Porsche To Add 1,400 To Payroll To Produce Mission E

The Porsche MissionE four door sports car is due to roll off the assembly line in 2019. That’s not very far away in the world of making automobiles, where 5 year lead times are the norm. In order to get the new car into production, Porsche says it will add 1,400 employees to the its payroll. Porsche originally expected to add about 1,000 new jobs for the Mission E at its factory in Zuffenhausen. It is investing about $1 billion to bring the new zero emissions sports car to market.

The Mission E represents a totally new direction for Porsche, which is known for high performance cars with internal combustion engines. The company’s labor boss Uwe Hueck told reporters at a briefing on Tuesday. “You either take part in the digital change or you lose.” The change in focus also applies to parent company Volkswagen and luxury automaker Audi. Hueck declined to specify production targets for the Mission E, but said Porsche needs to sell at least 10,000 of any given model each year in order to make a profit.

Porsche gets more than 140,000 job applications each year and it regularly tops most surveys as a good place to work. But attracting the best engineering talent available is a struggle in a day and age when so many new automakers, suppliers and IT companies are competing for the best and the brightest talent. “I’m not denying that the battle for talent is tough,” human resources chief Andreas Haffner says.

Porsche says the 1,400 new jobs include 900 production staff, 300 salaried workers and 200 engineers. It also plans to boost the number of apprenticeships by half to 220, part of an industry-wide recruitment push as automakers compete with the likes of Google and Apple for digital car technology.

So far, German electronics giant Robert Bosch is expected to supply the batteries for the Mission E, but parent company Volkswagen is conducting its own battery research and it considering building its own battery manufacturing facilities in Germany and in Thailand.

Source: Reuters  Photo credit: Porsche