Porsche’s Ground-breaking Pilot Project for Sustainable Remanufacturing
Porsche is expanding its established processes for remanufacturing defective components as part of a pioneering cross-departmental pilot project. Porsche aims to conserve valuable resources and bolster sustainability throughout its product life cycle by transforming faulty parts into' as-good-as-new' spares.
The company plans to embed remanufacturing into its vehicle development processes, ensuring engineers consider specific requirements for component reusability right from the outset. This proactive approach will promote closed-loop concepts across the Porsche value chain and support the efficient use of spare parts.
Porsche is already remanufacturing carefully selected faulty parts from various model series. Around 20 component groups, including gearboxes, navigation systems, starters, and alternators, are undergoing this process. Each remanufactured unit must match the same quality and safety standards as its brand-new counterpart.
“Remanufacturing of components is a critical future focus for Porsche,” states Albrecht Reimold, Member of the Executive Board for Production and Logistics. “We are responsible for protecting the environment and conserving resources while guaranteeing long-term spare parts availability for our many customers who own classic and heritage vehicles. We aim to increase the number of remanufacturable components further,” explains Reimold, who also serves as the sustainability mentor on Porsche’s Management Board.
Whenever defective parts qualify for a remanufacturing procedure, Porsche dealers worldwide request them and store them in Porsche’s dedicated spare parts warehouse in Sachsenheim. From there, the components move on to specialised reconditioning plants—often their original manufacturers—where they undergo rigorous cleaning, disassembly, and comprehensive testing. Porsche replaces any no longer viable parts and reuses fully functional parts before reassembling and subjecting them to the same quality and safety checks as brand-new spares, ready to be supplied back to dealers.
Porsche continuously identifies new component groups with strong remanufacturing potential, such as headlights, electric drives for rear spoilers, charging flaps, and additional electronic control units. Building on earlier successes, the company aims to integrate component reconditioning firmly into its vehicle development processes. Porsche plans to make remanufactured parts available to dealers earlier in each vehicle’s life cycle.
By extending the lifespan of Porsche vehicles and their components, the brand reduces its environmental impact from raw material extraction to end-of-life disposal. Initial calculations indicate that remanufacturing used parts can halve greenhouse gas emissions compared to new-part production. Meanwhile, material savings can reach up to 80 per cent compared to newly produced equivalents.