Porsche planning more production cuts, VW also mulls reductions

Earlier we reported that Porsche would be slowing down production at its Zuffenhausen plant in Germany from December 22 through January 9 due to flagging sales, and now we can report that more production cuts are expected to take place. The sports carmaker now plans to stop production for a full non-consecutive seven days at its Stuttgart factory, although which weeks these closures will take place in has yet to be revealed.

Similarly, Porsche's soon to be subsidiary, Volkswagen, is also very strongly considering slowing down production, joining a growing list of carmakers having to rationalize output to meet record low levels of consumer demand over the last few months. Already General Motors and BMW have made similar announcements for their European facilities, reports the Associated Press.

Currently, VW is still in talks with union officials and worker representatives to shut down production for three weeks during the year-end holiday period, a move which would affect over 15,000 employees but one which may be necessary if the company is to avoid costly overproduction.

Both German-based carmakers echoed the same sentiment regarding the production cuts, iterating that it was impossible to "isolate" themself from the current market situation. One Porsche spokesman also alluded to the fact that many potential Porsche customers were not suddenly unable to afford a Porsche, but were being more sensitive to the general economic climate of the time and not wishing to "pull up in a new Porsche when their neighbour’s house is being foreclosed".

No word has been released on the volume by which production will be reduced for either Porsche or VW, but Porsche has discussed moving some of its production of the Boxster, currently on contract to the Finnish firm Valmet, back into its own facilities if the current downturn continues.