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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    Cadillac Mercedes is on pace to be already an CUV/SUV brand, they would have more sales if they killed ATS, CTS, CT6 S-class, SLC, SL, GT, G-class and replaced them with XT3, XT4, XT7 3 front drive crossovers. [That isn't too bad compared to other luxury brands.] - Audi and BMW are still primarily car brands. Audi : 10,009 cars, 9802 trucks BMW : 14,706 cars, 8847 trucks Mercedes is a truck brand.
  2. balthazar
    I have never really paid attention to FCA / Chrysler numbers. I see all this talk about Dodge going bye-bye and here it is moving triple Mercedes' U.S. volume. 87K/mnth (Dodge + Ram) is considerable volume! 'Wha! The Charger is on an old platform!' - sells 10K units/mnth. Fiat on the other hand- 4 models barely cracking 2K/mnth?? Terrible.
  3. balthazar
    Might want to pull your calculator out. Last month, Mercedes : 12,119 cars 16,835 CUV/SUVs/vans Mercedes already IS a truck brand.
  4. balthazar
    I suspect BMW lumps the X1 in with cars to bolster the car half's steady declines, but X1, X3, X4, X5 & X6 is 5 CUVs.
  5. balthazar
    2-dr hardtops rule. I practice what I preach, too; 8 of the 9 2-drs I've owned have been hardtops.
  6. balthazar
    Interior is nice (as everyone posting so far has said)- it's the exterior that could be many times better than it is. Bentley does these restrained, almost bland exteriors- nothing stylistically 'wrong' necessarily, but neither aspirational, upscale or necessarily 'good looking'. The front end on this one is just not attractive. For the money, a first-time viewer should intake their breath sharply, instead of tilting one's head and saying ".......huh."
  7. balthazar
    Bentley~ always nice interiors, always disappointing & pedestrian exteriors. Grille is completely devoid of detail- it looks like a NASCAR 'sticker grille'. Lighting is just goofy, like a '63 Dodge :
  8. balthazar
    Well, there's certainly not a lot. Isn't there like 10 failed EV startups in recent years?
  9. balthazar
    HIlarious. Has he not seen R8 & TT sales numbers? Put the money into the A8, fold in the A7 & use that money in the A8 too, and push your flagship up a dozen notches, maybe sell 350/mnth.
  10. balthazar
    They give it 15 more lb-ft of TRQ and call it a 'performance' variant. Man, has the company lost it way!
  11. balthazar
    Trucar does show 2014's as being in the mid 20K's up into the low 40K's. Toyota must be kicking itself this sort of demand wasn't around during the last 5 years it was on sale new. Just for kicks- looked up the Buick Grand National- Trucar listings (21 cars) from $15K to $99K, on an original MSRP of $15,136.
  12. balthazar
    I only know one person with an FJ, a friend of a friend. It's pretty cheesy up close. Don't see that many on the road anymore...
  13. balthazar
    Last FJ was 2013- so the newest one is now 5 years old (2018s are out already). Hard to believe is has high resale (I didn't check)- when it came out in '06-07. it sold 55K units but in the last 5 years, sales were like 85% OFF those numbers. It struggled heavily after the 'I gotta have its' got theirs, but this was in the height of truly lousy toyota quality, too, when they were recalling almost weekly and FJs had issues with cracking/tearing sheetmetal.
  14. balthazar
    What's the generator running on?
  15. balthazar
    I heard you have to set the parking brake in order to charge a Tesla.
  16. balthazar
  17. balthazar
    ^ I dunno- it took mercedes an even 20 years to debut an automatic & 15-20 years to debut A/C after Cadillac did; they didn't "keep up" and they survived.
  18. balthazar
    Whatevs- as long as it's not Encore-class. Now; stop it with the 'coupe CUV' thing!
  19. balthazar
    Stylish? OK. Trendy? Nope- not enough buyers to make it a trend. Pass. I mean, I've yet to see it published, that the -per my example- BMW has utterly flopped with the X4 and X6. 300-some units monthly, as a CUV?? Porsche Macan is the near exact same MSRP, is not as 'coupe-y', has almost half the number of dealers and is selling 1800 unit/mnth. Full scale consumer rejection. My idea for Cadillac: XT4, XT5, XT7, Escalade, done. The brand's volume & character doesn't support any more than that.
  20. balthazar
    Gothcha, but disagree to some extent. 1. the "coupe CUV's" don't sell in numbers worth spending the billion to develop, and 2. 'whether they sell' is the ONLY reason to develop these models. I don't have a problem with an appropriate Cadillac XT4 compact, but frankly I find the sub-compact Encore-class offensively small and completely out of character for Cadillac.
  21. balthazar
    Where is there "room"? R U advocating CUVs on wheelbases of 103", 109" and 116"??? 101, 103, 107, 109, 113, 116, 121? Madness. The CUV segment is completely covered @ GM with the 4 WBs you post above. In fact, I would advocate merging the compact & mid-size at 110" and distribute that 4th CUV's funding into the other 3 to improve them individually.
  22. balthazar
    • If you think 'crossover coupes' are dumb, and accept that 'no one buys them' per my example, why did U advocate for Buick to build a number of them? Having 8 examples of a vehicle type and 4 of them don't sell is a terrible idea for an OEM to pursue. Further, the opposite; you think CUVs all always sell, so why not suggest Buick build 15 or 20 CUVs? I mean, get realistic at least. BMW has 5 CUVs but only 3 of those sell, so it's basically 3 CUVs. On about 300K sales /yr. Buick has 3 CUVs on 216K sales/yr- so they are ahead of BMW, if you want to look @ it that way. • It really doesn't matter if there's a Cadillac CUV the same size that Buick wants to build. 'GM' is not a brand and has never had mass singular models across the corporate board. • Jeep is pretty unique in the segment. Demand for the brand is very high- they are a go-to for off-road (and the perception thereof) vehicles. Buick or lexus or MB are not in that same 'buzz' category.
  23. balthazar
    • Your math is not a business case. • Have you never looked at the -for example- BMW so-called 'coupe crossover' sales numbers vs. conventional CUVs?? July '17 X4 sales were 336 (down 16% YTD). Same month X6 sales were 362 (down 8% YTD). Why would any competent OEM pursue a dead-end market niche like that?? • Buick only has 3 CUVs, each in different size classes/overall size: 168", 184" and 202". XT5 is 190", or the same envelope the Envision is in- it would be pointless to add a 2nd CUV the same size as one they already have. You really have some bizarre product planning suggestions.
  24. balthazar
    THAT ALSO!
  25. balthazar
    There's actually not. We don't need a CUV/SUV for every 10 inches of overall length from 160" to 210". Besides, you just said on the last page that people don't buy CUVs for utility- hence no need to have tweener categories of CUVs.
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