Question: If Matthias Muller, the CEO of Porsche, readily admits that he doesn’t know anything about Tesla, should he really be the CEO of Porsche?
Muller was interviewed by the Wall Street Journal yesterday and was asked if there’s anything Porsche could learn from Tesla.
Mr. Muller said the company isn’t looking to Mr. Musk for insight.
“I cannot say anything about Tesla,” he said. “I don’t know anything about Tesla.”
Few things.
First, when originally asked about Tesla, Muller threw the questions back at WSJ reporter John D. Stoll: “Did you read the newspaper yesterday? Did you read the numbers for the financial results?”
So yes, he’s obviously heard about Tesla and has a basic understanding of what’s going on with the business. Was his comment about not “knowing anything about Tesla” just lost in translation? A corporate talking point? Maybe.
But in that same interview Muller admits that, “there is no doubt the future will have battery-driven cars” before positing the normal questions about when they would be widely adopted and stating that the “technology has problems.”
If he believes that – and Porsche is, by many accounts, working on a spate of battery-electric vehicles – why wouldn’t he be looking to an automaker that’s put both EVs and their performance potential on the map?
Absolutely none of this makes sense. I guess “I don’t know her” is a thing that happens in the car world too.
Contact the author at damon@jalopnik.com.
Public PGP key
PGP fingerprint: 7301 D7FC 2FF6 D437 E5A7 0568 3A14 624A 1800 4C85