Porsche
VW Extends CEO Winterkorn's Contract
By Michelle Krebs January 4, 2011Volkswagen has extended the contract of CEO Martin Winterkorn, one of AutoObserver's newsmakers of 2010, for another five years, in order to complete the merger with Porsche. Winterkorn became CEO in early 2007; his contract was to expire at the end of this year. His new contract runs through year-end 2016. The contract extension is seen as a vote of confidence by VW's board that Winterkorn has the automaker on the right track. Winterkorn has boldly embraced his company's full intention to become the global top dog in sales by 2018. He backed that up by building VW's first more
Carmakers Keep Lid on Cautious Optimism at L.A. Auto Show
By Danny King November 19, 2010In Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Wobegon, all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average. Talk to executives at the Los Angeles Auto Show, which opens to the public for nine days starting tomorrow, and you might come away with the same impression. Carmakers generally touted their market-share gains, increased popularity of their newest models and their own technology to best address the mandate of increasingly stringent fuel economy standards. But their forecast for the broad industry's near-term prospects? Meh. more
Sportscars Continue as Recession-Recovery's Biggest Casualties
By Bill Visnic November 9, 2010From top to bottom, the sportscar segments have been hammered by the last two years' economic upheaval - and while most analysts consider the broad auto market to be gaining a slow but consistent strength, sportscar sales are not recovering. Even Mazda Motor Corp.'s MX-5 Miata, the car many consider the bellwether of the sportscar market, can't regain its footing. Through October, Mazda had sold just 5,695 Miatas for the entire year, a number down 19 percent from its bleak 2009 number for the same period. Mazda's RX-8, the industry's one and only remaining home for the unique rotary more
How VW Plans to Rule the Industry: Brands
By Michelle Krebs September 29, 2010To prove it has the goods to be No. 1 in the world, Volkswagen AG took over a former Paris rail station often used for fashion shows for an over-the-top display of the latest wares from each of its many brands. Volkswagen's board chairman Martin Winterkorn told the crowd of nearly 1,500 journalists attending the extravaganza on the night before the Paris motor show opening that strong brands will drive the German company to its much-scrutinized goal to become the world's largest automaker in 2018, selling 10 million vehicles annually around the globe. "Our multi-brand strategy is a clear more
J.D. Power: Domestics Lead Imports in Quality for First Time
By Bill Visnic June 17, 2010In a telling reversal of longstanding trends and perceptions, domestic automakers' brands, as a whole, have pulled ahead in overall quality as measured by J.D. Power and Associates' benchmark Initial Quality Study, now in its 24th year. It's the first time domestic brands have, in the aggregate, surpassed imports in initial quality, Power said today. The domestics brands' watershed performance in the 2010 U.S. Initial Quality Study was driven by quality improvements by new models from the surging Ford Motor Co. and the industry's trend in improving the general quality of newly launched vehicles. True, the domestic triumph was more
Porsche Cayenne Orders Better Than Expected
By Michelle Krebs April 14, 2010Porsche has received more orders than it expected of the new version of the Porsche Cayenne sport-utility that goes on sale in Europe next month and begins hitting U.S. showrooms in July. Porsche CEO Michael Macht told reporters Tuesday at the automaker's factory in Leipzig, Germany, where Porsche builds the Cayenne as well as the new Panamera, that orders are exceeding expectations, but he didn't provide figures. more
Volkswagen Getting Cozy with New Big Stakeholder
By Bill Visnic March 17, 2010The Volkswagen Group and its recently acquired Porsche Automobil Holding SE, owner of Porsche Cars, said this week a delegation that included the German State of Lower Saxony traveled to the Emirate of Qatar to "intensify cooperation" with the Emirate in the areas of research, development and education. Last year, the complex financial and investment arrangement that led to VW's takeover of Porsche (after an improbable attempt at the opposite was aborted) led to Qatar becoming VW's third-largest shareholder - after the Piech family and Lower Saxony - with about 17 percent of VW. Through the deal, Qatar also more
The Best and Worst Ideas of 2009
By Michelle Krebs December 28, 2009Desperate times require desperate measures, as the saying goes, and 2009 was about as desperate as it gets in the auto industry. Companies sometimes do the most interesting things when they're desperate -- and that maxim seems particularly relevant to auto companies. Because their products are so visible, with such potential emotional impact. Because their executives and designers and engineers are in charge of the process that creates those products. Desperation in 2009 -- as defined by coming up some 6 million sales short of the industry's glory days of just three years ago -- generated products and strategies more
Porsche's Eggs in New Four-Door Basket
By Michelle Krebs October 14, 2009Seems Porsche Cars North America is always one of the first to get hammered when the recession hits. The company's certainly taken its lumps in the past year, with sales starting a slide almost the same day Lehman Brothers tanked in fall 2008 and potential Porsche buyers headed for their bunkers. Calendar-year 2009 hasn't been much kinder: through September, sales are off 32 percent, a withering number for a niche maker. But as the year winds down, Porsche is launching a history-making - and controversial - new model to help accelerate it into what is hoped will be a more
Industry Looks for Sales-Pumping Buzz from Detroit Auto Show
By Bill Visnic January 7, 2011"Somber" might best describe the atmosphere of the past two Detroit auto shows, the international auto show that opens and often sets the tone for the new year. Automakers aren't prepping for a re-visit of the rollicking Detroit-show days when the industry was booming along at 16 million-plus sales, SUVs were smashing through plate-glass walls and cattle were driven on downtown-Detroit's Jefferson Avenue, but the 11-percent U.S. sales rebound in 2010 is enough to maybe lift the cloud that's hung over the domestic automakers' hometown auto show. At least a bit. more