First Malaysian-Assembled Porsche Cayenne Rolls Out Of Kulim Plant
The first-ever CKD Porsche Cayenne has rolled out of the Kulim Plant for RM550,000.
Sime Darby Berhad and Porsche AG have officially opened the first ever assembly facility of Porsche vehicles outside of Europe today. Concurrently, the plant also produced its first Porsche Cayenne.
This 3rd generation Cayenne comes with a 3.0L turbocharged V6 with an output of 340PS and 450Nm of torque. It is paired to an 8-speed Tiptronic S transmission and an active all-wheel drive system
There is only one powertrain option for the CKD Cayenne, but there are add-on options available. CBU Cayenne variants can also still be ordered through your nearest Porsche Center. That being said, the list of standard equipment is pretty extensive for this one model, as we learnt in November of last year.
About the Porsche Plant in Kulim
The Porsche assembly plant in Kulim is housed within the 115.3 acre Inokom (a Sime Darby company) facility where Mazda, Hyundai, Mini, BMW and soon Kia assemble vehicles. The facility is has a 100% Malaysian workforce of 2,000 employees and has been putting cars together since 1997.
Site mobilisation began at the end of 2020, and within 14 months of the initial ground breaking, production of the Porsche Cayenne began at the plant.
The plant features rainwater reclamation facilities, solar panels, and the use of recycled materials. The Porsche Kulim plant itself is a reused building that was completely refurbished and upgraded to meet the same standards set by the Bratislava Plant, where the Cayenne is made. It’s also worth noting that the assembly area is likely the first in Malaysia to be fully air conditioned for the comfort of those putting the new Cayenne together. The plant’s walls were renovated with insulating material to lower the power consumption overall.
How Localised Is the Porsche Cayenne?
The bodies arrive from the Slovakia mother factory fully painted. 6 modules are sourced locally including the front and rear axles from ZF, the centre console from Clarion, the door assembly from Sime Darby Auto Engineering and the front end module from Hicom HBPO.
All the other parts are sent to the Kulim plant and are assigned to each of the vehicles from the Slovakia plant itself. In the first station, the carpets, glass, interior and trim pieces are fitted to the Cayenne. There are 4 trim stations.
Following this comes the engine marriage. After that the Cayenne stands on its own tyres for the first time.
At the Fitting and Alignment station, the seats and doors are introduced. They also adjust gaps, check for flushness, symmetry and then fill all the vehicle’s fluids including brake fluid, AC Gas, coolant, fuel and window washer fluid. The Cayenne is then given wheel and headlight alignment and ADAS calibration.
The engine is then fired up and it gets tested on rollers.
The Cayennes are then taken for final inspection and once a day, a model is pulled out for a random audit to ensure consistency. It takes two days from start to finish to fully assemble a Porsche Cayenne in Malaysia. Nobody from Sime Darby nor Porsche was keen to share information on production volume and scale.
The objective for now is to ensure Cayenne production goes smoothly and to the same standards set in Europe before considering other variants and models to assemble here. Sime Darby did share that the Taycan was the 2nd most popular Porsche model in Malaysia in 2021, beating out the petrol-powered Macan.
About the Author
Subhash Nair Written work on dsf.my. @subhashtag on instagram. Autophiles Malaysia on Youtube.
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