The “tears and blood” plan by Porsche aimed at getting the balance sheets back on track is taking shape and indeed continues to expand its scope.
PORSCHE ACCELERATES WITH CUTS
In February 2025, the German sports car stable announced the need to reduce jobs by about 1,900 units by 2029, focusing mainly on the Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and Weissach plants in Germany.
An additional extension compared to the emergency project decided by former CEO Oliver Blume (the crisis forced him to focus only on the VW Group, handing over the wheel of Porsche to Michael Leiters) in 2024, which provided for not extending fixed-term contracts for 1,500 employees, with a further 500 contracts expiring.
The recent worsening of the accounts did the rest, and now Porsche no longer spares even the divisions once considered crucial in the storytelling of the ‘new mobility’ operating in the software branch and sustainable mobility sector, confirming Stuttgart’s stall in these areas to focus on what it has always done profitably: sports cars with internal combustion engines.
THE DIVISIONS CUT BY PORSCHE
Porsche has indeed announced, according to agencies, the closure of three subsidiaries: the first is Cellforce Group, led by Sebastian Albani, which in the original plans was supposed to handle in-house production of high-performance batteries. In reality, that Cellforce had long been offloaded Start Magazine had anticipated almost a year ago.
The axe of cuts wielded by then CEO Blume had thus fallen on the division even before Porsche’s latest and strongest financial stumbles forced the brand within the Volkswagen Group’s portfolio to deeply revise the electric model lineup, drastically reducing it.
DO E-BIKES ALSO HAVE FLAT TIRES?
And the latest data, which saw global sales fall further by 15% to 60,991 registrations during the first quarter of 2026, made new savings requirements unavoidable, which will also overwhelm another important green division, Porsche eBike Performance, which includes the Munich startup Fazua, known among enthusiasts for its light motors mounted on premium electric bikes. Porsche had acquired 20 percent of it in 2022.
In November 2021, the company announced it had acquired the majority stake in Greyp Bike, a Croatian company dealing with pedal-assisted electric bikes linked to Rimac and in which it already held a small stake. This now refers to a time long ago considered the current automotive crisis that is forcing Western brands to shred their green projects.
GAME OVER FOR CETITEC SOFTWARE
Finally, Stuttgart will also close Cetitec, a software house born as a spin-off of K2L GmbH in Karlsruhe in 2012, responsible for data communication programs, based in Pforzheim, acquired in 2019.
The acquisition was supposed to allow Porsche to develop tailor-made onboard programs for its cars. It remains to be seen whether the more recent partnership between the Volkswagen Group and the American Rivian, which as far as is known will also concern onboard software, has ended up making this earlier collaboration redundant. In that case, the software for Porsches could indeed come from RJ Scaringe’s startup.
EMPLOYEES LEFT JOBLESS
According to agencies, the latest cuts announced by Porsche jeopardize the future of about 50 employees within Cellforce, approximately 360 workers of Porsche eBike Performance between Ottobrunn and Zagreb, and about 90 units between Germany and Croatia for Cetitec. In total, over 500 layoffs are expected. But the impression, unfortunately, is that this is only the beginning of a difficult season of heavy savings.
