WOLFSBURG, Germany -- After taking its major stake in Volkswagen AG, sports car manufacturer Porsche AG is pushing to speed up the companies' joint projects.
That confirms many VW shareholders' fears that Porsche CEO Wendelin Wiedeking wants to increase Porsche's influence over VW product planning. He has been a member of the VW supervisory board since 2006.
A dispute is looming over the introduction of the next-generation Porsche Cayenne and VW Touareg. The two companies again are developing the large SUVs in close cooperation.
According to information from both companies, Porsche wants to launch the next Cayenne during the first half of 2010. Meanwhile, the startup for the Touareg II is planned for late 2010.
As VW sees it, that puts VW at a disadvantage.
"We aren't at all pleased with a significantly longer model life for the current Touareg compared to the Cayenne," a high-ranking VW executive told Automobilwoche, a German publication of Crain Communications. "After all, the vehicles are in competition with one another."
At Porsche, one executive says, this doesn't bode well: "If we can't come to an agreement at the level of the working teams, the CEOs will have to hammer this out."
VW and Porsche introduced the first generations of the SUVs almost simultaneously in late 2002. They are built in Leipzig, Germany, and Bratislava, Slovakia.
