Wunderwaffe Diesel: Porsche Plans All-Out Assault On U.S. Soil
Despite still not having been amalgamated into the sprawling Volkswagen empire (blame the lawyers,) Porsche wants to do its share for Volkswagen’s all-out assault to the top. According to Strategie 2018, sorry, make that according to “Mach 18,” the Volkswagen empire wants to be on top in all respects before the decade ends. A small sports car company with barely 100,000 units won’t bring much volume, but they will try as much as they can. “Porsche aims to double its annual U.S. sales within seven years by dramatically expanding its product lineup — while maintaining its U.S. dealer body at almost the same size,” Automotive News Europe [sub] reports.
Porsche won’t even shy away from the unthinkable – like bringing diesels to America.
“By 2018, we will sell around 50,000 cars in the U.S.,” Detlev von Platen, CEO of Porsche Cars North America, told ANE. That’s double of Porsche’s 25,320 units sold in the United States last year. This year, v. Platen thinks he will sell “more than 29,000 units” in the U.S.
To support the assault, Porsche will land three new models stateside in 2012: The redesigned 911 in February, a 430-hp Panamera GTS in spring, and, hold your nose, a Cayenne diesel, planned for the second half of the year.
Don’t laugh. Porsche plans that the oilburning Cayenne will amount to 15 percent of all Cayennes sold in the U.S., and it allots another 15 percent to the Cayenne gasoline-electric hybrid.
In 2013, Porsche will throw a fresh Cajun crossover into the battle.
All of that will be sold through fewer dealers. Platen thinks that his U.S. dealer network, currently counting 200 outlets, will be “slightly consolidating.”
Globally, Porsche wants to double annual sales from 95,000 last year to 200,000 in 2018. It will be a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 10 million of sales the Volkswagen empire will need for word domination, but every drop counts.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Does anyone else get a sense that VW is turning into GM with too many brands to manage and too much platform sharing? My wife was looking at a VW phaeton the other day sitting next to an audi and she honestly couldn't tell the difference in the cars. they are virtually identical with barely any differences in trim. Only car people would be able to tell the difference without reading the name. Here in China where Skoda, VW, Audi, and Porsche are all selling cars and because of how common they are, you realize that the badge engineering going on at VW is as bad as it ever was at GM. So many models are barely different you have to wonder why bother selling them. It's very bad, and from what I can see, it's only going to get worse. (Gotta love the 1 Audi body style, just change the scale to get a new model)
The "unthinkable" for Porsche would be to embrace decontenting, receive the obligatory firestorm from critics, and then watch US sales double.