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Porsche cares a lot about efficiency, and their cars are generally designed to be very efficient- but they use the extra efficiency to sell a more powerful car,

by _yb2s 2y ago

Porsche cares a lot about efficiency, and their cars are generally designed to be very efficient- but they use the extra efficiency to sell a more powerful car, not a more fuel efficient car. Beyond some historical agricultural tractors, Porsche has only ever made high performance cars, they don't make general purpose "commuter" or "family" cars. Even their large SUVs like the Cayenne are very high performance vehicles.

dahart 2y ago
The base model Cayenne takes almost 6 seconds to get to 60mph when floored. That’s not particularly fast, even by family SUV standards, it’s comparable to a Honda Passport, and slower than SUVs from Audi, BMW, and Ford, and quite a few others. The Cayenne is an SUV in the first place. What exactly is a publicly available SUV if not a general purpose family commuter car? One of my friends bought a Cayenne to shuttle his kids to school and soccer practice. Porsche absolutely does make a general purpose commuter/family car, and you named it. Porsche may well care often about high performance, I’m not disputing that at all. The problem with your repeated statement is claiming they don’t care about fuel efficiency. That’s not what “efficiency” means. They absolutely can get more power out of an engine and sacrifice fuel efficiency, and some of their models do, but if the intent of the 6-stroke design is “efficiency”, then by definition they care about fuel efficiency. Whether they use that to achieve higher power, or lower fuel consumption relative to some other car is irrelevant to what is meant by efficiency. Also you’re just assuming that their 6-stroke design is intended for high performance. You might be right, but there are other possibilities you’ve ignored or haven’t thought of.
- _yb2s 2y ago
  The Cayenne (and also the VW Touareg which is it based on) is an offroad exotic supercar platform from the bottom up- the handling, engineering, etc. is really unique. It is also, by now, and outdated design that is over 20 years old and not changed very much. It is also a very heavy vehicle with a suspension and chassis that can survive hard offroad racing- jumping it large distances, and landing it hard, etc. The frame, suspension, etc. - it can also tow as much as a full sized pickup truck. You can get a base model with a smaller engine, but it is still a high performance car design from the ground up. They are also pretty small inside- not much more room than a VW Golf. Yes, (wealthy) people take their kids to school and soccer practice in them. I also take my kid to school in my Boxster... which also on paper is slower than a lot of regular Japanese passenger cars, which in practice it could easily lap on a track because it handles so much better. To really understand the Cayenne, look at a fully equipped model with air suspension, multiple differential locks, skid plates, sway bar disconnects, and a twin turbo V8 - and look at what people on YouTube do with them. Also look at the V10 and V12 Touareg models. If you're into performance car driving, you will notice that a Cayenne drives nothing like those other SUVs even if the specs on paper are the same. On a track (off road or paved) with a skilled driver it will easily lap those other vehicles. Specs don't account for finely tuned weight distribution, handling, braking, steering etc. that make a Porsche a Porsche, or the fact that all of the systems (oil supply, etc.) can survive sustained high rpm high g-force track use which would destroy other cars quickly. You are also misunderstanding my point about efficiency- obviously Porsche cares about efficiency, but they don't design or advertise their vehicles to get low fuel consumption. Efficiency factors into the overall vehicle- more powerful, more range, etc. Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one.
  - dahart 2y ago
    > Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one. Great, this new claim isn’t wrong, so now we agree. ;) The base model Cayenne can’t do any of the stuff you described, you’re talking about race-equipped cars, which isn’t what Porsche is selling at the base model. You could argue the exact same thing about almost any car manufacturer; most of them compete in track and off-road races. Subaru would be a great example- their consumer cars share design elements of their rally cars. That doesn’t mean an Outback is an exotic supercar, just like it doesn’t mean that a base Cayenne is either exotic or a supercar. In fact, it’s not. The lowest 2 Macan models are even slower than the base Cayenne. These are just “nice” cars, compared to cheaper brands of family SUV commuters, not high performance cars.
    - _yb2s 2y ago
      You are only seeing how it is used by people that can afford something exotic they don’t need or use and not understanding what it really is engineered for- sort of like concluding the Jeep Rubicon must be a cheap commuter car because they are popular as rentals in vacation destinations where nobody goes offroad. Or seeing urban people wearing arcteryx hardshells as raincoats, and not realizing they really are functional mountaineering gear. You need to look deeper than the specs at the design and driving characteristics to understand what it is capable of. What makes a Porsche a Porsche is not a low 0-60 time. I have torn down and rebuilt every system on the vehicles, and used them in some of the most extreme conditions on the planet- deep water fording, hundreds of miles unsupported in unpopulated desert, etc. The triple door seal waterproofing and gearbox ventilation systems for deep water fording are alone really unique. You can drive a 20 year old Cayenne deep with water to the top of the grill all day long and not a drop will leak into anything. A stock even base model Cayenne is one of the few “off road supercars” ever designed and built- and is capable of such things with just the right tires. Of course, some of the rarer factory options radically improve the vehicles capabilities. I was talking about factory Cayenne options, not race modifications- but the basic design of the vehicle is also really unique to enable those capabilities. For example- other unibody SUVs are mostly on car based platforms, the Cayenne was engineered from the ground up to survive heavy off road use. It is one of the unusual creations of Ferdinand Piech- look up the other vehicles he was responsible for…

by _yb2s 2y ago

dahart 2y ago

The base model Cayenne takes almost 6 seconds to get to 60mph when floored. That’s not particularly fast, even by family SUV standards, it’s comparable to a Honda Passport, and slower than SUVs from Audi, BMW, and Ford, and quite a few others. The Cayenne is an SUV in the first place. What exactly is a publicly available SUV if not a general purpose family commuter car? One of my friends bought a Cayenne to shuttle his kids to school and soccer practice. Porsche absolutely does make a general purpose commuter/family car, and you named it. Porsche may well care often about high performance, I’m not disputing that at all. The problem with your repeated statement is claiming they don’t care about fuel efficiency. That’s not what “efficiency” means. They absolutely can get more power out of an engine and sacrifice fuel efficiency, and some of their models do, but if the intent of the 6-stroke design is “efficiency”, then by definition they care about fuel efficiency. Whether they use that to achieve higher power, or lower fuel consumption relative to some other car is irrelevant to what is meant by efficiency. Also you’re just assuming that their 6-stroke design is intended for high performance. You might be right, but there are other possibilities you’ve ignored or haven’t thought of.

_yb2s 2y ago
The Cayenne (and also the VW Touareg which is it based on) is an offroad exotic supercar platform from the bottom up- the handling, engineering, etc. is really unique. It is also, by now, and outdated design that is over 20 years old and not changed very much. It is also a very heavy vehicle with a suspension and chassis that can survive hard offroad racing- jumping it large distances, and landing it hard, etc. The frame, suspension, etc. - it can also tow as much as a full sized pickup truck. You can get a base model with a smaller engine, but it is still a high performance car design from the ground up. They are also pretty small inside- not much more room than a VW Golf. Yes, (wealthy) people take their kids to school and soccer practice in them. I also take my kid to school in my Boxster... which also on paper is slower than a lot of regular Japanese passenger cars, which in practice it could easily lap on a track because it handles so much better. To really understand the Cayenne, look at a fully equipped model with air suspension, multiple differential locks, skid plates, sway bar disconnects, and a twin turbo V8 - and look at what people on YouTube do with them. Also look at the V10 and V12 Touareg models. If you're into performance car driving, you will notice that a Cayenne drives nothing like those other SUVs even if the specs on paper are the same. On a track (off road or paved) with a skilled driver it will easily lap those other vehicles. Specs don't account for finely tuned weight distribution, handling, braking, steering etc. that make a Porsche a Porsche, or the fact that all of the systems (oil supply, etc.) can survive sustained high rpm high g-force track use which would destroy other cars quickly. You are also misunderstanding my point about efficiency- obviously Porsche cares about efficiency, but they don't design or advertise their vehicles to get low fuel consumption. Efficiency factors into the overall vehicle- more powerful, more range, etc. Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one.
- dahart 2y ago
  > Improved fuel efficiency is also a selling point, but not the main one. Great, this new claim isn’t wrong, so now we agree. ;) The base model Cayenne can’t do any of the stuff you described, you’re talking about race-equipped cars, which isn’t what Porsche is selling at the base model. You could argue the exact same thing about almost any car manufacturer; most of them compete in track and off-road races. Subaru would be a great example- their consumer cars share design elements of their rally cars. That doesn’t mean an Outback is an exotic supercar, just like it doesn’t mean that a base Cayenne is either exotic or a supercar. In fact, it’s not. The lowest 2 Macan models are even slower than the base Cayenne. These are just “nice” cars, compared to cheaper brands of family SUV commuters, not high performance cars.
  - _yb2s 2y ago
    You are only seeing how it is used by people that can afford something exotic they don’t need or use and not understanding what it really is engineered for- sort of like concluding the Jeep Rubicon must be a cheap commuter car because they are popular as rentals in vacation destinations where nobody goes offroad. Or seeing urban people wearing arcteryx hardshells as raincoats, and not realizing they really are functional mountaineering gear. You need to look deeper than the specs at the design and driving characteristics to understand what it is capable of. What makes a Porsche a Porsche is not a low 0-60 time. I have torn down and rebuilt every system on the vehicles, and used them in some of the most extreme conditions on the planet- deep water fording, hundreds of miles unsupported in unpopulated desert, etc. The triple door seal waterproofing and gearbox ventilation systems for deep water fording are alone really unique. You can drive a 20 year old Cayenne deep with water to the top of the grill all day long and not a drop will leak into anything. A stock even base model Cayenne is one of the few “off road supercars” ever designed and built- and is capable of such things with just the right tires. Of course, some of the rarer factory options radically improve the vehicles capabilities. I was talking about factory Cayenne options, not race modifications- but the basic design of the vehicle is also really unique to enable those capabilities. For example- other unibody SUVs are mostly on car based platforms, the Cayenne was engineered from the ground up to survive heavy off road use. It is one of the unusual creations of Ferdinand Piech- look up the other vehicles he was responsible for…