Porsche opens first manufacturing plant outside Europe

Porsche has announced it’s expanding its research and development, and manufacturing facilities with two new sites in Asia. The two separate facilities will focus on its individual markets, and reflect the increasing importance of those markets to its bottom line.

The new R&D centre will be located in Shanghai, and specialise in the development of Chinese-market models with a more direct connection to its location and customer base. With such varied requirements from different marketplaces, Porsche has long had engineering outposts in various countries, but it’s this new centre in China that will focus specifically on the unique expectations of the Chinese market, which is Porsche’s single biggest market globally.

The second new facility will be a small manufacturing plant in Malaysia, which will assemble Malaysian-market models partly to feed Porsche’s strong local fan-base while also avoiding the astonishingly high taxes imposed on imported vehicles, which for most Porsche models sit at an astonishing 105 percent of the car’s purchase price.

By assembling models locally, Porsche, and therefore its customers will largely get around these additional costs, tapping into a marketplace with an enthusiastic customer base and a significant advantage in price points.

Albrecht Reimold, Member of the Executive Board for Production and Logistics at Porsche said upon the release: ‘The new assembly site in Malaysia meets specific market needs and, although a standalone project and modest in size and capacity, it signals our willingness to learn and adapt to specific local market conditions.’

This focus on Asian markets is representative of the importance these lucrative markets are for premium European brands. This will become especially important as all manufacturers, not just Porsche, hunt for revenue streams as they convert to largely electrified ranges in the near future.

Jordan Katsainis