Porsche’s new boss was a sceptic of battery motors for luxury vehicles long before he was picked to lead the revival of the petrol engine at the German sports car group.
“The technology isn’t ready,” Michael Leiters told the Financial Times late last year while still in his old job as chief executive of British supercar manufacturer McLaren. Electric vehicles lacked the emotional thrill of noisy engines and were quicker to lose their value, he said.
Leiters will take over at Porsche in January at a critical juncture for the Stuttgart-based company, as it tempers its electric ambitions and ploughs new investment into petrol engine models in an attempt to turn its fortunes around.
Leiters cut his teeth as the personal assistant to one of Porsche’s CEOs in the early 2000s and also spent time as Ferrari’s chief technology officer. He was “one of a very small handful of people who ticks all the boxes,” according to Scott Sherwood, an independent analyst of luxury car brands.
“Given the challenges Porsche is facing, they need a CEO who brings an outside perspective yet understands Porsche, the Porsche family, the German culture and Porsche’s operating environment,” he added.
The luxury car brand has long been one of the most reliable sources of profits in the Volkswagen stable. While Porsche’s vehicle sales only accounted for 3.6 percent of Volkswagen’s deliveries on average worldwide in the past three years, the brand produced almost 30 percent of the group’s operating profit.