Porsche sets Nürburgring EV record, trims units

Porsche just did two very different things in the same week. It set a new Nürburgring record for a production electric vehicle, and it said it will discontinue three subsidiaries affecting more than 500 employees. That mix tells you a lot about where the company is right now. Porsche still wants the engineering glory. But it also wants to stop funding side bets that are not paying off fast enough. ### What was the record? The headline-grabber is the Taycan Turbo GT with Weissach Package and a new Manthey Kit. Porsche said test driver Lars Kern lapped the Nürburgring Nordschleife in 6:55.533 on May 7, resetting the record in the electric executive cars category. The Manthey package adds circuit-focused aero, chassis, wheel-and-tire, and software changes, and Porsche plans to offer it as a retrofit kit starting in June. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### Why does that lap matter? Because Nürburgring times are basically marketing with a stopwatch. They do not tell you everything about a car, but they are a very clean way to signal technical credibility. Porsche has been using the Taycan Turbo GT as its EV halo car for a while now, and this extends that play. The company had already used the model to post EV lap records at Laguna Seca and, in earlier form, at the Nürburgring. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### What exactly is the Manthey Kit? Manthey is Porsche’s familiar track-performance playbook, but now applied to an EV. That is the interesting part. Porsche says the package changes aerodynamics, suspension setup, wheel and tire hardware, and power-delivery software. In plain English, this is Porsche trying to prove that electric performance cars can still benefit from the same obsessive track tuning that made its GT cars famous. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### So why are there cuts at the same time? Because the company is tightening up around the businesses it thinks matter most. Porsche said on May 8 that it will discontinue Cellforce Group, Porsche eBike Performance, and Cetitec, and that more than 500 employees are affected. Management framed it as a sharper focus on the core business and part of a broader strategic realignment. That is corporate language, but the meaning is simple — side projects are getting cut. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### Which units got hit? Cellforce was Porsche’s battery-cell venture. Porsche eBike Performance was the electric-bike drive business. Cetitec worked in engineering and consulting. Those are not random names. They sit around the edges of the car business where Porsche had been exploring future growth, especially in batteries and adjacent mobility. Now the company is signaling that those bets are not core enough to keep funding in the current environment. That last part is an inference from the restructuring language and the units chosen. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### Is this a contradiction? Not really — it is the same strategy from two angles. The Taycan record says Porsche still wants to lead on premium EV performance. The subsidiary closures say Porsche does not want to spread capital and management attention too widely while doing that. One move builds the brand at the very top end. The other cuts experiments that sit outside the main profit engine. (newsroom.porsche.com) ### What is the bigger read-through? Porsche is acting like a company that still believes in EVs, but no longer believes every EV-adjacent project deserves to survive. That is a more selective posture than the industry had a few years ago. The bottom line is simple: Porsche is still spending to prove it can build the fastest electric halo cars, but it is also pruning anything that does not clearly help the core car business. (newsroom.porsche.com)