Porsche is under pressure to fire ambassador and former world rally champion Walter Röhrl after he slammed electric cars during a German television interview.
The 1980 and ’82 WRC champion blasted current moves towards electric cars and electrification as a “disaster” in an interview with Germany’s MotorsportMagazin.com.
Röhrl has been a Porsche ambassador and a key member of its development team for nearly two decades, but told the interviewer he specifically wanted no part of developing the Mission E or any other electric Porsche because he hated them.
“I don’t need that,” he told the interviewer, before claiming electric cars would be an environmental disaster.
The interview set off alarm bells at Porsche, which has yet to respond to requests for comment.
Insiders insist the interview, and any repercussions from it, are still being discussed amongst the Porsche family and the supervisory board and they have yet to decide how to treat Röhrl, who they have long treated as family.
Yet the Volkswagen Group recently swapped out ex-Porsche man Matthias Mueller as Management Board Chairman and CEO because they felt he wasn’t pushing electrification fast or hard enough, and Porsche is said to be under pressure from his replacement, Herbert Diess, about dealing with Röhrl.
Verbatim, the interview (in German), went like this, after Röhrl was asked if he’d ever watched a Formula E race:
Walter Röhrl: The TV was on, but I wasn't really watching, and I heard this sound. It sounded like a golf cart, you know, on a golf course, but then I realised ‘Hey, that's Formula E’. Great, exactly what I need!
Of course I switched the TV off right away. That's all I have to say about Formula E. I'm just not interested.
Even if Porsche were to win, I couldn't be bothered.
Question: Why not?
WR: Well if you ask me, the very idea of making a racing car just for racing through cities is ludicrous.
What they should do is, they should drive on a racing circuit and make some great sound. That would tell me that I'm at racetrack and not at some kind of event for the blind [he meant ‘deaf’].
Q: I suppose Porsche's Mission E is not your cup of tea either, is it?
WR: No, I don't need that. I'm convinced that by the time that car hits the ground I'll have an arrangement whereby I'll either be retired or I'll have nothing to do with that.
Q: So you'll actually have a contract to that effect?
WR: Well, you know, I don't want to get into trouble. You'll never hear me say that electric cars are great.
What I say is the future of electric motoring will be in the cities.
If you ask me, driving a car is about getting in and going on an 800km trip, and electric cars can never be a solution to that.
Also, they're a disaster in environmental terms.
Q: You mean in terms of their overall eco-balance?
WR: Exactly. And by the way, there'll never be enough raw materials.
I'm shocked at what all those politicians are saying. They say that electric cars are a winner, but they haven't got a clue what they're talking about.
But now everyone is running in that direction, ignoring the development of fuel cells, the development of ICEs, the development of synthetic fuels, which would be the future, if you ask me.
But like I said, those blind politicians are telling us: ‘This is the way forward’ and everyone is going that way -- it's a disaster.