for example, but folk basically don't want/need them though for whatever reason.
cerb4.5lee said:
I think we can safely say that electric cars definitely aren't very desirable globally, but I'd love to know why that is though? Because on paper electric cars do at least make a bit of sense in terms of them not having exhaust emissions for example, but folk basically don't want/need them though for whatever reason.
If you live in a developed country an EV can make sense.Not everyone in the world lives like that.
jenkosrugby said:
The problem is the global sales of EVs has now hit 25%, and this will continue to rise...projection is somewhere are around 50% by 2030. And that is a massive slice of the pie to be missing out on. If they dont compete they will not survive...Im not sure what the answer is, but obviously the bulk of the costs reside in the battery packs, so clearly, this is where the key strategy decisions need to be made. Go modular?, invest in new offshore battery factories, use other companies to product batteries?....Who knows!.
Indeed. Regardless of political mandates, the Western car industry has been caught on the hop by Asian newcomers who saw EVs as their path to break into and become dominant within Western markets. As a result of the failures of Western executive boards to protect their long term shareholder interests these companies now all face Kodak Moments if they don't catch up and reach the point where they can compete against these new manufacturers. If Western governments did nothing now then cheaper and superior vehicles from Asia would kill off all our manufacturers as consumers would not shy away from cheaper cars regardless of what motor is under the bonnet.
Schemes like the ZEV give manufacturers clear sales volumes to build up to that protect them from Boards doing nothing and leaving the next execs to wind the failed business up after its been cash plundered of the capex.
2035 is a target and while the U.K. can actually switch across to EV incredibly easily, by 2035 there will be around 12-14m EVs in the U.K. but nearly 20m households have private charging ability and we live on a small island where electricity is already ubiquitous, it is very clear to see that many of the 26 EU member states cannot get anywhere close because their geography, utilities and economics are so much different. Same with North America and its geography, economics and lack of electricity ubiquity.
It seems pretty much inevitable that even the U.K. and certainly Europe will have to change the criteria for 2035 if only to head off political instability but the longer you leave it over the next decade before making that change the more the local EV manufacturers have to reach competitive states against far cheaper Asian supply.
The other two enormous benefit that the U.K. has over our peers is that firstly we have a clear path to being genuinely energy self sufficient again, nations such as Germany never have and never will be self sufficient, nor Japan, France or Italy. Spain is the rising mainland economy which can be. And being renewable self sufficient allows an economy to disconnect from the horrendous risk of being beholden to imported energy. Something everyone in the U.K. has been recently reminded of within their utility bills yet again. And the second huge advantage is that we do not manufacture basic cars in the U.K. and haven't for much of this century. Our car industry is based around imports whether whole cars or parts. The risks of the European car industry are not ours to carry and we are free to import from anywhere and cheaper imports are vital to the economy as it means less money being borrowed and sent overseas.
Frimley111R said:
It's interesting that manufacturers will now be competing for the best battery tech from suppliers. It's like there only being a few engine suppliers and every manufacturer trying to buy the best. Interesting times indeed...
Yup. The initial concern is that uniform drivetrains make competition difficult but in reality, the bulk of the market has been uniform 4 pots since before most people were born and companies compete via brand values, image, pricing and gadgetry. What the West needs to do with regards to batteries is to wait for China to develop non Li cells of suitable use and then do what we've always done when China has something we want which is steal the technology. It worked for gunpowder, china, tea, silk and many other valuable technologies. And modern China has made it abundantly clear that such thefts are still absolutely acceptable.
Once Na cell technology reaches the right point all we need to do is steal that tech and then enact environmental laws to lock out Li cells from the market. Simples.
Frimley111R said:
It's interesting that manufacturers will now be competing for the best battery tech from suppliers. It's like there only being a few engine suppliers and every manufacturer trying to buy the best. Interesting times indeed...
A bit like Mercedes looking to BMW for engine supply! It's a rapidly changing world out there...https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/merced...
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