Porsche’s CEO outlines a mixed lineup, reviving the gas Macan and confirming no fully electric version of the 911.
Michael Leiters took over as Porsche’s chief executive in January, and he’s spent the months since building a case for petrol. The new boss says critics have it wrong: Porsche isn’t turning its back on electric cars; it’s just not abandoning gasoline either.
Leiters laid out that position in a new interview, confirming a combustion-engine Macan for 2028 while insisting the sports-car brand’s EV plans stay on track. The one model excluded from that balance, again, is the 911.
Porsche CEO Dr Michael Leiters and CFO Dr Jochen Breckner
Leiters said calling him an EV skeptic misses the point entirely. “I think that’s unfair,” he told the Financial Times, describing his strategy as recovery, not retreat. He wants combustion and electric models sitting side by side, not one replacing the other.
The clearest proof is the Macan. Porsche will bring back a petrol-powered version of the crossover in 2028, years after the nameplate went electric-only. Leiters wants the gas Macan selling alongside the electric one, not competing for the same buyer twice.
That worry about redundant spending runs through his whole approach. “We have to be careful to ensure that the company was not making a double investment in petrol and EVs in the same vehicle segment,” he said, describing a company that had relied too hard on electric before the market was ready.
Leiters is also betting that gasoline still has pull at the top of the lineup. “We have to recover our petrol strategy, but I’m very positive that once we have the Macan with the petrol engine, we have a very balanced offer for our customers on electric and petrol cars,” he said, pointing to buyers who simply haven’t warmed to battery power yet.
Porsche Macan GTS Electric
The numbers behind his pivot are rough. Electric Macan sales dropped 40 percent year on year in the first half, and deliveries in China fell 32 percent over the same stretch. Porsche’s operating margin had sunk to 1.1 percent in 2022, hit by the China slowdown and the costs of the EV retreat.
Fixing that has meant cutting, not just repositioning. Leiters reached a deal to trim 9,000 jobs by 2035 and shut down Porsche’s electric-bike, battery and software subsidiaries, moves he’s described as discipline rather than panic. “With a difficult environment, we have to rethink our business model and the scale of our organisation,” he said.
Porsche also raised roughly €1 billion by selling its stakes in Bugatti Rimac and the Rimac Group, freeing up cash as the company reshapes which bets it’s still willing to make. None of that comes across as a company giving up on electric cars. Instead it looks like one trying to stop overspending on them.
Leiters argues the bigger issue is a lopsided market, not the technology itself. “If we have an even playing field, we don’t have to fear any competition,” he said, a line directed at regulators and rivals as well as Porsche’s own product planners. The company has made a similar case before, telling it doesn’t judge gas versus electric as a moral choice.
2027 Porsche 718 Cayman EV Rendering
Porsche is still developing a battery-electric 718, the brand’s smaller sports car, even as the Macan swings back toward gasoline. Leiters treats the two as separate bets: one segment can go electric while another stays combustion, depending on what customers actually want.
The 911 sits outside both conversations. Leiters confirmed there will not be an electric version of the car, continuing a position Porsche has held for years and reinforced again in September.
Today’s 911 already runs hybrid hardware in the Carrera GTS, pairing a combustion engine with electric assistance rather than replacing it outright. That’s as far as electrification goes for the car, and Porsche has been just as firm about ruling out a plug-in hybrid version, saying the car shouldn’t get any bigger to accommodate the extra hardware.
To keep pace on the electric side without overextending Porsche’s own engineering budget, Leiters said the company will rely on Volkswagen Group technology. That’s the same shared-platform logic that’s letting Porsche chase an electric 718 while leaving its most famous model exactly as it is.
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