It’s a view held by many that Germany produces the best cars. I’m not so sure that’s true anymore, but at least Germany produces the best car industry gossip. This week’s tea is all about the mess that new Porsche CEO Michael Leiters is stepping into as he takes over the company.
The world is nothing if not complex, and Leiters deserves a chance to untangle some of the complexity. A lot of this has to do with the revision of goals around electric cars, which is extraordinarily complex in Porsche’s now most important market: USA! USA! USA!
Sorry, The Morning Dump has Olympic fever today.
Better to focus on what Americans are doing in Italy than, say, what the courts might do back here to continue to cause a mess for automakers. One strategy at play is from GM, and that’s to keep fewer cars in inventory in order to maintain profitability. This makes sense to me. Renault is running a slightly different strategy, betting it can expand its footprint and taking the profit hit in the near term.
Porsche At 180,000 Cars Is Probably A More Fun Company Than Porsche At 400,000 Cars
I don’t want to be too critical of VW CEO Oliver Blume, who went from CEO of Porsche to CEO of both companies. Many of the problems Blume had to face were inherited ones, and Porsche expanded rapidly under his tenure. It went public. It made billions of dollars.
None of that is easy, even if Blume had the good timing to be in charge at that sweet moment in time for German automakers when Chinese consumers had money to spend, but not as many interesting Chinese vehicles to buy.
Still, the “dual role” of VW and Porsche CEO was never going to last, and the world jolted abruptly under his feet. China built up its industry, the planned electrification of the world hit a snag, and a global sales environment in which Porsche sold 400,000 cars, as Blume planned, suddenly seems remote.
There were a lot of discussions about who might replace Blume, and the boss reportedly had his own ideas. Given the lack of success of Blume’s previous appointees (ahem, Döllner), Porsche’s board went with someone from outside of the Volkswagen CEO’s circle when it appointed ex-McLaren CEO Michael Leiters.
As I often do, I’m leaning on Germany’s Manager Magazin for the gossip from Wolfsburg. There’s a new big feature about the inner workings of the company, and there’s too much to talk about, but here’s what struck me:
He made it clear to his people how he operates: Everyone gets a chance. Leiters wants to understand the true situation. Only then will he take action.
He demanded that his top management present him with the facts: anyone with problems that were not yet known should come forward immediately. Leiters granted a 20-day amnesty. That period has ended.
Several companies have contacted the company, according to sources in Stuttgart. Sales, for example, were less optimistic than at the end of 2025, lowering their forecast for the current year by around 10,000 to just over 250,000 cars.
That little bit about amnesty, with no context, probably sounds dire. I don’t think it’s quite all that bad. Given how public many of the company’s issues have been, including the numerous expensive delays around the electric Boxster, I’m guessing Leiters wasn’t predicting a smoking gun.
Instead, this sounds like someone trying to figure out how to better position Porsche–still an incredibly strong brand–in a new world. This other bit also caught my attention:
Oliver Blume had planned for Porsche to sell around 400,000 cars, and built up the workforce accordingly. Everything was based on the experience of the past 15 years: those who invest heavily and expand ultimately rake in billions. Blume expanded the plant in Zuffenhausen, significantly increased production in Leipzig, and also boosted development. Porsche AG now employs around 42,000 people. In 2015, the figure was just over 25,000. At that time, Porsche sold 225,000 cars. By 2027, the number could fall to a similar level. Works council chairman Ibrahim Aslan (52) has already made a less than enthusiastic demand to secure jobs in Zuffenhausen with a new model.
New models, that much is clear, will not be forthcoming for the time being. Many ideas and speculations are circulating: building the 718 as a combustion engine vehicle instead of an electric one, shelving the luxury SUV K1, perhaps having a model developed locally for China? Maybe even a new supercar, after Blume halted the last attempt. Leiters doesn’t want to make a hasty decision.
Porsche in 2015 was, to me, a more interesting company. I’m just not enthused by an EV Macan, and while a 911 T is as great as it ever was, the focus on EVs seems to have led the company to drift away from its core competencies. This isn’t to say that I’m not excited about a new Taycan, as the Taycan is one of the few fast EVs that feels right, but a giant three-row SUV? I think I’d rather have the supercar.
While a lot of Manager Magazin pieces are full of backbiting and backstabbing, it does sound like both Blume and Leiters are trying to set up a relationship of mutual respect and assistance, if not exactly close cooperation.
Volkswagen needs Porsche to be a success, and Porsche needs Volkswagen, period.
We’ve FA’d, Now We’re Going To FO
For all the hand-wringing around the Republican attempts to roll back decades of environmental regulation, until all the lawsuits are done, it’s not clear what will happen, to say nothing of what happens in the next two elections.
The biggest shoe left to drop is whether courts will go along with the revocation of California’s waiver to set its own environmental standards, a long-accepted policy that is mimicked by a bunch of other populous states. This would set up a system where automakers would basically be forced to either build cars for those states and cars for everyone else or, perhaps, just build cars for a much stricter emissions standard.
Here’s a fun quote from a Reuters analysis of the problem:
Mike Murphy, a former Republican strategist who co-founded the advocacy group EVs for All America, said the California-federal standoff highlights how automakers are being “whipsawed” by political shifts that upend their model-development and manufacturing plans. Since Trump’s election, automakers have taken $55 billion in writedowns on EV investments.
“What I hear from all of them is, ‘This short-termism is killing us,’” he said. “We have a monkey at the controls in Washington, and it’s very hard to plan.”
White House spokeswoman Taylor Rogers called California’s lawsuit “frivolous” and said Trump has “canceled unpopular green-energy subsidies that wasted Americans’ hard-earned tax dollars.”
There are some weird areas of consensus between environmentalists and this administration, however, as both have long opposed the government handing out unreasonably generous estimates of how EVs contribute to overall fuel economy averages. The Trump administration is eliminating this bit of regulation, with some interesting support, as The Detroit News reports:
Groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Sierra Club lobbied the Biden administration to eliminate the so-called “fuel content factor,” a multiplier that inflated on-paper mpg ratings for EVs. Those ratings figure into fleetwide averages under federal Corporate Average Fuel Economy rules.
The NRDC and Sierra Club jointly argued in a 2021 petition to the DOE: “Excessively high imputed fuel economy values for EVs means that a relatively small number of EVs will mathematically guarantee compliance without meaningful improvements in the real-world average fuel economy of automakers’ overall fleets.”
This is one of those situations where I can see both sides of the issue. For decades, the assumption was fuel economy rules were going to get stricter. In order to help out automakers, various administrations encouraged ways around that, including by giving more credit for certain technologies. This is how we ended up with stop-start.
Rationalizing the way the government measures fuel economy is probably a net good, right up until the point that a new administration decides to put them back in place. Imagine having to hit a high standard and not getting a break?
GM Isn’t Going To Flood Dealerships With Cars
Of all the former Big Three automakers, GM seems to have learned the most from 2008 and has, for the most part, slowly made the kind of improvements that once seemed difficult to achieve.
A big one is how to manage volumes. The old way, pre-pandemic, was to just produce cars at a huge clip all the time. When demand was high, this meant selling a lot of cars, but when demand waned, this resulted in large swings in profitability due to a need for huge incentives.
As GM CFO Paul Jacobson told a crowd at a conference this week, the company is now carrying about “30 to 40 percent less inventory” than it used to, which might allow it to get off this crazy ride.
Per Automotive News, it seems to be working:
Most GM brands have less inventory than the industry average, according to a Feb. 12 estimate by Cox Automotive. Chevrolet, GMC and Cadillac each had less than the industry average of 98 days of inventory, while Buick was at 115 days, according to Cox.
GM executives have said they aim to keep vehicle supplies between 50 and 60 days. That’s a marked change from before the pandemic, Jacobson said. The pandemic and the ensuing microchip shortage, which each led to widespread parts shortages and factory shutdowns, forced GM to learn how to move quickly and nimbly with less inventory available, he said.
The company cannot stop the cyclical nature of the auto industry, Jacobson said, but by no longer sitting on as much as 120 days of inventory, GM can “get rid of self-induced cyclicality.”
Seems smart to me.
Renault Is Going To Take A Margin Hit
If GM is the American automaker that’s gotten through the wild ride of the last few years the most unscathed, the same can probably be said of Renault in Europe. Somewhat quietly, Renault has managed to keep profits and grow in a mostly tough market.
Given the company’s reliance on Europe, it looks like it’s going to get tougher. Chinese brands are infiltrating the continent and offering low prices. Renault, though, has its own affordable and enticing EVs, and it seems like the plan for now is to eat some profits in order to maintain an edge.
CEO Francois Provost explained some of the logic to Bloomberg:
The French manufacturer sees an operating margin of around 5.5%, it said Thursday. That’s below analyst projections and compares with 6.3% last year. Renault, which plans to expand in Latin America and Asia, proposed a flat dividend of €2.20 ($2.59) a share.
Chief Executive Officer Francois Provost has walked back several decisions by his predecessor Luca de Meo to cut costs. He’s reintegrated Renault’s EV and software arm Ampere, discontinued some mobility businesses and slashed costs at the Alpine sports-car brand. The moves are meant to make the company leaner amid mounting competition from Chinese manufacturers in Europe.
“We changed what is needed in this very disruptive environment,” Provost said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
Maybe just keep making the Alpine A110 forever?
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Here’s one for the Gen Xers. It’s The Breeders with “Safari.”
The Big Question
What should the next new Porsche be?
Top graphic images: 20th Century Fox; Porsche
The next new Porsche should be a 928 successor. Make it a Panamera coupe, so it’s a GT car with ICE and PHEV options.
I really like the idea of a new supercar but my wish is for something a bit different.
The 911 has gotten so big and heavy, I would wish for something designed to be lightweight and more analog to really push the driving experience and feel. Think something that competes with the Ariel Atom but more daily-drivable. Or at least livable.
Porsche has been pushing up-market so much they’re practically unattainable now. At least the 911. The driving experience is quite something but they don’t feel like proper sports cars to me. Everything is just too much. I guess that goes for most of the manufacturers really.
I know this is about as likely as aliens showing up to save us all from ourselves and usher in a true utopia, but I’d really love to see a ~350 horsepower, lightweight sports car that is focused on superior handling, road feel, steering feedback/inputs than some 1,000+ HP track monster I could never use or enjoy.
If they did it, it would probably be $400K and unattainable again. I mean it is Porsche after all and that’s where their brand has been headed. But at least it would be something I would aspire to rather than the overdone 911s I used to want but no longer have interest in.
I knew a number of department managers earlier in my career who bought Boxster’s, TT’s, Miata’s, etc… They were still attainable by those below Executive status.
I have a Boxster and I love it. 981 generation. I looked all over for a base model because it is more livable than the S model but both would have served I think. The point is, in order to really enjoy these on public roads they don’t need over 500HP and weigh as much as a train engine.
I wouldn’t mind trading up to something newer but it looks more and more I will be keeping my Boxster for a very long time. The direction of the entire industry is just always “more.” More HP, more weight, more features (that are questionable in their usefulness).
It’s time to get everybody on a diet and get back to basics.
So much this.
We’re never going back to lightweight cars, unfortunately. The next Audi RS5 is 5,100 lbs. I mean, that’s truck territory.
Yeah, I made a comment on that article too, that in order for us to take some of the weight out we need some sort of government to incentivize weight reduction for the purpose of maintaining roads or buyers need to demand it. Manufacturers seem to have zero interest in trying to reduce weight and complexity at this point.
I won’t go so far to say it’s never going to happen. But it’s not looking good.
Weirdly, EVs have been the biggest reasno why automakers have tended back towards weight savings.
I guess it makes sense if you start with a huge weight penalty you can’t really do anything about (battery) so you look to save elsewhere. It’s a little surprising we haven’t seen much in the way of new developments on that front.
Perhaps the slow down in the EV market put that research and testing on hold or there just aren’t known ways to achieve weight loss that don’t carry a huge cost. It is disappointing for those of us that enjoy flinging lightweight cars around.
The funny thing is that Porsche (as well as most other “high end”) manufacturers do still know how to make lightweight cars. In the case of Porsche all generations of the 911 cup racecar (starting with the 1990 964 cup car) which now spans 35+ years of cup car racing are within a couple of hundred pounds of each other and comfortably under 3k pounds. Meaning that the vast majority of the weight gains are not about the underlying basic machinery but all the stuff they now think we all want in our cars from million-way adjustable heat/cool/massage seats to ridiculous amounts of sound insulation to many hundreds of pounds of electronics to all the weight that comes with everything from all-wheel steering, to the undending number of handling-aids acronyms. The Audi RS3 TCR racecar weighs about 2600 pounds (no driver) and the car it’s based on and which is mechanically very close weighs a full 1k pounds more. That is close 40% extra weight on what is essentially just “driver comfort and driver aids” stuff
Maybe the new Porsche should be one that doesn’t double in price when you start to add options like adaptive cruise and non-grey/white paint. You can more than double the price of the Macan in the configurer.
Yeah I stopped playing around with German car build sites because it was always so depressing. Starting MSRP is always a joke.
I know that’s a render and not an actual photo, but jeez does that Twingo image make me want one in green with those exact wheel covers.
From what I’ve seen online (merely anecdotally, of course) most GM brand dealers have way too many unsold cars, especially big trucks closing in on the six-figure price, some two or three years old. So, it hardly behooves them to keep building at the same pace. Not that it’s likely to help move a ’24 Sierra Denali Whatever beladen with chrome and costing a hundred grand by the time tax/title/reg is figured in.
Industry data says otherwise. Chevy ended 2025 with 68 days of inventory. Cadillac 69 days, GMC 75. All below the industry average.
On the other had Ford was at 96 days and Ram 114 days.
So GM is doing well but not as well as Toyota at 33 days and Honda at 49 days
The two people I know who recently bought new vehicles each ended up with big GM trucks, each in “nice but not range-topping” spec and costing about $80K. My anecdotal take matches the numbers… that sort of thing is selling. Both buyers said the appeal of Section 179 IRS deductions precluded buying a smaller vehicle. One was indeed a Sierra almost-Denali, the other was a Silverado EV.
A lot of people misunderstand 179 deductions.
Yes if the vehicle is more than 6,000 lbs GVWR you can fully deduct it in the firsts year. What people miss is that if you sell that vehicle or move it from business to personal use before it would be fully depreciated under normal rules you have to recapture the extra deduction as income in the year it is sold or taken out of business use.
You also don’t have to spend $80k on a truck to claim the deduction. A WT trim regular cab depreciates the same. Spending an extra $30 – $40k on trim packages to save 20% of that extra cost on taxes makes no financial sense.
Ding Ding Ding!!
Thanks for this explainer. To the point and above all accurate! So many people misunderstand Section 179.
Yes, the people that write of a new $80k truck or SUV every few years will get a big surprise if they are ever audited
That doesn’t keep them from acting on it, though. A lot of people have a “no coupon left unclipped” mentality. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it’s pennywise pound-foolishness.
Apparently the vehicle doesn’t even have to be brand-new. These purchases didn’t make sense to me but they did to the buyers… a big pickup has the cultural significance of a shiny belt buckle in farm country, and those buyers tend to hang on to them for a while, from administrative transport to work truck to heap left behind the barn.
Yes, used is just fine. It’s not just big pickups either, even many mid size CUVs qualify as well as pretty much every full size SUV and many midsize trucks. It just has to have a GVWR over 6000lbs – which manhy erroneously think means it has to WEIGH over 6000lb. No it does not, it just has to be rated to carry a total of over 6000lbs including the vehicle itself. So a 4500lb CUV that can carry 5 people and luggage often has a high enough GVWR, it’s right there on the doorjamb label.
And you have to have an audit-defensible use case for it. A couple of self-maintained rental properties, a Realtor, maybe a delivery service driver (UberEats), certainly a ride share driver…Many, many more qualify, ask your accontant…
There IS one place where it says a pickup must have at least a 6foot bed (so theoretically the 5.5 foot crew cab bed doesn’t qualify) however my accountant says he’s never had pushback on that during any audit – I’d still worry about that, but just get the longer 6.5ft bed for a few hundred more.
You nailed the use cases in my examples: property management and real estate, plus ranching. I know one of those buyers was audited a few years ago, although I don’t think it involved vehicles.
The short-termism affects many areas of life and business. Effective management of most traditional industries and R&D are better with predictability. We will never address the climate or rational changes until there is more agreement on goals. I’m not optimistic.
Porsche will continue to sell volume on the Macan and Cayenne, but they need something else to get people in the door. I have always been a big fan of the 911 but as a Boxster owner I think it is foolish to think they can survive without an entry level model. Maybe that is the Macan, but I will echo some of the support below for an FR layout styled like a shooting brake, cheaper than a 911 to draw in young enthusiasts.
Right now they are really good at selling vehicles to soccer mom’s and I think that is bad for their brand.
From the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s, every American car manufacturer (and plenty of foreign ones) had plenty of footnotes in the engine availability chart reading:
“Not available in California”
and
“Only available in California”
So building different cars for California is not unprecedented.
Yeah, I’m a bit confused by this article, manufacturers have long been building CA-specific variants.
California variants have been a thing, as well as compliance cars. The difference was that the state government and federal government were a few inches apart in terms of emissions requirements. If CA gets the waiver, there’s now a huge separation between what each expects or wants.
This. In general CARB and EPA had harmonized standards – EPA just followed CARB by about 3 years.
When CARB wins the legal battle to keep their waiver you will have about 40% of the country rapidly moving forward on emissions and the other 60% looking to roll back the clock up to 15 years.
All about balance.
Need to roll a lot of coal to make up for those electric cars.
Really? Every new car window sticker that I have looked at lately, (a lot!) touts “50-state emissions”. From an engineering / tech perspective, how much incentive is there, at this point, to roll back to a dirtier emissions standard? How much can they really save on this aspect?
I was simply responding to “This would set up a system where automakers would basically be forced to either build cars for those states and cars for everyone else.” Like the comment I originally replied to stated, there were lots of cases in the 70s/80s where an engine was not available in California or was ONLY available in California. For example, the 350 V8 was available in ’75 Chevy Monzas only in California. In other states, 305 was the largest engine available.
What you stated about 50 state emissions may well be the case on newer cars (I dunno, my newest car is 2015), I was just saying there is already plenty of historical precedent in building two different versions of a vehicle for two different emissions standards. It’s not a new concept. But I agree it would be stupid for manufacturers to build to a dirtier standard.
In pre- and early-ECU days they either had to install extra equipment or derate things on the intake side mechanically to meet California standards, every bit of exhaust reduction cost either money or performance.
Now it’s easier to optimize one CARB/EU compliant spec and sell it everywhere.
Your first paragraph is ancient history. You’re talking about a 75 Chevy that is emission-exempt, even in California.
The first “50 state emission standards” were phased in from 1994-1997. Newer standards were phased in starting in 2004.
Again, for the third time, my point is that there has long been historical precedent for this and that it’s not a new concept. The fact that standards have changed since then does not negate my statement.
They could… but I’d bet they don’t want to. They’re more about harmonizing platforms now…not for consumer benefit of course. Need margins!
Who doesn’t remember sick days and watching Price is Right there they’d always mention “California Emissions” at the end of the (short) list of vehicle features?
“This 1996 Ford Escort LX comes complete with: manual transmission, cloth bucket seats, AM/FM radio, rubber floor mats, doors, paint, and Califormia emissions!”
With The Boxer going out, I would not hate a 4 seat replacement. Maybe even something that looks a lot more like a Karman Ghia, but make sure they design out anything resembling an IMS bearing.
I don’t know who they’d sell it to, but they need another FR platform. Make it a shooting brake.
I want Porsche to make their version of a Z3 Clownshoe.
I really think Porsche could pull off a sports sedan/hatch/wagon that would be about the same size as an RS3 or perhaps a CT4 Blackwing. Of course it will command a price premium being a Porsche but I’d expect it to be a bit nicer than either of the others. Basically something for people that need a bit more practicality than a 911 but don’t want to drive an suv.
I know some Stellantis stores that would love to only have 120 days supply of inventory
“We have a monkey at the controls in Washington…”
He’s not being very kind to monkeys here.
What should the next new Porsche be?
Honestly?
A new 928.
The 928 was my favorite Porsche as a kid. The new one would have to have the exposed lights that pop up.
This move might not even be risky business.
I mean of all the pop-up headlights the 928’s were arguably the safest to pedestrians, which is supposedly why the were phased out.
Ditto. Big fan of the 928 as a kid. My neighbor in LA has a 928S they drive about once a month. He told me it was hard to source parts and it was stupid expensive to keep running.
I was going to say the same thing, especially with it being as easy as making a shorter two door Panamera but I don’t know how they would market it without it taking away 911 sales
Honestly a 2 door Panamera would be a great starting point for a new 928.
In my younger Gen X years (late 80’s/early 90s), I used to have a big crush on Porsches, as well as a big crush on Kim Deal.
I don’t have a crush on any Porsche anymore. A cheaper Cayman might change my feelings, but I really don’t feel much for the brand anymore – I don’t see anything affordable, or that makes my blood go. Their next car will hopefully address this.
I still have a crush on Kim Deal, I must confess.
As an X-llenial (lol) who had at least one ripped magazine page of a 911 on my wall in high school I am still old enough to remember when a new or at least decent used Porsche seemed sort of attainable and desirable for an average car enthusiast if they played their career cards right, that just doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.
The new models keep getting more expensive which props up prices on the old ones, meanwhile they’ve gotten more complicated and thus more expensive to maintain. IMO a stripper base model 911 used to be the enthusiast buy but bc they’ve turned it into GT that’s automatic only you have to step up to a more expensive car to get the real sports car setup-which circles back to the price thing.
and Kim Deal is a bad ass!
So many Gen X musical crushes, I was about to mention another, then realized I have quite a long list.
Agreed. 🙂
I have to agree about the (past) crush on Porsches. For the first couple decades of my life, they were what I aspired to have and hold. I came awfully close to buying a fire-damaged 911 for $9K once (I was 20ish) but foolishly didn’t pull the trigger, being unable to see how much more it’d be worth now (the fogged instrument lenses were a turn-off too).
The base Cayman has been my favorite Porsche since it came out, but it’s become too expensive for me to even pretend to consider buying one new. And whenever I dabble in hunting for used ones, this or that potential expensive issue frightens me off, just like all the vacuum lines in W123 and W124 Benzes does (when did Mercedes switch to electrics for everything inside like windows, locks, seats, and seatbelt presenters?). And the biodegradable wiring harnesses in W124s is a turn-off too, since I live were creatures like to nibble auto innards.
As Gen X, Porsche were aspirational, but still attainable by the common man during my youth. Those days are now gone.
“I still have a crush on Kim Deal, I must confess.” Like a big, big love?
A full sized, four door performance EV pick-up truck with a frunk.
Badge-engineered Polo!
Slap a Porsche label on a Fabia and sell Skoda to Americans at a premium.
BADGE ENGINEERED ID4!!
PORSCHE VAN! PORSCHE VAN!!1!
GM holding less inventory seems reasonable. vehicles are too expensive to be impulse purchases any longer so short term bumps like “tax refund time” likely do not apply as they did in the past for new cars. if the demand starts to bump to where they’ll run out of supply they should have time to respond with more production while raising prices on what they have already.
It’s a bit self-fulfilling though. Automakers only want to sell higher margin cars now, which means more expensive, which means lower demand and lower volume. So of course they’re keeping volume low. Pre-pandemic automakers actually sold low margin, inexpensive volume cars.
This will work as long as subprime 100 month autoloans are a thing, enabling those with at/below median income ($51k for personal median 2024) to trade their future in order to buy cars they can’t afford (car median $50k).
I think this hurt Nissan to a degree. Why buy a Versa when I can mortgage my future to buy a new pickup truck? (Well lots of answers why to not do that…)
When that bubble bursts though, (It will right? I has to doesn’t it?) Then we’ll see what happens to the used car market, and if any automaker is willing to go back after the low-cost / high volume market.
This model works because of the “K shaped” economy. People at the top have money to spend. The bottom 85% of people are going to be used car buyers. People at the top don’t need 100 month loans. Maybe they take a loan for a year or two to spread selling appreciated assets across multiple tax years
a majority of luxury cars (can’t remember the exact percentage but it’s north of 75%) are financed. that suggests that it’s not the top end people buying things they can afford, it’s those who would rather be poor than look poor.
(once you have enough wealth you’re not taking out house/car loans like a normie, you’re using portfolio loans for the generational wealth tax transfer dodge so you show up as a cash buyer)
or there will continue to be no low end market manufacturing at all which will allow someone who does make cheap cars and isn’t currently allowed to sell in the US to make a compelling argument that they should be allowed in.
that’s how it’s supposed to work. companies that don’t make things people buy (either because they don’t want them or can’t afford them) get replaced by companies that do make those things.
I think GM’s data is a bit slanted. Not sure it’s indicative of GM’s doing.
Caddy isn’t a volume seller.
Chevy & GMC are truck-heavy, and GM’s already claimed they need to keep up on trucks.
This was a particularly good TMD. I always wondered why EVs had such weird MPGe numbers. I guess it turns out there is a multiplier attached.
This is the brutal effect of our current situation. The inability to think beyond the next election and the next quarterly earnings numbers will be incredibly difficult. As an insightful comment mentioned yesterday, China’s ability to see into the next decade has caused them to essentially buy favor among developing countries by dumping money into infrastructure projects (such as the hydroelectric dam producing power for Ethiopia’s new wave of EVs).
Bit of a soapbox:
If certain politicians didn’t continuously swing the pendulum as far as they could throw it and pick a fight every time they hold the conch and, instead, worked together to come to some common ground: we’d all be way way way better off.
click bait titles continue to work, so click bait politics will be the norm until something else comes along.
I really hate that this has become true.
You can blame our primary system and gerrymandering for that. Only about 10% of congressional districts are competitive so the real election is the primary. Primary elections have very poor participation and basically only the party extremists participate so you get extremes from both parties instead of moderates that won’t to work together
Some of this was moderated in the 20th century by political sorting after the civil war where Southern conservatives where Democrats because no Republican could win in the South. The voting rights act and other civil rights process killed that and southern conservatives switched to the Republican Party.
This reminds me of a quote from the movie In the Line of Fire (1993) made by John Malkovich’s character:
“We look at the next fiscal quarter. The Japanese look at the next quarter of a century.”
I think that was less about our political situation at the time and more about business practices, but the sentiment holds true 33-years later.
And China looking ahead to the next century.
No, the MPGe numbers on consumer labels don’t have a multiplier attached, it’s just the miles/kWh times the kWh content of a gallon of gasoline.
The next Porsche should be a replacement for the Cayenne S Transsyberia. Ford sells Raptors at a premium, Ram has the TRX back and even Toyota is looking at a Hi-Po TRD Tundra. High Performance Off-Road trims are in and not having a Cayenne version is leaving money on the table.
True, especially since Porsche has those lifted, offroad 911s, seems like the Cayenne would do well in that area against the G wagen and Range rovers if they decided to go for a true Spicy offroad variant.
I agree. I see Cayennes and Macans out-fitted to look off-roady all the time lately (lift, beefy tires, giant rack … thing on the roof). Looking rich and rugged is Peak American.
It would never happen but something smaller, cheaper and more raw than the 718 Cayman would be nice.
A little NA flat 4 GR86 (MR2 ?!) size Porche at $60k to start
So a new 914? I’m in!
I wanted to say this but I thought everyone would laugh at me. Now they’re laughing at you but I have you’re back
Respect.
Porsche Miata
With the sheer amount of Rivian R1S’s I see in Seattle, the Larger Porsche EV is a really great idea.
Hello from a fellow Seattlite, that makes me sad but you’re probably right, the number of people I see driving Macans and Cayennes is kind of shocking. The Taycan also seems to be quite popular here.
Seattle here too. Rivian is popular, for sure. I’m not sure Porsche is relevant as EVs. I want to see the R2 and R3, stat!
Honestly, the amnesty thing sounds like a trap to me
The note that he’s asked for data, and not to vent, speaks to what he’s looking for.
He wants people to show him the real information, and not just fill his ear with hopes and prayers and/or doom and gloom.
I’ve offered it, multiple times, and I felt like I was offering it out of necessity. I worked for a huge country club company, and at one point my job was going to different clubs when they lost (fired) a Chef or an F&B Director to help stabalize operations until a new candidate was hired. I would tell everyone “you can blame everything on the last guy, that’s fine, but you have to tell me everything that’s wrong honestly, or we can’t fix it”. I worked pretty well to releive a lot of the ‘amI going to get fired too’ tension everyone had, and once they knew they wouldn’t get into trouble, it make getting the ship correct a lot easier.
Sometimes the thing is just the thing
as it should to anyone that’s ever worked in corporate anything.
CEOs don’t get to be CEOs by listening to reality, they sell the VISION and blame others when things don’t work out.
I just don’t really understand what it’s offering, especially since it apparently had an expiration date.
I feel like if there are mistakes being made or even corners being cut you should foster the mindset that if someone brings issues to your attention with the intention of addressing it they shouldn’t expect to be fired on the spot.
On the other hand, if there are truly fire-able offenses (like harassment, embezzlement, or fraud, etc), there really shouldn’t be an “amnesty” period.
I know that’s not really how it works and there are legitimate concerns for employees that they’ll be fired for disclosing problems, in which case I get wanting to come in as new management and say you’re not going to manage in that way, but then to have an expiration date just seems weird.
It’s like, “Hey guys, you know how your last manager sucked and caused a culture of fear of retaliation instead of one of collaboration and transparency? We’re not going to do that. Well, we’re not going to do that for 3 weeks. Then it’s back to the same old punitive form of management that got us into this mess.”
Agreed– the time limit makes it really weird. I can’t see a more positive way to look at it than how you described.
Next new Porsche? 911 Sedan. Let’s do this.
Sign of a failed company when people can’t speak their mind.
Not surprised it is Porsche, and thus by extension, VW.
Nothing but “Ja Men” kissing their bosses ass.
And what’s weird is that this “amnesty” thing appears to be saying, “Let’s get back to being able to speak your mind. But let’s put an expiration date on that. So speak your mind for a couple weeks, but after that back to being a failed company.”
Or a failed country even.
At my last big company (global consumer products manufacturer), our leadership realized we had an issue with people being afraid to speak up. So they started having massive, mandatory meetings where they would aggressively ask what the problem was. “People are afraid to speak up! Let’s demand they do so in front of their regional president and 400 of their peers! That’s the ticket!”
It was very “beatings will continue until morale improved.”
When questions only lead to punishment, no one questions.
The longer I work in the corporate world, the more I see how much of an absolute disaster it is.
It must be a problem with large organizations. I work at a company that has a strong history of open discussion, but as we’ve grown larger those discussions have become increasingly defensive on the executive side. They are really not interested in any of the unwashed masses questioning their strategy.
Which means it is not at all surprising that our employee survey consistently shows our worst category is “confidence in senior leadership”. I expect that eventually the culture we used to have will just die off as people realize nothing (good) comes of it.
I do think bigger orgs can have bigger problems with this. I also have a theory about senior leadership’s background. At my old company, half the C-suite came from a consulting firm. The culture was very obsessed with ego, slick powerpoint decks, and hierarchy. At my current company, the CEO and a lot of senior leaders are engineers. It is a MUCH better culture.
Could be a coincidence, but I will definitely check CEO backgrounds when I look at moving to a new company someday.
What should the next new Porsche be? The gas powered Macan replacement