Porsche CEO Oliver Blume on the brand's electrified future

As Porsche readies its all-electric Mission E for a 2020 launch, Autocar speaks to the brand's CEO, Oliver Blume, about its ambitions for electrification.

Does Porsche need to continue to grow?

“The growth of sales is not so important to Porsche. We had good growth in the last few years, but the number of cars is less important than the needs of customers. Healthy growth would be 5% a year, but Porsche will never be a volume brand. “[For future model expansion], we analyse different segments where the needs from customers are. We had Porsche Macan. Now we have a car in a new segment with a pure EV. That will be the next step for a new segment for Porsche.”

Who will buy your electric cars?

“It will be a mixture of customers – early adopters and people from the Porsche community that look to the future. The volumes will be 20,000 a year at the start and we have the opportunity to produce more at the Zuffenhausen facility as it is flexible.”

Click here to read about how electrification will affect Porsche design

When will there be an electric 911?

“With the 911, for the next 10 to 15 years, we will still have a combustion engine. We have combustion engines, then plug-ins as intermediaries, then full EV later on. The future concept of 911 will have plug-in built in, but it’s not decided yet if we offer it: 911 is a core business and we need it to be a pure sports car. When customers want it to be electric, we can be ready.”

Will you offer more plug-in hybrids?

“We have very good feedback on Porsche Panamera plug-in. We have 700hp, eight cylinders: the feedback and sales are good and much better than expected. It shows we’re in the right direction to offer very sporty and high- performing Porsches. We won Le Mans three times in a row with plug-in hybrids, so we can use it in series production and have high credibility.”