Porsche will present the new all-electric Macan on Thursday, 25 January 2024. The second generation of the successful SUV will be unveiled in Singapore, with the world premiere broadcast live in the Porsche Newsroom.
Shortly before the world premiere of the new Porsche Macan, Michael Mauer discusses the challenge of updating the familiar design of the successful SUV. “The new Macan is the first model that we are electrifying from an existing, established product identity,” says the Vice President Style Porsche. In his view, “every new sports car has to be very clearly recognisable as part of the Porsche product family and the model in question, but also has to be perceived as ‘the new one’”. Mauer believes that this visual consistency is critical for the Porsche brand. Striking the right balance between “quintessentially Porsche” and “innovative” is a tricky proposition at times, admits the designer.
Does that mean the brand runs the risk, perhaps, of at some point being perceived as old-fashioned and no longer up to date???Mauer: Unquestionably! Striking the right balance between ‘quintessentially Porsche’ and ‘innovative’ is a tricky proposition at times. It’s a challenge we face on a structural level as well. The design of a vehicle is never entirely the work of a single designer. The design process is a team endeavour and is highly dependent on an exchange of different ideas. At Porsche, we have deliberately developed the creative space to think about future approaches and variations of individual design elements in a way that is very separate from the work on specific models. This ensures that creative ideas can take shape independently from the design process for specific series-production models, although these ideas do then frequently find their way into production cars. Another important aspect of what we do relates to the composition of the team. We combine very experienced designers with the young ‘up- and-comers’ – and this dynamic usually produces really exciting ideas. Overall, we have around 200 design staff.
Thoughts?