G. David Felt

My first auto rental was a Lincoln Town car when I lived for a year of hell in Texas. My parents came to visit and I needed an easier auto to get into than my lifted wrangler.

Autoblog story In an effort to save automobile production jobs from the shift away from ICE auto's, Germany has earmarked a $1 billion Euros or about $1.2 Billion US dollars in a push to protect local jobs and reduce alliance on outside country battery production. Many in the industry say it is too late as they are too far behind in the current battery technology. Germany says it will focus on Solid State batteries as LG Chem with battery production in Poland and Samsung with battery production in Hungary are the main suppliers to the big German 3 auto suppliers. Boston Consulting Group believes that battery cell production capacity will exceed demand by 40 percent in 2021, due to massive new production coming online in Japan, China and Korea as well as around the world. The flip side of the BCG excessive supply is McKinsey & Company that says as all automakers ramp up EV production, it should outstrip supply by 2022. The battery R&D plus production is a big push by the German government that says building electric auto's take less time and less positions due to a reduction in complexity. This will lead to reduced jobs on the assembly line as automation continue to expand. Germany's VDA auto industry association says that Germans ban on ICE auto's by 2030 threatens 436,000 jobs in Germany that will just disappear from car companies and their suppliers. Germany is pushing to expand the battery alliance to protect European jobs from Asian battery companies. Just changing EV sales to 10 to 20 percent of production in the coming years will require over 100 gigawatt hours of battery production that is currently not available yet above the planned capacity by Asian producers especially in China. Europe also says as they push R&D to develop solid state batteries, this will remove the need for rare earth elements making the process cleaner and safer for all. The uphill battle is is underlined by the world's biggest automotive suppliers, Bosch which has made it clear they are focusing on everything else in an EV except lithium-ion cells as it will be too costly to try and compete with the asian and american companies already developing them.

Autoblog Ural Review Story Lets get the details out of the way first for the Bike riders. 60 Horsepower 81 pound-feet of torque weight 822 lbs top speed 88 mph Range 103 miles per charge on the 19.5 kWh battery pack Recharge time 13 hours on a 110 wall outlet Now Ural sells bikes here in America and while some here might say what a wimpy electric motor, the electric bike is very fast as the ICE bikes only have 41 HP and 42 lb-ft of torque. So the EV is a big gain over traditional ICE bikes. To quote the CEO, this bike accelerates very quickly from a hard launch for a Ural. Currently these bikes are being developed here in Washington.

Sadly we seem to be in an era of Bully's around the glob.

During the Summer tour of the LiveWire concept that looked different than the production bike, they had a 110 mile distance and could accept DC fast charging. There have been comments that the battery density will increase in the production bike due to the latest battery technology. If so, then I could see 150 mile range on these bikes which I think will be enough for many riders initially.

Trade wars can be good if approached in a professional way. Sadly the bully on the playground approach is Hurting US consumers, Hurting US Jobs and the wages of US citizens. Long term, less money in your pocket to buy stuff.

Welcome Tyler, Great to have you join Cheers and Gears. Awesome truck you have, look forward to seeing pictures when you get a chance. Wide diverse group of truck, car, SUV/CUV fans here with great debates on the auto industry. Look forward to your participation on the forum. Again, Welcome

I think Toyota could cut half their car models and still do very well here. Today, at the tail end of dusk when it is almost solid black, I saw so many toyota cars, cuvs and trucks with no lights on. I honestly do not understand how someone can drive with no lights on when it is almost pitch black. Toyota drivers are the 2nd worst right behind BMW drivers. MB drivers are a solid 3rd.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/08/business/tesla-new-chairwoman-elon-musk.html NY times is the first one to report this, but seems others have also already. https://www.tesla.com/blog/announcing-robyn-denholm Robyn Denholm, Tesla’s new chairwoman, has an extensive background in technology. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/tesla-says-robyn-denholm-of-telstra-to-be-new-board-chair/2018/11/08/46a13b4a-e32e-11e8-ba30-a7ded04d8fac_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5cc3cebe4e57 https://www.businessinsider.com/tesla-board-of-directors-full-list-elon-musk-chairman-replacement-2018-8 http://www.laht.com/article.asp?ArticleId=2469124&CategoryId=12396

@Robert Hall @ykX @Drew Dowdell Finally HD released a current video of the production Livewire and you can hear their patented sound. I have to say that baby boomers wanting their loud ear hurting sound will probably not like this, but I can see a ton of 20 to 50 year olds who would like it. I truly think this will bring in a new generation of riders to the HD family.

Moving EV production to Emden would also help to lower cost. The German Unions are killing profitable auto building in Germany as the cost of labor is crazy high. I just hope we see these EVs in the US too and not just Europe and China.

I am liking this, I am only 30 now.

Be it an EV, Plugin or just a nice properly done mid engine halo car for Cadillac, I am excited by this.

@ykX @Robert Hall I am excited by the HD Livewire bike. Very cool for them and I truly hope it does pull in the younger crowd as like Robert stated, the pool of baby boomers is getting smaller and smaller and people are not wanting the open pipe loud noise bike. I do love the actual working bike on the home page of the EICMA trade show that has clear connection to the light bike in Tron. That would be fun to ride and see how it handles. I am also amazed at how many electric bikes are coming out. GM getting into the electric pedestrian bike is cool I think. https://media.gm.com/media/us/en/gm/home.detail.html/content/Pages/news/us/en/2018/nov/1102-ebike.html

? Got ya beat by 10 years. 50 and just now hitting mid life!

@ocnblu It is finally here with it's own unique tone. Not silent. Very cool bike.

Have to say this is a cool ad I never saw since I never watch the Superbowl. Have to say I like this ad, so I went out to check out if it is a real company and sure enough it is. https://www.archmotorcycle.com/

Would that not be the 4 door muttang that Ford has talked about?

Every soccer moms dream!

Yea, I could see the GLS diesel, but I doubt a G-Wagen would be there. LOL

I have seen that too at Evergreen Speedway here that the bulk of the auto's hauling the race cars are Escalades, Navigators, Yukon XL or Suburbans. I doubt anyone driving a Mercedes benz would be seen at these venues.

Same Model and year as my escalade but this is a very common site around the PNW.

Happy Birthday Drew, Hope you have an awesome day and evening! ? Such a young Stud at 40! Rockin it well my friend!

This looks good, but What GMC just posted is awesome! Now that I posted this, it does have a Transformer look!

You truly live in a warped world. Comparison was just body on frame and you brought in the GLS. Comparison was GLS to Escalade and Navigator. YOU brought this up. The Unibody lower units never were brought up till now and you are trying to put out FAKE NEWS. G63 on the MBUSA site is 7,000, the Regular G-Wagen is 7500. Talk about moving the fence posts to meet your own story.