Porsche paid a $113 million fine to Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles as compensation for withdrawing from the production deal.
According to a report, there has been an internal agreement within the Volkswagen Group to allow Porsche to build high-performance electric cars at its own production facilities, rather than at Volkswagen’s Hanover plant.
Previously, Porsche’s electric cars would be produced in the same facilities as Audi and Bentley. Where, it was supposed to be built as part of Audi’s Artemis Project, which will create new technologies for highly automated vehicles.
Porsche assumed that buyers were less interested in automation than their performance, and therefore did not want to use the many advanced driver assistance systems offered by Artemis.
“Since Porsche will use different platforms in its model planning, production at Stöcken offers almost no meaningful synergies. Building two new production lines on different platforms will not increase complexity,” Porsche Holding wrote in a December 2021 statement.
Meanwhile, in the same press release, the chairman of the working board at Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, Bertina Murkovic, expressed her “disappointment at Porsche’s rejection of the Hanover site.”
Per this report, the deal between the companies will include a $113 million payment from Porsche to Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles to replace the lost production with another model.
Porsche will now make the electric car, known internally as the K1, at its factory in Leipzig. The vehicle will remain based on the EV architecture jointly developed by Audi and Porsche, although it will not use the technology developed by Audi for the Artemis Project.
Meanwhile, Volkswagen’s Hanover plant will be the construction site for Volkswagen ID.Buzz, as well as flagship electric vehicles built by Audi and Bentley.