Christian Friedl took over Production and Logistics on the Porsche AG Executive Board on 1 September 2026. He is 49, he comes from inside the company, and he inherits a very specific piece of work: putting a combustion 911 and an electric 718 down the same assembly line.
Friedl succeeds Albrecht Reimold, who retired as planned after more than ten years running the division. Until now Friedl headed Corporate Quality. Before that he held management roles across Porsche Production and the wider Volkswagen Group, including a spell running the main plant at Zuffenhausen. An internal appointment, in other words, with no onboarding period.
The remit
His brief covers the international production and logistics network: Zuffenhausen, Leipzig, and CKD assembly in Malaysia. Three sites, three different industrial logics.
The delicate part sits in Zuffenhausen. Porsche has to slot the new electrified 718 model line into the existing assembly line built around the combustion 911. Different powertrain variants will run down the same track. Mixed-powertrain lines are not new in the car industry. On a historic site organised for decades around a single silhouette, the exercise looks rather different.
This kind of integration is decided in the details: station lengths, battery supply, logistics for heavy components, training operators on two architectures. Porsche has published neither a timetable nor an investment figure specific to the conversion. Friedl has not given a date either.
The 718 EV schedule remains vague in public. Michael Leiters confirmed the project in August, built on a PPE Sport platform shared with the production version of the Audi Concept C. Production of the combustion 982 ended in late 2025. The gap in the range between the two has never been addressed directly.
Two quotes, one priority
Leiters describes Friedl as someone who knows Porsche and its structures inside out and can make an immediate impact. He sets two priorities for the coming years: the strategic direction of the production network, and continuous improvement in productivity and quality. Friedl talks about strong sites, technical expertise, and developing the network with the teams.
The wording is predictable. The emphasis is less so. Two executives putting productivity at the top of the list while the group works through the Future Package: 2.1 billion euros invested in Zuffenhausen and Weissach, site protection until 2035, and 5,000 jobs removed over the same span.
One appointment among several
The move joins a run of leadership changes. In early September Porsche announced the reorganisation of its international sales structure, with Daniel Schmollinger due to take over Porsche France on 1 January 2027. In May the Executive Board had already been trimmed, with Car-IT folded into Research and Development.
For anyone who follows the 911 closely, this appointment carries more weight than the job title suggests. How Zuffenhausen absorbs an electric model without degrading the 911 line shapes a lot downstream: build rates, delivery times, which options are actually available to order. Industrial trade-offs always surface on the configurator eventually.
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