Porsche pursues green upgrade to make Taycan at German factory

German luxury carmaker is undertaking a major upgrade at its Zuffenhausen factory as it prepares to manufacture the Taycan, its production version of the Mission E concept currently on show in Sydney’s Barangaroo.

The Porsche Production 4.0 upgrades, which the carmaker describes as a “factory within a factory”, underline a fundamental change going on within the company, which it says signals its definitive entry into the electric era.

Porsche announced it would be doubling its investment in electromobility back in June, with several hundred million of the €6 billion total to be invested in the transformation of the factory it now says follows “smart, green and lean” ideals.

“The Taycan production process is carbon neutral, with the future goal in production being to establish a complete zero-impact factory, a factory with no environmental impact,” the company has stated in a press release.

The new production process will make use of a flexible assembly line which the carmaker calls “flexi-line production”, which we take to mean it can add in autonomous and digital car features to newer models alongside its traditional assembly line.

“By applying flexi-line production, Porsche will become the first vehicle manufacturer to use driverless transport systems in a continuous series production process,” says Albrecht Reimold, Executive Board member responsible for Production and Logistics.

In addition to pursuing the goal of a zero emission production facility, Porsche says that the all-electric Taycan is the driver of the company’s single largest push to increase staff.

1200 new jobs have been created thanks to the Taycan, Porsche says, and although they will not all be working on production of the all-electric sports car, the carmaker will also build a training facility on the factory site to allow allstaff to undertake studies in relation to “digital tranformation” in preparation for Porsche’s journey into the electric era.

While the Taycan is Porsche’s first foray into the EV revolution, it says it will continue to electrify its existing range of luxury cars, and has put €1 billion to that task.

“We predict that over 50 per cent of Porsche models delivered from 2025 will be electrified,” says Lutz Meschke, Porsche’s Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board and member of the Board responsible for Finance and IT.

€500 million is being put to the development of the various derivatives and variants of the Taycan that Porsche plans on bringing to market, which includes 800 volt battery technology that will allow the car to recharge for an added 100km range in only 4 minutes, according to the carmaker.