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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    $35k for a mid-size crossover, and that still undercuts the Bolt which is a compact car. I think Mitsubishi could do a small electric sedan/crossover for $25k. Mitsubishi's current products have pretty basic interiors, they aren't really well equipped cars. If you kept the interiors plain jane basic, and put the money into a 150 mile range battery and a 200 hp electric motor they could undercut the Leaf and Bolt easily. Putting more money into gas powered Mitsubishi's is a waste of money, the brand will close on their current path, might as well close it now if that is their plan to keep the Lancer and Outlander going as is, and to spend money turing a Rogue or Murano into an Eclipse crossover coupe that won't sell. More valuable than GM or Ford. Tesla I think has some potential weaknesses, namely making zero profit, but they are ahead of the game on where the industry is going. If someone can leap frog them, that is the risk they have.
  2. smk4565
    Ouch on the Impala, that segment is dying fast, by 2020 we won't have large sedans, other than the luxury ones. The S-class outsold every Cadillac sedan despite costing double. I wouldn't celebrate Cadillac's success just yet. Plus Cadillac is going to bring cheaper stuff than the X1 and CLA and A3 type cars. interesting that the big SUVs were down a lot seems like crossovers sales are going smaller too.
  3. smk4565
    Still #1 selling luxury brand, but the GLC's sales surprise me. Not only is it down it gets outsold by the dated and more expensive GLE. GLC with all 3 engines and the coupe online now should do a little better I think. Their sedans are holding on when most are disappearing.
  4. smk4565
    Cutting CAFE won't matter when Europe and China are ramping up their standards. Most of these cars are engineered to sell in 100 countries. So they have to meet all these standards anyway, and consumers want more and more, and Trump floated the idea of a $1 a gallon national gas tax. I prefer a gas tax to CAFE, that is a better way to cut fuel consumption or motivate people to buy more fuel efficient cars, but I doubt they will ever pass that. Ride Sharing is what is going to change things in 5-10 years. People won't buy cars, they will share them, that cuts their cost and still gets them from point A to point B, especially when autonomy arrives.
  5. smk4565
    The current ES shares platform and wheelbase with the Avalon, shares powertrain too. So they are now more closely related than it is to the Camry, even though it shared all that with the Camry V6 from the 90s until 2012. The Camry platform underpins the Avalon, Highlander, Sienna, ES, and RX, and Venza which I think is now dead. So they get a lot out of that one platform. I hadn't looked at Lexus sales recently so I just did, the ES is their number 1 selling sedan and outsells the Avalon. So actually they could dump the Avalon and just push more sales to the ES350. And the Avalon isn't much bigger than a Camry, anyone Avalon shopping that doesn't want to pay Lexus money can get a Camry.
  6. smk4565
    No MB-Tex in my car, Nappa leather upgrade in mine. They already have the Meev-i whatever. They could do a small-mid EV sedan, like a Lancer EV. Offer a 2 crossovers, one like Bolt small and one Outlander size. These would only need like 150 mile range, it would be basic EV transport for $25-35k before any rebates. The current Mitsubishi isn't a viable car brand, I don't see how a radical change could be any worse than the extinction they are facing. I think there are people that would like an EV too, but can't afford a Tesla.
  7. smk4565
    Tesla is an all electric brand and worth more money than GM or Ford. Not that Mitsubishi would rise to that level. But they are uncompetitive with anything Toyota or Honda make now, and it would take billions and billions to compete there. Might as well put their billion dollars into a couple EV's which are the future anyway.
  8. smk4565
    What this brand should be is an EV brand. Nissan/Renault have loads of brands that are all basically in the same price point. Mitsubishi Electric is a huge world wide division, why not build Electric cars, and cheap ones. Like a city car, a small sedan, a small people mover box thing, and operate in the $20-35k space. At least they would be different. Taking a Sentra or Altima and turning into an Eclipse or Galant isn't going to do squat.
  9. smk4565
    Lexus interior aren't even attractive. The early to mid 2000s Lexus interior were at least un-offensive, they were pretty straight forward, buttons were easy to find, yes the switcher was right out of a Camry, but they gave you some soft leather and wood trim to forget about it. The current Lexus interiors have so many angles and lines, they are overly busy and annoying. And a lot of plastic, when the rest of the industry has moved on. Even if they got their interiors up to par, I don't seem them offering performance in their Crossovers or Sedans to really stand out. This is why their sedan sales are in the tank, sub-par performance on top of ugly styling. Why buy them? They already said the GS is dying, the ES could be next and that was a big seller for a lot of years for them. But they don't need and IS and an ES at the same price, and how long will the Avalon last? If the Avalon goes away, bye bye ES.
  10. smk4565
    Problem with Lexus sedans is they don't drive great and they are ugly on the outside and have Toyota level interiors inside. Lexus doesn't make good sedans, crossover buyers aren't as worried about driving dynamics they buy what they know and they know the RX. But you can't make sedans with sloping roof lines less head room, less cargo space, etc, that is why people are leaving sedans. You need to keep space in sedans, a liftback like the 4-series has vs a traditional trunk might help with cargo capacity for example.
  11. smk4565
    That sums up the whole country. Wages are flat for most, the rich get richer, the masses do not. Cost of goods goes up, people buy less goods, economy slows. All we are missing is a bubble to burst. Looking at it only from a product perspective, every car model keeps going up market with more features. Chevy used to sell a crap ton of Cavaliers because they were cheap. Then they moved the Cobalt up, moved the Cruze up market even more so. Kia and Hyundai are going up market, no one is introducing a low priced basic car. For a while the car makers got by with 6 and even 7 year loans but now that has run its course and the prices keep rising.
  12. smk4565
    I didn't even mention 0-60, I said "about every performance metric." That could be 0-60, it is also 30-50 acceleration, 50-70 passing power, fuel economy, NVH, winter driving, or downhill braking where the transmission is going to downshift automatically and provide some engine braking. The Automatic is just all around better, the human can't react or process as fast as a computer. I get that some want to shift their own gears and be in control, and that is totally fine too, but that is a striking amount of buyers. So for a carmaker to spend two hundred million or so on a manual transmission, that is a big waste of money if they sell 2,000 cars a year with it. Eventually the self driving cars are going to overtake us even driving. There are about 35,000 deaths a year due to auto accidents and about 5 million car accidents per year, costing $871 Billion according to USA Today. This is why there is a push for autonomy, once these self driving cars are level 5, the accidents and deaths basically go away.
  13. smk4565
    That is kind of shocking. They must need CAFE help, but I can't imagine that little volume helping much.
  14. smk4565
    I would say it is a 100% chance that they bring it here. Crossovers are on fire, small crossovers are on fire. And as far as Acura being worried about image as a "performance brand" outside of the NSX their most powerful vehicle has 320 hp, they are not a performance brand. Ford has faster sedans and SUVs than Acura.
  15. smk4565
    Well Sergio's mission is to make money for stock holders, and thus pump up the value of his stock options and then also cash out and retire for sure. Selling off pieces is a good way to make quick cash and basically play role of corporate raider.
  16. smk4565
    I agree. If he sells Jeep off, we don't know if that means to another car company or just to make them independent. Or as a temporary independent with intent to sell to someone else later. But I bet there is some way that if he makes them independent, he can re-write dealership franchise agreements, and throw out the Jeep-Ram-Chrysler-Dodge package of dealerships. The ultimate goal here is to get rid of Chrysler and Dodge, and have Jeep and Ram only left, possibly with Ram and Jeep as separate companies, then he can sell either one to another company.
  17. smk4565
    I just stumbled across this thread, yawn, I like car talk. A debate on which is better between a Kio Rio and a Honda Fit is more interesting. The name calling, trolling, polical BS or stuff people do just to stir the pot is boring. This site is about cars and the endless debate of pushrod vs DOHC, foreign vs domestic, displacement vs horsepower per liter, etc.
  18. smk4565
    Net worth I assume, it is whatever Forbes or one of those lists had him at. His salary is $1 a year.
  19. smk4565
    $59k for a Honda Pilot? No thanks. And 290 up and 267 lb-ft is all they can muster? What hurts Acura is having the exact same engine as Honda. At least Lincoln has a more powerful ecoboost V6 than the Ford. Infiniti, Lexus and Cadillac have the same problem with their crossovers, it is a corporate V6 you get on a car costing 50% less. And Infiniti and Cadillac both have a turbo V6 but yet it isn't put in the crossovers. Meanwhile the Europeans will put 500 hp in a compact crossover, they don't care.
  20. smk4565
    This could pay off for them. In theory if the tooling is right from the start then all should be fine and allow them to ramp up production volume. Tesla needs volume to get some money rolling in. I knew he was a billionaire, but I didn't realize til last weekend that is worth 14.5 billion.
  21. smk4565
    Pathfinder NISMO with 328 hp!!!!!!!!! It would be insane performance!! Related to that, how come the Infiniti QX70 has the Pathfinder's 3.5 liter V6 instead of Infiniti's 3.7 liter V6? That just seems so lazy, if you pay Infiniti money, shouldn't you at least get the Infiniti 3.7 liter V6 that came out in 2008, it is 2017 after all.
  22. smk4565
    Not only does the manual get beat in about every performance metric by the automatic but consumers aren't buying manuals either, so why spend development dollars on them. It is like diesel, the take rate gets so low you can't justify designing and producing it.
  23. smk4565
    Hybrid CR-V is a no brainer when it is probably going to be their top seller for the near future. Really crossover market is where to go with hybrids because you have a larger vehicle that you can charge more for easier to sell a hybrid CR-V than a hybrid Civic. Rumor is they are doing a 5 passenger Pilot too to slot in between CR-V and the current Pilot.
  24. smk4565
    Why not build Porsche 911 with no gas engine, just put a 450 hp electric motor in back and a battery in the floor.
  25. smk4565
    Good points all around, the EVs are coming. The air quality problems in china will push them to EV, Europe is going there too. And one the EVs are more viable in 5-10 years I bet the displacement taxes go up in China to kill off engines over 2 liters. Porsche needs to get on the electric SUV bandwagon and they can share engineering with Audi and Bentley which makes it pretty easy. The 911 can work as an electric car too they can still put the motor in the back.
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