Opinion: Did MG know about the chip shortage in advance?

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Reading the German forum with people complaining their orders being delayed and threaten to sue the dealerships, it seems that MGs making Trophy non connect is just a genius business move. In Germany you can claim 5% compensation for breach of contract if cars are not delivered by the specified date. So MG might have anticipated the chip shortage way back in 2021, and saved all the chips for the LHD cars to avoid upsetting the customers that may actually cost them. They then make up the Trophy trim and then can upsell the Connect for a nice £500 extra, which they know they won't be able to fulfill at volume anytime soon.

Apart from this pure speculation, I frankly do not see why the Trophy trim exists.
 
Hobbyist said:
Reading the German forum with people complaining their orders being delayed and threaten to sue the dealerships, it seems that MGs making Trophy non connect is just a genius business move. In Germany you can claim 5% compensation for breach of contract if cars are not delivered by the specified date. So MG might have anticipated the chip shortage way back in 2021, and saved all the chips for the LHD cars to avoid upsetting the customers that may actually cost them. They then make up the Trophy trim and then can upsell the Connect for a nice £500 extra, which they know they won't be able to fulfill at volume anytime soon.

Apart from this pure speculation, I frankly do not see why the Trophy trim exists.
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im happy with the trophy trim, plus, how many connects are actually driving around.......
 
Hotlush said:
Connect is a factory fit option, there's no facility to add it to a Trophy after.
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Yes this has been mentioned, thanks for bringing it up. My point is they intentionally created a lesser car without the chips in the first place and sell for practically the same price since they know you can't just drive to a shop to retrofit. They know in advance they cannot make enough RHD Connect. It's like knowing you don't have enough chicken to make roasts, so you make chicken soups.

There's no reason for the Trophy to exist ONLY for the UK market.
 
Hobbyist said:
Reading the German forum with people complaining their orders being delayed and threaten to sue the dealerships, it seems that MGs making Trophy non connect is just a genius business move. In Germany you can claim 5% compensation for breach of contract if cars are not delivered by the specified date. So MG might have anticipated the chip shortage way back in 2021, and saved all the chips for the LHD cars to avoid upsetting the customers that may actually cost them. They then make up the Trophy trim and then can upsell the Connect for a nice £500 extra, which they know they won't be able to fulfill at volume anytime soon.

Apart from this pure speculation, I frankly do not see why the Trophy trim exists.
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I cant see the point of paying an extra £500 for the connect.
 
AdamMGEV said:
I cant see the point of paying an extra £500 for the connect.
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I think the £500 is justified there will be people that don't want to use CarPlay and it give u the option for music, traffic, weather, charge stations and the voice control with data for life £500 sounds cheap?
 
N2STY said:
I think the £500 is justified there will be people that don't want to use CarPlay and it give u the option for music, traffic, weather, charge stations and the voice control with data for life £500 sounds cheap?
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Traffic, weather and charge station mapping usually comes for free.
Most will only keep the car at most 4 years and it will add absolutely zero to the resale value so that's £500 for 48 months of data; £10.41 a month for 1Gb of data.
 
That's the point it's gives you options if you don't want it don't get it I did not order a connect as I will use my phone but I am aware that some people will like the benefits and to them people £500 may be justified
On my wife's old fiat 500l you had to buy a years subscription to keep the map updated and keep traffic alerts working and that uses radio waves with tom-tom I think it was £60 a year
 
The 1gb of data is on all models I think anyway for WiFi I believe the extra functions on the connect don't eat into that data
 
N2STY said:
I think the £500 is justified there will be people that don't want to use CarPlay and it give u the option for music, traffic, weather, charge stations and the voice control with data for life £500 sounds cheap?
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You don't get amazon music though, you get access to the app, you still need an active subscription to use it... I don't need my car to tell me what the weather is like, I can look out of my window, or I would check at home before I travel (like most others too I'd imagine) charge stations, maybe useful, though I would imagine most people are going to be using carplay or android auto and there are certainly more reliable apps out there to find charge points. Voice control is a novelty, I have had it in cars before and have never sed it, has always been an unnecessary distraction and a source of frustration when it doesn't recognise my voice :)
 
N2STY said:
I think the £500 is justified there will be people that don't want to use CarPlay and it give u the option for music, traffic, weather, charge stations and the voice control with data for life £500 sounds cheap?
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I get all that with my Samsung Galaxy phone which I can use all of the time not only in the car. You will never beat Google maps and all the apps on apple carplay or android auto are far better than anything MG will ever do
 
AdamMGEV said:
I get all that with my Samsung Galaxy phone which I can use all of the time not only in the car. You will never beat Google maps and all the apps on apple carplay or android auto are far better than anything MG will ever do
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I totally agree the connect would not be for you
All I am saying I can see people will want it enough to pay the extra as it works for them and other people will always want top spec
It's nice just to have options
 
Controversial option. The connect is underpriced.......... Compared to what other manufactures would make you pay



Christ £500 for Smart connectivity. Mini dragged that out of me for folding mirrors.

Jokes aside, Connect does seem like a "why bother" option. Voice control is cool, but limited compared to other county's (in terms of commands). the 1GB of O2 data is laughable, Id rather get my own data plan with a MiFi station, Being just able to use amazon music.... Wow? Weather updates? Seriously? Not to mention the fact that you're probably going to have to pay a monthly fee after 48 months.

The only useful feature of the connect (IMHO) is the Live features. It can update to show available (and unavailable) chargers, traffic updates and in an electric car i see that being useful, especially seeing as the in-built nav in the new ZS is actually decent. Google maps doesn't know how much battery the car has, so cant produce the useful 'range maps' the inbuilt nav can.
AdamMGEV said:
I get all that with my Samsung Galaxy phone which I can use all of the time not only in the car. You will never beat Google maps and all the apps on apple carplay or android auto are far better than anything MG will ever do
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JohnInFrance said:
Would I be right in saying the Ireland don't get the Trophy Connect?
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No, RI has the same two trims like the rest of Europe. UK is the only place I know of with the lesser Trophy trim.

MG ZS Electric SUV | MG Motor Ireland

Explore the new fully-electric MG ZS SUV from MG Ireland. Book a test drive with your local dealer or download an MG ZS brochure from the website.
www.mg.ie www.mg.ie
 
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