Porsche Cars North America
Brand Expression • Dealer Communications • Automotive
The Need
When Porsche prepared to launch the Taycan, its first fully electric sports car, demand wasn't the problem. The first year's production had already been spoken for. The challenge was making sure Porsche's dealers - particularly the Brand Ambassadors who represented the company to its most knowledgeable customers - had absolute confidence that the Taycan had earned the right to wear the Porsche crest.
The Assignment
Working with Dan Regan and the team at Pro-Active Performance (now part of TiER1 Performance), we approached the assignment as more than dealer training. We believe that performance improves when people truly understand what they're representing, and that philosophy aligned perfectly with Porsche's challenge.
The Taycan wasn't an electric car wearing a Porsche badge. It was a Porsche with an electric drivetrain. That distinction shaped everything that followed.
While Fred Surr had worked in a variety of roles across the Porsche relationship over several years, that role now centered on translating Porsche's engineering story into films that gave Brand Ambassadors the confidence to answer difficult questions from serious enthusiasts. The films demonstrated how Porsche engineers had approached batteries, thermal management, repeatable performance, Formula E racing technology, and driving dynamics with the same uncompromising standards that had defined every Porsche before it.
One film documented a full day of side-by-side testing between a Taycan and Tesla's highest-performance Model S, featuring engineers and professional drivers representing both approaches. The purpose wasn't to diminish Tesla. It was to help dealers understand, in concrete terms, the engineering decisions that made a Taycan perform differently - and why those differences mattered to loyal Porsche drivers, the customers most likely to notice.
The Result
Premiering at the national dealer launch, the films became practical tools for Porsche Experience Centers across North America. Designed in modular chapters, they could be used for training or pulled up on an iPad to answer a specific customer question in the middle of a conversation. The goal wasn't simply to transfer knowledge. It was to build confidence - in the product, in the engineering, and in the people representing the brand.
Porsche didn't release an electric vehicle because the market was demanding one. It released one only when its engineers were convinced it had earned the right to be called a Porsche. Our role was to help every Brand Ambassador understand why.