Porsche able to sell 150,000 cars per year-CEO
The head of Porsche's (PSHG_p.DE) core sports car business said the company could sell 150,000 cars a year in the mid to long-term but new models would be needed to achieve this goal.
If the world economy picks up again we can well imagine unit sales of 150,000 Porsche cars per year, Chief Executive Michael Macht told German paper Welt am Sonntag in an interview.
But we won't achieve this with the four models that are existing today. Otherwise, we would have to significantly increase the number of cars of the current models. And then we would not be exclusive anymore. Therefore we have to think about new vehicles.
Porsche currently manufactures the 911 sports coupe, the Boxster cabriolet and its hard-top Cayman, the four-door SUV Cayenne and the luxury sedan Panamera.
Preliminary results showed unit sales at the Porsche AG sports car business plunged 24 percent to around 75,200 vehicles in the past fiscal year to the end of July 2009.
Macht said that the company was working intensively on an electrically powered sports car but it would take some time until a marketable model could be introduced with a reasonable reach, achieving the same handling characteristics of a petrol engine.
Being asked whether that would ever happen, Macht was quoted as saying: I could imagine that we will drive the first vehicles in as soon as five to 10 years.
Regarding the future of the company Macht, who took over the position of Porsche AG CEO from Wendelin Wiedeking in July, said:I am standing for integration instead of confrontation. This does not mean that my predecessor was the exact opposite. He very much could integrate, otherwise he would not have been that successful over so many years. (Reporting by Christoph Steitz; Editing by Greg Mahlich)