G. David Felt

Interesting auto, but I have to say it looks very dated and ultra conservative compared to what Subaru used to put out. If you are a suby fan people will buy it, but I think there are far better rides out there.

This will be interesting. Wonder if they will have the cool Gullwing doors or will safety regs kill it. I suspect Tesla is having a hard time to have those doors meet crash testing / safety needs. I could see them going away to get the Electric CUV in production.

GMC needs to build the Hx NOW as a special package for GMC. This would give the Wrangler a solid competition and many myself included would love it with the Baby 2.9L duramax diesel.

Since you are willing to ignor the fair comparison of the cars listed under a 2.0L Turbo and quickly jump on the ATS 3.6 being weaker in Torque than the C400. I will follow your lead in saying you clearly are not able to learn new technology very fast as the CUE works fine once you learn it and I have had no problem with it. This in comparison to what I find to be pathetic systems in both BMW and MB with the stupid Dial, Mouse, Joystick what ever the Germans like to call it. That whole system is not user friendly to me in comparison to touching a screen. Yes CUE can be slow at times and it will either get better fast or GM will dump it as they incorporate the APPLE / Android interface systems. Since the stories go back for years especially in the initial days of when MB and BMW brought out their joysticky / dial / mouse control for the nav / HVAC system, many complained and still do today about not being user friendly. Interesting is the amount of people posting nothing but problems with Mercedes-Benze system. http://mbworld.org/forums/c63-amg-w204/395784-media-interface-plus-installation-problems-so-far.html http://mbworld.org/forums/m-class-w163/444740-problems-my-media-interface-plus.html http://www.benzworld.org/forums/w204-c-class/1645632-2012-c250-media-interface-problems.html http://www.slkworld.com/slk-r171-general-discussion/90513-media-interface-plus-pairing-problems.html PC Mag did a review of the MB latest non touch interface and stated that their system is a Step backwards in todays Touch World. http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2472804,00.asp Auto Guide has this to say about the 2015 C-Class - some of the added functionality is a little confusing and the interface does take some getting used to...... http://www.autoguide.com/manufacturer/mercedes-benz/2015-mercedes-benz-c-class-review-4053.html CNET Review of the 2015 had this to say about the system - The Bad Connected infotainment features are crippled by an always-off Internet connection and the head-up display graphic is too large. http://www.cnet.com/products/2015-mercedes-benz-c-class/#! Edmunds had this to say about the 2015 infotainment system - Cons Cool but clumsy touchpad infotainment interface; pricier than most competitors http://www.edmunds.com/mercedes-benz/c-class/2015/review/ So while yes many news outlets from car mags, to PC mags to news stories all for the most part talk highly about the the MB C-Class car, one thing that does come up over and over again is about the Mercedes-Benz’ COMAND infotainment system. You read and you see references to the outdated Blackberry type system to when will they drop their current system and get with a nice clean touchpad interface like Apple. So while many do not like the CUE system as they say it is slow and clumsy, I say you need to learn it just as I know if I had to drive a BMW or MB auto with their system, I would have to learn it to make it work. Right now I bet most people would be happy to have all these systems dropped in favor of your choice of an Apple or Android interface for the Auto Infotainment system.

Offended

Very cool stuff, so glad you found this. I know I am a minority with my love for Hummer.

I agree the Energy Drinks must Flow! My day is having a hard time getting started and here it is 11am already. Just cannot seem to get into my work today.

Why? If they want to save 5 billion Euro's then why waste the money on trying to bring out the Phaeton again. I am sure VW corporation could find plenty of wasteful projects in VW, Audi and Porsche. So why waste money on a car that very few people would see as luxury and has not sold very well. Has it ever reclaimed the original R&D cost of the first failure here in the US? Just saying, I see plenty of Bugs around few golf and now rarely ever see the Phaeton so I just do not see why they need to spend the money now when they seem to be clearly hurting for cash.

SMK and BlackViper bring up some interesting points about Cadillac especially the ATS. As such I thought I would go out to grab a comparison and of course Cadillac has a nice compare tool. So you can ding me if you think I am wrong but I do not see the engine issue, style issue, etc. of the points they bring up. I will give BV Kudo's for pointing out and defending his take on those issues. SMK, I love that you want to defend MB and push what you believe, but I would love to see you state your reasoning more rather than 60,000 mile high generalization. Here is what Cadillac has on their comparison. You tell me, how does ATS Fail against these two and this is truly 2015 models only.

I understand many of the points made here but find most of them are still very subjective from a personal stand point. An example is how they knock the ATS front end. So as a Comparison, here is the 2014 front ends of the German 3 plus Cadillac ATS. All nice in their own way and yet I see nothing wrong with the chiseled look of the ATS compared to the Feminine curvy look of the BMW, partial curvy female look of MB. The closest in a pure chiseled look is the rather bland Audio to me.

They should be killing the Volkswagen Phaeton.

Looks like the made the Big Mouth Billy Bass mouth front end even bigger. Weird!

Yet your beloved German 3 have less rear leg room than the ATS that we agree on. Stop just out what the mags have stated which is pure BS. State real facts as to why you think the germans are better as currently your like a butterfly flying all over with 60,000 foot statements. ATS rear Seat leg room versus German MB, BMW and Audi. Who wins? Subjective but who builds the better seat and what type of materials. Dash, plastic hard, plastic soft touch, etc. Be detailed and descriptive. To state you think it isn't as good is not sufficient, defend and describe specific points of why you believe this. Point out where Cadillac is falling down. Reality, based on my own review, Cadillac beats all 3 German brands in quality of auto segment to segment comparison. Cadillac Failure - Marketing. I see far more advertisements for the German 3 in comparison to Cadillac. Their marketing sucks and I believe this is why their sales are down on top of the lack of model choices. Cadillac biggest win could be a Marketing blitz that if 3 prong focused by age group 18 to 30 31 to 50 51 to retirement. Focus on showing why their auto's beat the competition and then challenge the public to come in and find out for themselves with some sort of incentive. The web site option to compare a ATS or CTS to any of the German 3 equivalent is just not going to cut it. Have on site at the dealership for a comparison the actual auto's. Cadillac needs to step up the luxury and experience. The US dealerships need to look like what they are requiring in Bejing.

Yeah, I'm hoping it's just FUD. It'd be a pretty lousy practice and I'm certain both Apple and Google would put a stop to it, as it'd end up tainting their brands. Agreed, this would be a big negative for both companies if you had to pay the Auto OEM to reflash the system to support one or the other. I can see the QA testing now. how far back do the Auto units go in supporting which OS versions. This is going to be very interesting and MFST could end up being the big looser here.

Believe it when I really see it and personally they are going to have to support both Apple and Android in every auto to satisfy customers. If they do not they will have a loosing sale. Example is I hate the Apple interface but love Android so an auto that only supports Apple starts with a loosing sales mark and yet for my son a graphic designer who is mac everything an android only stereo would be a negative. So the only way I see this winning is having support for both. Big looser here would be Msft if they do not get on board.

Political pawn

Be interesting to see what they bring to the table. Same old warmed over performance that everyone is doing or something truly new and innovative?

Time to plan for Auto Virus that will block auto ad's and allow me to block the grid from knowing where I am. Or better yet just rebuild my exiting auto and keep driving it to stay off the grid.

I would be interested in hearing how SMK justifies this lack of leg room on the CLA in comparison to the ATS. You just cannot keep moving the field goal posts to say MB is the best when they clearly are starting to cut corners. The CLA is terrible in comparison to what Cadillac makes.

Hit that nail on the head didn't ya!

Inflation

Socializing

Escalade = World Class Full Size SUV for the people. I do not hear that about any other luxury SUV even the Military ancient G that MB still makes.

Here you are wrong, MB Sprinters were not on sale as MB badged vans, They started out as Dodge vans and were known to be garbage. Once the MB badge showed up a few years back as Dodge dropped them, it will only be time before people start to question MB. It took 20 years of idiot mgmt decisions at Cadillac for them to go down from the standard of the year. Lousy 80's and 90's models and yet in the early 80's people said the same thing about Cadillac and now they are fighting to rebuild. MB will sell now but another 3-5 years from now I would not be surprised to see them struggle. Both MB and BMW are making a HUGE MISTAKE by not learning from the mistakes of US auto companies from the 80's. History is to learn and in this case, they should be selling under a different badge than to sell all as one. Does not work. You yourself have stated that Toyota has not been able to crack it all and so they went with Lexus. Takes time to build an image up, but only a few years of stupid mgmt greed to tear it down. MB and BMW are in the greed mode and will fall. Mark my words. They are ignoring History.

SMK, So I would like you to explain how you would respond to this line of talk. I went to the finance department of our division. Mostly Asian folks, that being Chinese, Korean, Indian, and the rest white. I ask them what they thought when they think of Mercedes-Benze? Answer for majority was High End Luxury, wealthy class of drivers. I asked them what they thought of and showed them the MB Sprinter. Answer was for the most part, why is MB doing commercial vans? I asked them what they thought of a 20K or 18K version of MB and then showed them pictures of MB CLA 250 and GLA 250. Universal response was why is a Luxury company trying to compete against Ford and Chevy? The end result was they started out thinking of MB as a Elite Luxury line and at the end they said they would look elsewhere for an elite auto that was not competing against Ford and Chevy or any other entry or mid tier car company. This is the self destruction that MB is doing to itself here in North America. Europe is obviously fine with MB selling from entry level FWD appliances to ubber luxury auto's. North America expects Luxury auto companies to stay luxury and not move down market. This is why everyone here feels what MB and BMW is doing is wrong and self destructive.