Update: Porsche denies Cayenne U.S. production plans

Update: Porsche has confirmed that it has no need to build its Cayenne SUV in North America and has no plans to do so at a later date. A spokesman for the carmaker has revealed that Porsche will be immune to the negative effects of a weak U.S. dollar though until 2013 due to hedging so has no reason to move its production. He also explained that Porsche outsources most of its components from suppliers based primarily in Europe.

The original source, German newspaper Handelsblatt, said the Cayenne could share production at VW’s future U.S. plant. While production of the Cayenne is shared with the VW Touareg and Audi Q7, Porsche still ships the unfinished bodies to a factory in Leipzig for final assembly, the spokesman explained.

Original: Executives from Volkswagen are currently scouring the U.S. in search of a site for a new plant to start building VW cars and transmissions locally by the end of the decade. VW’s U.S. chief Stefan Jacoby has stated in the past that the plant would have to build at least 200,000 vehicles annually to remain feasible and to fill this quota the carmaker is reportedly looking at producing vehicles from some of its subsidiaries as well.

Audi CEO Rupert Stadler has hinted that extra capacity at the new VW plant could be used to build Q7 SUVs and possibly the upcoming Q5. Now, German business newspaper Handelsblatt is reporting that Porsche Cayenne SUVs could also be sourced from the new American plant.

The Cayenne is based on the same platform as the Audi Q7 and VW Touareg and all three are currently built at the same VW factory in Slovakia. If one of these vehicles were to be built at the new U.S. plant, there’s very little reason why the others couldn’t. VW spokesman Andreas Meurer also confirmed that U.S. production of these vehicles was being discussed.

The only vehicles confirmed so far for the new plant is the VW Jetta sedan plus an all-new midsize sedan. However given the popularity of the Cayenne in the U.S. and the increased costs of importing the SUVs due to the weak U.S. dollar the chance of the Porsche SUV being built Stateside is very likely.