Another Munro teardown video: Base Taycan

[f1eng]

Check out the translation and pronunciation of the city name Munich (English) in different languages (compare English, German, Polish, Greek - Google translate has recorded pronunciations for all those languages) - you might not even recognize that they are the same city name.

Having travelled worldwide for my work for over 30 years I am familiar with how differently people pronounce words in different countries.

I worked with engineers from BMW and Toyota Europe (in Cologne - Koln)am pretty familiar with huge variations of pronunciations even within Germany where the dialects are strong and varied, the idea of standardised pronunciation or even language is absurd.

I am always irritated when I see “British English” written, presumably a US construct brought about by one of the computer companies and few things are more absurd.
English is the language of England!
Wales has its own language and also uses its own dialect of English.
Scotland has a huge range of dialects, where my wife comes from they speak the “Doric” which has such a strong accent and so many dialect words few native English speakers understand it and I took a long time before I understood what most of her friends were saying.

In England, like everywhere, commonly used words change with fashion and since the internet and Youtube far more Americanisms and irritating (to me ) pronunciations of English are rife even here.

It is pretty silly and pointless getting wound up about pronunciation IME.

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[whitex]

There is no fucking way those wheels cost “$500 for the set”. Also, a Ford Escape costs more than $5k.

Well, let's dig in a little bit:

1. $5,070 (just checked the RWD Taycan configurator) is the option price to upgrade from 19" wheels to these. So the profit on this option is $5,070 minus the cost difference between the 19" wheels+tires vs. 21" wheels+tires.
2. I just bought a set of 20X9 alloy wheels as winter wheels for my wife's Q8 etron for $276 each wheel - they actually look a bit similar to the spyder wheels, with black and silver components. $276 is the retail price on tirerack with delivery, so their cost before profit and delivery is likely around $125. These are the wheels.
   
   
3. 21" is not going to be more than 2x the price of 20" wheel. That suggests to me that $500 difference in cost between a set of 19" and 21" tires+wheels is not out of the question at all.
4. Ford escape base invoice price to the dealer is $28,655. MSRP is $29,495. There are incentives dealers make, but I think it's fair to say that the dealer makes less than $5K on the sale, unless they sucker the buyer into a jacked interest rate and a bunch of upsell products.
5. For profit margin varies per car, but in order to make $4,570 on $28,655, they would have to have a profit margin of 16%, which they do not (average profit margin in 2022 was 5.22%)

In the above, I used total profit on the Porsche upgrade, vs. net profit on Ford side. It could be that Porsche has such poor operational efficiency that they lose money on the $5,070 upgrade, but I doubt it. I could see Porsche making more money out of the tire upgrade than Ford making on a base Escape.

 

[whitex]

English is the language of England!

Not since England decided to conquer the world. ?‍

My son is really into languages as a personal hobby, so I've had many conversations with him about languages. IIRC, English language has the most dialects our of all languages out there, and more are being created. All non-dead languages are constantly evolving, and they mix with other languages too. I have heard some English language dialects I cannot even understand (English is not my native language, but I consider myself fluent enough in it).

 

[f1eng]

Not since England decided to conquer the world.

The fact that other cultures had English imposed upon them does not stop actual English from coming from England and being our language!

My daughter works at Oxford University Press, the source of the Oxford English Dictionary, there are debates every year about adding words or updating definitions.

The one that confused me when I first visted the USA was “momentarily”.

I was in a busy restaurant and the waiter said “I’ll be with you momentarily”.
I thought goodness I’d better choose exactly what I want since I hadn’t yet discovered that momentarily means “for a moment” in English but “in a moment” in American English!
Usually the meaning of a word is the same even if the pronunciation is different and I am more used to a different word for the same thing than the same word for a different thing, and that is a whole new world of potential confusion crisps v chips and chips v fries for example.

 

[whitex]

My daughter works at Oxford University Press, the source of the Oxford English Dictionary, there are debates every year about adding words or updating definitions.

This reminded me of Quebec province of Canada, where they are hell bent on preserving French (which actually is not exactly the same a language in France today). They legally ban English words from use in official business advertising, such as "burger" or "chewing gum", made McDonnalds rename BigMac to LeRoyal, and have laws stating all official signage must have French must be "more predominant" which typically means font size at least twice of English. They are also the only province to translate the stop sign (they say "Arret" instead of "Stop" in Quebec, while I've been told even in France their stop signs just say "Stop"). Quebec actually has official "language cops" running around giving out tickets for non-compliance with the language laws. I used to live there long ago and I remember one television special with the most ridiculous tickets given by the language police - there were some hilarious ones but the winner was a pet store owner who got a ticket for having a parrot in the store which spoke English phrases but not French. If you ask me, trying to stop the evolution of languages is a futile fight. If you want a little laugh, here is a little satire on the Canadian language laws:

Usually the meaning of a word is the same even if the pronunciation is different and I am more used to a different word for the same thing than the same word for a different thing, and that is a whole new world of potential confusion crisps v chips and chips v fries for example.

Absolutely not, meanings of words evolve all the time. Remember the days when "gay" meant "happy"? There are words or expressions which have very different meanings in one country vs another. Sometimes phrases which are are completely normal and innocent in one country can be offensive in others. I'll let you google those, so I don't trigger some language filter and get myself on the naughty list of the forum algorithm

 

[RAHRCR]

This video is a treasure trove of technical observations from both an engineering and manufacturing point of view that provides great insight on the future of Porsche and the Taycan model for the consumer (and quite candidly the shareholder as well). I am surprised that the key take always from our forum are about pronunciations and man math.

 

[SHM]

Well, let's dig in a little bit:

1. $5,070 (just checked the RWD Taycan configurator) is the option price to upgrade from 19" wheels to these. So the profit on this option is $5,070 minus the cost difference between the 19" wheels+tires vs. 21" wheels+tires.
2. I just bought a set of 20X9 alloy wheels as winter wheels for my wife's Q8 etron for $276 each wheel - they actually look a bit similar to the spyder wheels, with black and silver components. $276 is the retail price on tirerack with delivery, so their cost before profit and delivery is likely around $125. These are the wheels.
3. 21" is not going to be more than 2x the price of 20" wheel. That suggests to me that $500 difference in cost between a set of 19" and 21" tires+wheels is not out of the question at all.
4. Ford escape base invoice price to the dealer is $28,655. MSRP is $29,495. There are incentives dealers make, but I think it's fair to say that the dealer makes less than $5K on the sale, unless they sucker the buyer into a jacked interest rate and an bunch of upsell products.
5. For profit margin varies per car, but in order to make $4,570 on $28,655, they would have to have a profit margin of 16%, which they do not (average profit margin in 2022 was 5.22%)

In the above, I used total profit on the Porsche upgrade, vs. net profit on Ford side. It could be that Porsche has such poor operational efficiency that they lose money on the $5,070 upgrade, but I doubt it. I could see Porsche making more money out of the tire upgrade than Ford making on a base Escape.

I think you are correct, it's like I saw a video from a factory in China (toured by interesting engineering) and they said if you buy a custom aluminun part (that was not a wheel, should be said), that it cost just 5$ per kilo aluminium from China.

So of course forged is more expensive, but I have gotten custom wheels made in China (fully forged) and the price is for a custom - one off set - slightly more expensive than buying cast or rotary forged wheels in Europe. That is then included tax and of course freight.

That was from a reputable wheels manufacturer.
So of course if Porsche tells them: We will buy 1000 wheels... Then the price is much lower than what I get. Also their freight will be lower as they will book entire containers.

They also dont pay VAT or get the VAT kick back in EU as they are a company.
Maybe they even just set up a local company in China to do parts for Porsche/VAG to handle sending parts to EU.

So I bet they dont pay "that much".
And I think the Munroe people are VERY good at guessing what things _should_ cost.
Of course you can always make bad deals as a private or as a company and get worse products or worse prices.. But generally speaking I guess they know what they talk about.

Fords margins for the cars are quite low, so I think that in this sence it is possible that the upsell on those wheels do give Porsche more profit than Ford selling one car.

Now why Porsche owners then think this is negative I dont know, it's more negative for Ford I would say, with so small margins. Selling options has always been kindof "well known" in the industry (especially in Europe), where cars often lack the equiptment that "you must have to have good resale value". SO its kindof you see the base price, but nobody pays base price.

 

[whitex]

This video is a treasure trove of technical observations from both an engineering and manufacturing point of view that provides great insight on the future of Porsche and the Taycan model for the consumer (and quite candidly the shareholder as well). I am surprised that the key take always from our forum are about pronunciations and man math.

To be fair, it was not a key takeaway from many forum members, primarily one member. Welcome to the internet.

 

[porsche_coyote]

There is no fucking way those wheels cost “$500 for the set”. Also, a Ford Escape costs more than $5k.

Otherwise a pretty interesting and informative video - way better than the battery teardown from the same channel. Thanks for sharing.

It’s not that it cost 5K, it’s that something like a Ford Escape generates about 4.5K of profit for the automaker.

As to the cost of the wheels, I will defer to the Munro folks as they work with lots of automakers and costing out parts is literally their business. That said, it’s possible that they’ve confused the specific wheels with something cosmetically similar but much cheaper.

 

[porsche_coyote]

To be fair, it was not a key takeaway from many forum members, primarily one member. Welcome to the internet.

Agreed, though I’ll defensively note that I didn’t think the wheel comment was the key point, so much as the most amusing one.

 

[Vercingetorix]

In many countries there is a local pronunciation of words from abroad (for them), whether cars, places or lots of other things.
The normal English pronunciation for Porsche (in England) is not Porsch-a but Porsch, only a very few people call it Porsch-a.

A bit like we pronounce Paris nothing like correctly or say Finland or Holland.

I don't find it any more irritating than any other country specific mis-pronunciation.

Mis-pronunciation is completely fine. A video made from somebody purporting to be an expert, mispronouncing the subject of the video, is not fine.

 

[DougFrisk]

Two things I noticed. There is no access to the high voltage connector on the top of the battery through the center tunnel. I was incorrect in my earlier supposition that the plug in the battery pressure testing kit that fits that connector was used, it must only be required if the battery is out of the car and the connector is already empty.

The other thing was their surprise that the battery is physically connected to the rear drive assembly. That's no doubt an artifact of the wedding during assembly when the front and rear drive components along with the battery are joined to the body. During build the drive units and battery are a single sub assembly so it makes perfect sense they be connected.

 

[XLR82XS]

I am always irritated when I see “British English” written, presumably a US construct brought about by one of the computer companies and few things are more absurd.
English is the language of England!

Correct. There is English - and American.

 

[j.w.s]

Just posted, doing a walk around of the underside of the car. It's a '22 base Taycan with the only option being the RS Spyder wheels.



my favorite observation was about Porsche's margins on the wheels relative to the total profit most automakers see on the entire vehicle:

"every time somebody specs these wheels, it's like selling a Ford Escape or something."

I was happy to see a Taycan on the Munro lift, but disappointed to find that it wasn't a full tear-down, and that it was a base model with none of the interesting suspension bits.

 

[f1eng]

Mis-pronunciation is completely fine. A video made from somebody purporting to be an expert, mispronouncing the subject of the video, is not fine.

My point was that the pronunciation he used is the accepted English pronunciation.

Almost nobody says Porsch-a here in England including fans, dealers mechanics and so on. It would be a bit like saying Paree for Paris - strictly correct but almost never done.

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