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balthazar

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Everything posted by balthazar

  1. balthazar
    My points were (to clarify) ~ • Tesla, financially, is NOTHING like Apple. • And while yes- the initial $35K price may be the common tag, the majority of Model 3 buyers were willing to spend something like $42K with a number of guesstimated option prices/upgrades included. Questions : 1. Are these early reservation holders going to happy without the equipment they wanted/were willing to spend for? 2. What does an initial production run of $35K 3's do to Tesla's bottom line?? The estimates were that the 3 had to sell in the mid 40s to 50K to break even....
  2. balthazar
    I did this recently for both the '04 Silverado & the '09 Malibu. 4-button FOB was about $40, 5-button was more like $50. Programming is very straightforward. I'm not sure the '04 says 'Driver X' anymore with the new FOB tho (that's of no importance to me).
  3. balthazar
    I've always thought there were too many models too close together in size, for ALL the mainstream brands. 40 years ago, when you had a loaded Chevette if you had an AM-FM and a console, things were different. Now every size class has display screens, full power everything, AWD, turbos, etc- most of the differences left are styling (a lateral) and size (again: too close together). If there's not 12" in overall length difference between adjacent model lines, you're doing it wrong/ wasting development millions. RE: Chevrolet- the Spark is horrid, kill that. Sonic has the 4-dr and 4-dr hatch, not sure the market is asking for a 2-dr hatch tho. Then you'd have the core 4 : Sonic, Cruze, Malibu, Impala. Add Bolt & Volt, which are more laterals off the Sonic & Cruze (or is it the Malibu?), and the car lines are done. Camaro & Corvette obvious are standouts, and stay.
  4. balthazar
    5-series in in a different size class- they aren't competing. Remember when the CTS "didn't compete" simply because it was a "tweener"? 5-series and CTS are competitors. The fact is most journalists ARE putting the 7 & CT6 in the same class. They do with the 7 & S, don't they, and the S starts $15K higher.
  5. balthazar
    VW struggles because of reliability issues and building outside their comfort zone (pricing). VW struggles to move upmarket meanwhile audi marches downmarket- who do you expect to win out in the overlap arena? Audi thrives because they build off of VW bits / engines and therefore see a much higher profit margin. Audi's car are sinking fast, tho...
  6. balthazar
    Should manufacturers also drop halo cars, flagship cars and sports car to build more CUVs? You know- the full line mainstreams brands? Why not? (because I already know the answer here)
  7. balthazar
    It's not about age, it's about appeal.
  8. balthazar
    The CT6 whipped on the 7...
  9. balthazar
    The notoriously poor Yahoo news : https://www.yahoo.com/news/tesla-says-model-3-car-082508266.html Probably wrong, I should know better to quote them. Reviews will clarify the issue. • There are no options on the Model 3... initially. Perhaps next calendar year, perhaps earlier... will have to see how production goes. • Apple made $9 billion in profit, 4Q2016.
  10. balthazar
    Well; finally. I like my collector cars just fine to start ~ '40 Ford COE, 239 V8, unrestored but street legal/operable '59 Buick Invicta coupe, 464 V8 (bored 455), resto-mod street/strip car '64 Pontiac Grand Prix Sport Coupe, 389 V8 Tri-P, stock restored Further ~ '49-59 Merc coupe, chopped, 'race' flathead 255 V8 '53 Cadillac LeMans roadster concept, 331 V8 (non-street legal) '57 DeSoto Adventurer coupe, 345 V8 '60 Cadillac Eldorado Seville, 390 V8 '60 Chrysler 300-F coupe, 413 V8 '76 Cadillac pick up '45 Buick concept, man I dig the details on this one! (concept) :
  11. balthazar
    Tesla tweeted that the Model 3 will go on sale Friday July 7th. While it is claimed to do 0-60 about a half second quicker than it's primary price competition --the Chevy Bolt--, disappointingly it's range is a mere 133 miles vs. the Bolt's 238. All along the range expectation was said to be over 200, many stating they thought it would be over 250. Combined with the lack of options & upgrades on initial launch, it remains to be seen what any rate of order cancellation may occur. Looking forward to first 'journalist' test impressions- no doubt Tesla will be receive massive publicity & coverage when the 3's start becoming available, as per usual. Here's to hoping the launch is pulled off smoothly!
  12. balthazar
    S-class continues to tank! Not exactly "particularly exciting", after all. CT6 meanwhile continues to march upward in the full-size lux sedan segment: it easily outsold the Audi A7 & A8 combined, it outsold the 7-series by 50%. Daimler's S-class only sold 155 more units in June than the CT6, down a whopping 22% - and the gap keeps shrinking. You know; for those who think sales unequivocally tells you which vehicle is bestest.
  13. balthazar
    ^ Weird. I had to really dig to find last month's chart, and that was in mid-June. Strange. dfelt- the Sprinters have lost huge marketshare now that every other mainstream brand has a Euro van. IIRC, Ford actually is #1 in this segment.
  14. balthazar
    Another month with no sales chart/ model breakdown from Daimler. Policy change?
  15. balthazar
    '69-71 Mark III, body in grey primer, roof & headlight doors in black primer, no grille, driving on U.S. Route 1.
  16. balthazar
    My God- what happened to the 7-series??
  17. balthazar
    The point was that GM & DAI have the same monies to work with and are equally profitable. Oh, and Daimler sold 3 million vehicles in 2016. Guess I had better add (again); that Daimler is every bit a mainstream brand.
  18. balthazar
    Daimler & General Motors both took in $166B in revenue and posted profits of $9.4B last year.
  19. balthazar
    All right, I can see that. The way you worded it sounded like it was not the case. Perhaps I was confused.
  20. balthazar
    smk- you're confused. Daimler made $9.4B profit in 2016. (http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=DDAIF) They paid out 4.8% in stock dividends in 2016 on 1.07 billion shares. How are they paying for this single cost?? Dividends are paid out of profits, they are calculated out of profits, they are not fixed operating costs. How does Daimler pay a dividend if practically 100% of the profit goes into one department (R&D)?
  21. balthazar
    Mercedes has always used 'funny math' with their figure releases (the artificially low .cd numbers for instance). The headlight 'cost' is another one- 'cost' vs. 'retail'- that sort of thing. Putting incentives under the dealer column and claiming artificially low factory incentives is yet another. The company does this consistently. But the problem as I'm seeing it is : Daimler's 2016 PROFIT was $8.8B- they're not putting ANY of that into any other area except R&D?? Even your math above is 'mercedes shaky' - you say "2017 AND 2018" but you didn't divide by 730 (365 x 2). 'Funny math'. If the claimed R&D monies went into product development, it seems to me they'd be a clear tech leader, a full decade ahead of everyone else and building the concept cars they show but never do, but they're just not. In many instances, they're reactive (car weight & EVs come to mind here).
  22. balthazar
    Tesla's been here 14 years, you'd think at that rate o spendin MB would've beaten Tesla in offering luxury EVs. Or MAYBEEEE, it's another case of 'this plastic molded headlight assembly costs $1500, yeah, that's it; $1300', and that claimed 'million' is hugely overinflated.
  23. balthazar
    It's not mystery math, it's Daimler's convoluted "marketing displacement'. IE: the 'S550' is ACTUALLY an 'S470'... so they can't call it a 'CLS AMG550' even tho it actually is a 5.5L - that's already taken. Instead they jump out of their 'system' and use a nonsensical '63'.
  24. balthazar
    FIFBMW
  25. balthazar
    Can certainly be a delicate line to walk. I was in the corporate/office world for 10 years, came in on ground floor and a young punk, went thru every job there and ended up project managing over half the company's revenue. Some people who worked under me, I was surprised to catch a comment or 2 years later expressing some degree of frustration/annoyance with me that I didn't think -at the time- was 'a thing'. Authority comes with consequences but like you said (and I agree with this);
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