winkingchef

As an engineer, threads like this tweak me the wrong way.
I bust my *** for years making some truly great product and then someone tries to ferret out my costs and negotiate with my company as if we're selling Corn Flakes.

We have customers (mostly in Asia) who try to reverse-engineer our products to do this and it makes me see red.

pissedpuppy

tree fiddy
http://www.myspace.com/video/vid/2027687639

delisedesign

figuring out the production costs doesnt necessarily mean anyones trying to renegotiate the purchase price or low ball the company, and my intentions are certainly not to take the car apart in order to copy it (im not chinese)....in fact, im a young industrial designer and it has always been an aspiration to work for porsche one day.....knowing about the process helps me realize what the limits are and how to push them....im merely asking to benchmark what it costs because porsche is a unique company, and lately their have been talks of doubling production to around 150k a year....

thanks to all who have input....my guesses were originally around the 40-55 % range......the better they can build cars to the level that they do, the more it emphasizes that the porsche mark has maintained what is arguably best balance of efficiency, quality control, and personal craftsmanship in the world....

delisedesign

not necessarily looking for overall running costs of the company, rather the efficiency of production- for instance, we know that 1 engineer stays with the engine through the entirety of its build process...also, that every single unit is track tested before delivery...facts like that are interesting given that these cars are still produced at relatively mid-volume numbers

interestingly, i know that porsche's marketing budget is one of the highest relative to their market share in the industry...you see more panamera and 911 ads as you do for vehicles that receive 10 times the volume...

jrotsaert

Your question is a difficult one to answer because the meaning of the words can be different to different people. It "costs" Porsche people, R&D, equipment, marketing, etc etc... At the end, you just look at their statements to get the real margin (before or after tax depending on what you want to know).

If you want to know how much all the parts to put together a car cost, my view is that it's between 20 and 25% of the car's selling price. A BIG chunk is R&D.
When I was in engineering school (finished 1992) I got to see the numbers at Volkswagen on the then new "Golf" and it was about what I wrote above.

Of course for 20 to 25% you didn't develop the car, build the lines to produce them, financed the R&D and the marketing 4 years ahead, etc etc.

delisedesign

this is more of what i was looking for....and, youre correct, my wording was extremely vague.....R&D is definitely pre-production, and much different than what, for instance, it costs to put 20,000 double clutch transmissions in a new model...i guess im over reaching in general here, and I didnt mean to cause confusion....

it simply amazes me how much there is to account for on modern cars, especially as sustainable design comes into play...simplifying existings systems and components, to make room for more complex components is the aim at the moment....its good to see that after all the airbags, computers, and management systems that theres still a relative amount of simplicity..

cbzzoom

Porsche profit is reported at $28k per car average. Assume they get more on stuff like the Speedster and less on the Boxster, the 911 should be around the middle.

Expenses for marketting, distribution, etc. don't count, so take off another 5-10k.

So a $80k car costs somewhere around $40-50k to make?

But that's still including R&D cost which has got to be significant. So the actual production cost is maybe only $30-40k ?

Another way to look at it would be that the 911 and Cayman must cost almost the same to make, there's really nothing on a 911 that should bump up the cost. Since the Cayman/Boxster is around $50k that would seem to support a production cost of $30k or so.