Porsche ditches Cellforce battery‑cell plans, cuts about 200 jobs and pivots to R&D

Porsche (XETRA: P911) has ditched plans to manufacture high-performance battery cells at its Cellforce unit, saying weaker-than-expected EV demand and shifting conditions in China and the U.S. make in-house production uneconomic.

The decision, announced Monday, turns Cellforce into a pure research-and-development shop and will trim the workforce sharply - roughly 200 roles out of close to 300 are expected to go, according to people briefed on the move. "Porsche is not pursuing its own battery cell production for reasons of volume and lack of economies of scale," Oliver Blume, CEO of both Porsche and majority owner Volkswagen (XETRA: VOW.DE), said in a statement.

Management suggested some affected employees could transfer to Volkswagen's PowerCo battery unit, and that Cellforce's technical know-how will be redeployed inside VW's broader battery initiatives - including the V4Smart operation the automaker folded into its group earlier this year. Michael Steiner, Porsche's board member in charge of R&D, summed it up bluntly: without global volume, the unit can't reach the planned cost position.

That's a blow for Europe's hopes of building homegrown battery capacity. Porsche had been talking expansion since 2022, with a small "start-up factory" planned in Baden‑Württemberg and a larger second site envisioned later on. The recent collapse of major European battery bets - Northvolt's troubles being a headline example - has left automakers exposed to Asian and U.S. scale advantages.

Market reaction was muted but tangible: shares tied to the group showed small declines after the news - Volkswagen (XETRA: VOW.DE) printed a negative move intraday, and Porsche preference lines were lower as well.

For traders, the headlines do a few things at once. They remove a capital‑heavy growth option from Porsche's near-term plan, concentrate battery manufacturing scale back into a few larger players, and keep the spotlight on who will actually own the cell supply chain in Europe - incumbents, Asian suppliers or big conglomerates with the capacity to build scale fast. It also shifts risk from manufacturing execution to technology and IP: Cellforce will stay alive as an R&D hub, but the industrial prize - gigafactories with tight unit costs - remains firmly in the hands of those who can reach massive volumes.

Europe's battery ambitions just lost a chip; whether it's a fatal one or a dent that gets patched depends on who can translate engineering into mass production next.