Dear Unregistered, the permission changes should be complete, if you notice any issues with your access on the site please let us know and we will check into it.
Hey Unregistered it seems that you haven't posted a message in our forums yet. Please join in on the fun and post a message!
Dear Unregistered,
We've noticed that you are not yet a member of our Cayman Insiders group. This group provides a number of additional value-add services via this website for a very low annual fee. You can find out more about this group here:
Insider Announcement
You can join the Cayman Insiders Group here:
Insider Enrollment Form
We hope to see you "Inside" soon!
Your Donation Will Be Used To Pay For our ever increasing bandwidth costs, our hosting Service, domain registration, software licensing fees, maintenance costs and product evaluations Only!
Please enter your donation amount above, and then click on the donate button below.
Last Night Finnish News reported that there will be a lay off, of 80 full time and 42 part time workers (from a staff of 1,120)
Production is now reduced on the production line from 153 to 132 Cars a day.
Demand has been reported as slow for the Cayman and Boxter cars despite the introduction of the Base Cayman and uprated Boxster and Boxster S specifications.
Valmet Automotive in Uusikaupunki - Finland Producers of the Cayman and Boxster for Porsche AG, announced pressure on profitability and the need to streamline their operations and reduce costs.
Any views on this news welcome - considering the waiting lists and the costs of the cars, this seems surprising.
I think it's disappointing that Porsche management chooses to maintain their higher than average profit margins rather than giving customers a price break, selling more units and keeping workers employed. They make great cars but their a little bit greedy.
Wow. That's sort of surprising considering the Boxster/Cayman model sales have done nothing but grow in the last couple of years. (not only in the USA)
Porsche unit sales in North America remain at a high levelConsiderable growth in the first ten months of 2006
Stuttgart. In October 2006, Dr. Ing. h.c. F. Porsche AG, Stuttgart, delivered 2,487 vehicles to customers in North American in a very difficult market environment. In October last year, the manufacturer of sporty premium cars sold 2,729 vehicles. The decrease is nine percent. In the first ten months of 2006, Porsche is still on record track. With 30,425 units delivered in the USA and Canada, sales outperformed the previous year by eight percent. This is the highest figure the company has ever achieved in this period in North America.
It is the sports car model series which continues to drive Porsche’s success in the USA and Canada. In October 2006, the Boxster model series accelerated strongly to 875 vehicles (previous year: 571), with the new Cayman and the Cayman S selling 580 units. 736 vehicles of the 911 were sold; in October last year the comparable figure was 924. Last month, 874 deliveries of the sporty all-terrain Cayenne were made (previous year: 1,208). Here it should be taken into consideration that Porsche still does not boost sales with plant discounts, the decline in the Cayenne sales is due to the stage of the life cycle.
Porsche is one of the last really profitable auto makers left. As owners, it's good for us if Porsche stays healthy. I don't think there's any more mark up in a $50K Cadillac than there is in a $50K Porsche.
I just ordered mine yesterday, I hope I fly under the radar on this....
Escort Radar
At ESCORT, we're continually improving our line of radar and laser detectors with the best technology. Our latest invention, the GPS-powered PASSPORT 9500ix, is no exception. It provides the best long-range protection against every known radar and laser gun in use in North America, but also incorporates GPS accuracy to silence each and every false alert. It is by far the most intelligent, fully automatic radar and laser detector ever designed. You drive. It learns. End of story. http://www.escortradar.com
Porsche is one of the few auto makers that operates like a business. In most cases, the first number quoted by auto makers is "Units", which we know is meaningless without "Profit" and "Margin/unit". Just ask Ford or GM. I for one am glad that Valmet will not be churning out Caymans and Boxsters like Hershey's kisses down the conveyor belt. The last thing I want is a glut of Caymans on the lot when I decide to trade mine in. A price cut on any new Cayman would come right out of my resale value. Also, by maintaining profit margins and keeping the ship tight, more $s/Euros can be spent on R&D.
Why not make the car more appealing at its prevailing price point and high profit margin? It doesn't cost that much to put in the LSD that Walter Rohl says would make the car perfect. It would even save Porsche money if it had used the 911 3.6L or 3.8L engine instead of developing a new 3.4L one. Certainly giving the next Cayman a bigger engine would be in keeping with their marketing strategy where the Cayman sits above the Boxster.
I hope this production cut is only temporary for the 2007 model line and that Porsche will be making improvements and increasing projections for the 2008 model. Simply cutting production because demand is low rather than trying to increase demand would really bring to question Porsche's commitment to this product line.
LSD - Limited Slip Differential
A limited slip differential (LSD) is a modified or derived type of differential gear arrangement that allows for some difference in rotational velocity of the output shafts, but does not allow the difference in speed to increase beyond a preset amount. In an automobile, such limited slip differentials are sometimes used in place of a standard differential, where they convey certain dynamic advantages, at the expense of greater complexity.
The main advantage of a limited slip differential is found by considering the case of a standard (or "open") differential where one wheel has no contact with the ground at all. In such a case, the contacting wheel will remain stationary, and the non-contacting wheel will rotate freely– the torque transmitted will be equal at both wheels, but will not exceed the threshold of torque needed to move the vehicle, thus the vehicle will remain stationary. In everyday use on typical roads, such a situation is very unlikely, and so a normal differential suffices. For more demanding use however, such as driving off-road, or for high performance vehicles, such a state of affairs is undesirable, and the LSD can be employed to deal with it. By limiting the velocity difference between a pair of driven wheels, useful torque can be transmitted as long as there is some friction available on at least one of the wheels.
To see the installation of a LSD style unit Click Here -> Article Forthcoming Stay Tuned
They make a lot of cars at Valmet for a market that is traditionally small. It does not surprise me that the Cayman market may saturate fairly quickly because the Boxster market has been very slow for some time. The fact that the Boxsters got new engines without significant price increases was Porsche AG's attempt to give people a "break". There was a pent up demand for the Cayman that may not have tremendous depth. I believe that the market for these cars has much less to do with price than people suspect. There are not hundreds or thousands of customers waiting to buy these cars if only they were $10K less. Sports cars are often bought on impulse and when family and financial circumstances change the two seat sports car is the first to go. Porsche management knows that when the market softens the best strategy is to cut production. Whether a car sells well and becomes a commercial success does not define its value. The Porsche 959 was probably one of Porsche's greatest low volume production cars but failed commercially for a variety of reasons, and the same could be said for the 928. Regardless of whether the Cayman succeeds in volume sales, it is the finest non-911 production Porsche sports car (i.e. non-GT).
I have to agree--right sizing the factory and workforce is the right thing to do. sure, there is good demand for the cars, but not infinite demand. and cutting out the (sort of reasonable for a luxury good) profit margin is no way to stay in business for th elong run. look at all the rusting car factories in Michigan and ask if that's what you want Porsche to get to in 20 years.
The October sales should be posted soon. September sales showed that overall Cayman numbers were about the same but now divided between base and S models, so adding the base model didn't really increase total units, but perhaps did bring in sales where otherwise someone would not have bought the S model.
Despite giving the Boxster new engines, we are heading into the winter and always the worst time for convertible sales. I would expect Boxster sales to go down again as they do seasonally.
Speaking of which didn't the plant hire more workers this past April? This may simply be a seasonal thing, add more workers when you need them, lay them off when you don't.
I would also concur with the statement that we don't want Porsche dealers with a lot of inventory just sitting around so cutting production is the way to go.
They make a lot of cars at Valmet for a market that is traditionally small. It does not surprise me that the Cayman market may saturate fairly quickly because the Boxster market has been very slow for some time. The fact that the Boxsters got new engines without significant price increases was Porsche AG's attempt to give people a "break". There was a pent up demand for the Cayman that may not have tremendous depth. I believe that the market for these cars has much less to do with price than people suspect. There are not hundreds or thousands of customers waiting to buy these cars if only they were $10K less. Sports cars are often bought on impulse and when family and financial circumstances change the two seat sports car is the first to go. Porsche management knows that when the market softens the best strategy is to cut production. Whether a car sells well and becomes a commercial success does not define its value. The Porsche 959 was probably one of Porsche's greatest low volume production cars but failed commercially for a variety of reasons, and the same could be said for the 928. Regardless of whether the Cayman succeeds in volume sales, it is the finest non-911 production Porsche sports car (i.e. non-GT).
I don't think there's any more mark up in a $50K Cadillac than there is in a $50K Porsche.
Actually, look up a few random cars on Edmunds.com to see their relative invoice/MSRP costs. My last cars, BMW and MINI, have about an 8% markup, Porsche has about 12.5% at base and climbs exponentially as options stack up. There is more room to bargain dollar-wise on a Porsche. As an aside, one of the major factors on me going Cayman S rather than base model was the fact I could get an incredible discount on a leftover '06. Does this happen every year at Porsche? or was this truly a unique opportunity?
