Porsche-Piech dynasty turns up the heat on Volkswagen

The families that control Volkswagen demanded a fundamental overhaul of Europe's largest carmaker on Wednesday, after first-quarter weakness at the Wolfsburg group dragged the Porsche-Piech holding company to a €923mn loss.

Porsche SE, which owns 31.9 per cent of Volkswagen and controls 53.3 per cent of its voting rights, posted adjusted profit after tax of €382mn for January to March, down 21 per cent year on year. A €1.3bn non-cash writedown hit the unadjusted result on the VW stake, the second consecutive annual impairment after a €1.1bn charge last year.

"The business models that have served our core investments well for a long time now need to be realigned," said Hans Dieter Pötsch, chairman of Porsche SE's management board, in a pointed call for change directed at both Volkswagen and Porsche AG.

The intervention raises the stakes for VW chief executive Oliver Blume, who is already pushing through 50,000 job cuts and has signalled deeper savings, with several under-used German plants in the spotlight despite a 2024 union deal guaranteeing no closures this decade. Group margins have been squeezed by Chinese competition, weaker pricing in the mass market and a costly transition to electric vehicles.

Porsche SE has begun edging away from a pure-play automotive bet, generating €60mn from the sale of its stake in semiconductor start-up Celestial AI in the first quarter and signalling fresh capital deployment into defence and artificial intelligence. Net debt rose marginally to €5.15bn.

For 2026, the holding company has guided to adjusted profit of €1.5bn to €3.5bn, an unusually wide range that reflects how much hinges on whether Volkswagen can deliver the structural reset its biggest investor is now publicly demanding.