Porsche expands its Weissach R&D Center with new Design Studio

The new facilites are a design studio with concept car construction facility, a state-of-the-art aero-acoustic wind tunnel and the Electronics Integration Center for “forward-looking vehicle development”.

The center was already the only automotive facility pooling all R&D together in one place: from concept to production car development (from the first design sketches via drive system, bodywork, chassis, electrics and electronics), including test runs on the center’s own road and off-road circuit.

Below we report some details on the new facilities, from the official release.

Maximum transparency

The new studio provides the design staff with optimum conditions for the whole process of creating the exterior and interior of Porsche vehicles.

From the first vision all the way through to the finished form – the complete sports cars are created under one roof.

The architectural layout of the new studio facilitates a maximum level of transparency and communication and strengthens interaction between the ‘Preparation’ and ‘Flow Analysis’ disciplines, whose staff works together with the designers in the same building complex.

Adjacent to the studio is the ‘New Wind Tunnel’. The proximity aids daily collaboration and reduces the time cycles between design and aero-acoustic development.

In this process the experts make multiple use of the wind tunnel, from the early stage of developing concept car designs right through to testing vehicles ready for full production.

The building and equipment for the wind tunnel represent the single largest element of the sports car manufacturer’s $200 million plus investment at this site.

Process-enhancing architecture

The adjacent Electronics Integration Center (EIZ) brings together the work of the Porsche developers in the fields of electrics and electronics, thus facilitating a perfect interplay of all components in the vehicle.

Previously, the individual electrical and electronics departments were spread across twelve different buildings on the Weissach site. The building’s intelligent architecture, which assists the development process, now makes the EIZ a genuine accelerator of innovation.

Porsche Weissach Development Center

The Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG development center in Weissach (located not far from Stuttgart, Germany) Since 1971, the company has been developing here the sports cars of the future, which are today rolling off the assembly lines at the Zuffenhausen, Leipzig and Osnabrück plants and which are sold in more than 125 markets around the globe.

The test track in Weissach has been in use since as far back as 1962. Over 6,000 employees from Porsche (4,500) and partner companies (1,500) are currently working at the center in research and development, motor sports, purchasing and supporting fields.

(Source: Porsche)