Porsche expands its R&D team in China, adding intelligent driving and cockpit departments. | Exclusive from 36Kr.

Text｜Xu Caiyu

Editor｜Li Qin, Yang Xuan

Facing the sluggish sales in the Chinese market, Porsche initiates an intelligent charge.

36Kr has learned from multiple sources that Porsche's R&D team in China is expanding, and one of the goals of this expansion is to complete the R&D capabilities in intelligent cockpits, ADAS advanced driver assistance systems, and other intelligent areas. A Porsche insider told 36Kr, "The R&D team is one of the strategic focuses of Porsche in China, and this team will be responsible for the adaptive development of intelligent applications in China in the future."

Porsche's R&D team in China was established in 2022. As it was only responsible for the test preparation of imported models for the Chinese market before, the team has grown to less than 50 people in two years. This round of recruitment is the second large-scale expansion of Porsche's R&D team in China since its establishment.

Porsche's demand for the cockpit department is to improve the voice recognition ability of its cockpit and optimize the voice control function. The ADAS advanced driver assistance business is in an earlier stage of initiation, and the main job functions are to conduct research and analysis of the intelligent driving market in China.

In terms of cockpit localization, Tesla, another foreign brand, spent three years building a 400-person team in China to deliver a qualified result. Although Porsche's first round of recruitment is not large, the company is internally prepared to expand the team.

Insiders told 36Kr that the Chinese R&D team will move from Pudong, Shanghai to Jiading, Shanghai, where many automotive R&D companies are gathered, and will simultaneously build Porsche's R&D laboratory.

In August this year, Porsche's second electric model was launched. However, the medium-sized SUV pure electric Macan, with a starting price of 598,000 yuan, seems unable to replicate the sales success of the coupe Taycan when it was first launched. In the Chinese market that pursues cost performance and intelligent experience, Porsche's competitiveness is shrinking.

Can this intelligent deployment provide a specific remedy for Porsche to boost sales?

Porsche's Intelligent Plan

Porsche, with driving control experience as its brand gene, has always had a positive attitude towards intelligent driving, but it seems not to pursue the speed of implementation.

At the end of 2023, Porsche appointed Sajjad Khan, the former CTO of Mercedes-Benz, to the board of directors, responsible for Porsche's intelligent vehicle infotainment system, in-vehicle operating system, and intelligent driving and other businesses. After the new executive took office, Porsche quickly invested in a series of intelligent field companies, including the American autonomous driving company Applied Intuition.

In the more specific functional implementation level, Porsche has adopted a multi-channel parallel strategy.

Porsche has always had high expectations for CARIAD, the software company under its parent company Volkswagen Group. However, due to the continuous delay in function delivery, in May last year, Porsche reached a cooperation with the autonomous driving company Mobileye to jointly develop a mass-produced ADAS solution.

The cooperation between Porsche and Mobileye mainly focuses on Mobileye's SuperVisionTM system, with the goal of enabling drivers to keep their hands off the steering wheel under various road conditions. And because it hopes to balance human driving and intelligent driving, the integration and adjustment of function development will be fully responsible by Porsche.

After the establishment of this round of the Chinese R&D team, it will start the research and analysis of intelligent driving in the Chinese market, and in the future, it will continue to expand the team to be responsible for the adaptive development of related functions in the Chinese market.

In the cockpit field, which is closer to the vehicle usage experience, Porsche is obviously more urgent.

Currently, Porsche still takes Carplay as the core of its vehicle infotainment system and is one of the few automakers that support the Carplay 2.0 version. Since the first quarter of this year, various Porsche models have launched updates to the Carplay 2.0 version. In the 2.0 version, users can not only listen to music and watch videos through Carplay, but also control vehicle functions such as air conditioning and ambient lighting.

In terms of voice experience, the currently available Porsche models can only perform simple voice wake-up. For example, for the pure electric model Taycan, users can only control the vehicle's air conditioning and seat heating through voice. At the same time, Porsche's voice wake-up rate and recognition speed are greatly limited. Compared with Chinese brands that are already competing in the on-board experience of large models, Porsche's experience is obviously not rich enough.

But it can be seen from the establishment of the intelligent R&D team in China that Porsche is making changes.

Can Intelligence Break the Sales Dilemma?

One of the pressures Porsche is currently facing is the continuous decline in sales in the Chinese market.

In 2022, Porsche's sales in the Chinese region approached 100,000 units, making it the largest single market for Porsche globally for eight consecutive years. However, the economic environment in the Chinese market has changed, and at the same time, Chinese independent brands have risen rapidly. Porsche's annual sales in China dropped to 79,000 units in 2023, and in the first three quarters of this year, it was only 43,000 units. The decline in sales in the Chinese market has directly led to a reduction in Porsche's operating profit and return rate.

In addition to sales, Porsche's pure electric transformation has not been smooth. Porsche has clearly stated that its goal is that by 2030, 80% of the delivered models will be pure electric models. This year, Porsche's best-selling model Macan has ushered in a pure electric version.

The pure electric Macan seems difficult to become a hit like the first pure electric model Taycan. A Porsche dealer told 36Kr that after the starting price of 598,000 yuan was announced, the market feedback for the pure electric Macan was not good.

Chinese independent brands can provide users with larger space, more luxurious configurations, and more intelligent vehicle usage experiences at lower prices. The high premium lacking comprehensive product strength support has become a barrier for users. Among them, the intelligent experience that is far from that of Chinese independent brands is one of the core issues.

The 2025 models of Panamera, Cayenne, Taycan, etc., have been equipped with Porsche's latest vehicle infotainment system. This generation of Porsche vehicle infotainment system supports the use of video App iQIYI and various map Apps for the first time. However, the matching voice wake-up function seems to have not made much progress.

Several Porsche owners told 36Kr that basic vehicle control instructions such as adjusting the temperature, opening and closing windows, and adjusting the volume cannot be responded to, and more advanced needs such as searching for the navigation destination or changing the destination midway cannot be realized. "Porsche seems not to understand Chinese, but these functions are what we really need", "There is a vehicle navigation system, but the voice often cannot find the destination, so it is rarely used."

By expanding the Chinese R&D team this time, Porsche attempts to enhance the intelligent product strength and provide a better experience for Chinese users. One of the missions of the new team is to make Porsche understand Chinese and be able to perform more vehicle control functions.

This measure is expected to improve the cockpit experience of users in the Chinese market, but Porsche seems not to have done enough.

Tesla, another foreign automaker, has also experienced the development of cockpit localization. Since achieving localization in 2019, Tesla has spent three years building a 400-person Chinese innovation team to be responsible for the development of local functions.

In the navigation field with the highest user usage frequency, Tesla has reached a cooperation with Baidu Maps, and a local and useful map navigation function has officially appeared on Tesla, greatly improving the practicality of its vehicle infotainment system.

In the voice sector, to this day, Tesla is still continuously promoting voice localization. In the OTA upgrade at the end of 2023, Tesla once again optimized the voice recognition function, allowing users to more conveniently control the air conditioning and navigation.

However, independent brands have flocked to the technical direction of the on-board voice large model, and Tesla's fixed instruction-based voice function has become slightly backward. Porsche, which is still facing the problem of understanding more Chinese, has fallen behind a large distance from the Chinese market.