smk4565

First off, pointless comparison as the EQE is identical in size to the Tesla Model S. That is the Model S competitor, Tesla doesn’t have an EQS competitor, maybe they should build a full size luxury car, although they have other more urgent needs. Mercedes does have catch up to do, but they are on a mission. They released 3 new EV’s today (GLB, EQS AMG, and EQE) and near production ready concept electric G-wagen and Maybach SUV. 5 new EV’s in one day, plus a promise of EQE and EQS SUVs for next year. They are coming for Tesla. A Maybach is way more money than a Hummer, also that Hummer interior isn’t that nice. Where I think GM could do well is doing a midsize suv that is off road focused and EV that takes inspiration from the Hummer, but it half the cost and they can sell Chevy and GMC versions. So when you have people interested in a Hummer but don’t have $100k or don’t want a vehicle that big they have an easy transition to a sale.

Mercedes is the #1 selling luxury car brand in the world, yet "they do not sell that many luxury vehicles" ??? Who is selling more luxury cars than them? Who has a higher % over $50k, over $100k, or whatever other number you want to pick from. I don't know that Mercedes "wants" to go down market, I mean a CLA has the same price structure of a Cadillac CT5, it isn't really down market, it is priced like Cadillac most expensive sedan. Mercedes needs small cars for fuel economy and emissions reasons, they can't just sell V8 AMG's. Plus they want to have a complete line up of small, medium, large to hit a wide range of buyers, you have to have entry level product to bring people into a brand. It seems to be there is nearly $100,000 price difference between the Mercedes full size SUV and the GMC. Please find me the Lexus or Audi sedan in this price range: And I would love to see the BMW "Ultimate Driving Machine" rival to this: And then there is this guy that has 37 exterior color choices 31 interior color choices. Part of luxury is choice, what does Tesla have, like 4-5 exterior colors and 2 interior colors? Will the GMC Hummer have 37 color choices? Uh-oh, it is also rather easy for a CLA250 to cost over $50k:

Mercedes is doing an electric G-wagen, there is your answer. The G-wagen is the king of all SUVs, I am shocked there isn't a Maybach version of it (besides that convertible they did on the last one), but they'll have the electric and it will still be an icon. The public wants SUVs here, of which Mercedes has 9 of them, and 2 more coming next year, I think 11 is enough freaking SUVs. But in China sedans still sell, same with Europe. Mercedes sells like 325k units in the USA, vs 2 million outside of the USA, the American market isn't what steers their ship, like these other car companies. Tesla has problems for sure getting new product out, but their current product is still selling faster than they can make it. So what we basically have here is a race to flood the market with EV's and then you also need people to buy these. But assuming people do buy EV's, then it comes down to who can get the product out, and that will be the companies with deep pockets and lots of manufacturing capacity. Which is the VW's, Mercedes, GM's Toyota's of the world, and not the Rivians and Lucids of the world. Lucid just had a big stock crash yesterday as a lot of their early investors cashed out since they had agreements to keep the money in for 6 months or something and the time frame passed. Lucid stock is down 23% in the past 6 months, GM down 7% Tesla up 12%. Ford, Honda and Diamler have small gains, but Toyota is up 18.4% in the past 6 months, Toyota has $46 Billion cash on hand, that's a crap ton. But GMC is supposed to be better than Chevy, not equal to Chevy.

I advocated for GMC Sierra to have SLT, AT4 and Denali trims, but also I would keep 2WD, 4WD, turbo 4, 5.3 V8, 6.2 V8, and regular, super and quad cab configuration, plus 2500/3500 also. I want to wipe out basically any Sierra under $45-50k and steer those buyers to Chevy. The Tundra has a supercab only available on the base model, other wise is the quad cab with 1 engine choice. That is my problem with the Tundra. Plus the Silverado is the competitor to the Tundra, and they can run a dozen versions of the Silverado if they want. And there is no point to 40 SUVs, but that is what car companies do, I just watched a video on the Corolla Cross today, because Toyota clearly thought they need more SUVs and the 6 or 7 they have wasn't enough. And maybe the Yaris Cross will come here, why the hell not, more, more, more SUVs is what car execs think.

They don't have to copy the 1920s, but have brands more defined by price structure. So if you have a small SUV for example, the Chevy starts at $25k, the Buick version $30k, the GMC $35k and the Cadillac $45k. But right now an Equinox and Terrain overlap in price, the Envision and XT4 are like $4k apart. Probably even more so important now that Buick doesn't have sedans, at least when Buick had sedans, they could focus on cars while GMC did trucks in the Buick-GMC dealership. Jaguar-Land Rover has the same problem, once they kill all the Jaguar cars and Jaguar just makes SUVs, what is the point of 2 SUVs of the same size, same price, same engine, same switchgear, etc in the same dealership.

But the Lincoln Mark LT failing sort of proves my point. Even if it was a badge job, if the Lincoln badge carried weight, and people wanted a truck from a luxury brand, they should be willing to pay extra for the badge alone. And I agree the Mark LT was poor execution, what would need to happen is more of the difference you see in a Navigator and an Expedition Limited to justify the price difference. I write estimates on cars, the Avalanche basically has the same parts and schematics as a Suburban, they are a Suburban with the roof cut off in back basically, so it would make more sense to build them with the Suburban rather than the Silverado. But sales declined on those, GM obviously thought there wasn't enough of a market for Avalanche/EXT or that people would just buy a Silverado anyway and they'd still get their money. The Tundra is super dated, engine sucks, it is way too thirsty and they don't have enough variants over all. They make like 9 versions of the Rav4, yet like 1 version of the Tundra, no wonder it does't sell. If Toyota was aggressive with the Tundra as they are on Camry and Rav4 re-designs and engine choices and hybrids, then I think the Tundra would hit that 200k. The Titan/Armada/QX80 are a disaster, also super dated and never were competitive to begin with, they should just kill all that off, make some 3 row electric SUV, bring back an Xterra BOF SUV based of the new Frontier that is like $30-40k, people would buy that. Bu Luxury truck, you are talking about a luxury trim of an existing truck. For sure there is room for Denalis and F150 Limited. But do you see a market for a truck from a luxury brand, like Cadillac or Lincoln or Lexus?

And those are base models with no options. That doesn't exist on a dealer lot. Here is a GLB without any options added on True car over $50k: And here is the Cadillac CT5, is the ATP on that really $37k? Your TrueCar numbers are worthless because all it is showing is an expected sale price on the base trim, base model, no options vehicle. And that vehicle doesn't even exist on a dealer lot. Just like GMC sells 40% Denali, or whatever the rate is, people put options on Mercedes too, people buy E450s, they buy AMGs, buy more V8 S-classes than V6 ones. It's the same thing on just about every brand.

Couple things, 1. Luxury brands tend to have high lease rates because wealthy people trade cars more often and want a new car every 3 years. They have the disposable income to do that. Where as a middle class, or maybe lower middle class buyer (if they can even afford a new car anymore) are going to look at something to finance on a 5-7 year loan and try to keep that car 8-10 years to get value out of it, because they can't afford to go buy a new car every 3 years. 2. Brands with high resale value can offer attractive lease rates, when brands with poor resale value can not. Toyota should actually be able to kill it in leasing because of the resale value they have. 3. Fiat on there is an outlier, I suspect that is a manufacturer subsidized lease that they loose money on every one, but they have union contracts at factories they can't close and need CAFE credits, etc and no one will buy them, so they give them away on a lease. Yes they should. And you can still share platforms and some powertrains, that most consumers don't care about or know the difference. Especially in an EV world where everything is a chassis full of batteries with a body bolted on top. I am all for economies of scale to drive down cost. But you need 3 tiers, like going form Holiday Inn to a Marriott, to a Ritz Carlton. There needs to be a clear difference int he product.

Their #1 selling car in the USA this year is the GLE, average sale price on those is $75k. Their #2 seller is the E-class, which costs the same as a GLE, and #3 is the GLC. For the first half of 2021, 74,034 of Mercedes 160,646 sales were vehicles with a base MSRP over $54,000 (46.1%). If you add in C-class and GLC (which some body styles like C-convertible and GLC Coupe base over $50k and average sale prices of those lines would top $50k) you get 121,978 out of 160,646 which is 75.9%. And some CLA, GLB, GLA are selling for over $50k, but let's assume those cancel out with base C300's selling for under $50k and call that a wash. For Cadillac, 20,716 of their 73,406 sales in the first half of 2021 are vehicles with a base MSRP over $50,000, which is 28.2%. Also interesting to note, that Mercedes with just their cars that start over $54k outsell the whole Cadillac brand.

GMC shouldn't have any fleet, they can sell those through Chevy. GMC is supposed to be a level above Chevy, it shouldn't overlap Chevy. All 4 GM brands basically cover the same price ranges, that makes no sense. The Corvette is a Chevy, so value should be in there, that is why I have said I could see a turbo 4 or V6 with say 375-400 hp as a base Corvette for $55k, then the V8 Stingray can start at $65k, or even $70k, just put a little extra equipment standard on the V8 that is optional on the base car. And you'd have the Z06 at the top. Then you make a Cadillac sports car that starts at say $90k or $100k, and then goes upwards from there, to deliver luxury the Corvette can't, and a top end Cadillac would deliver performance above a Z06. My point is more that Chevy should be lower cost and volume based. Thus the Corvette shouldn't be a $100k+ car, the $100k car should be a Cadillac, with Cadillac level service, Cadillac dealers, etc. And GMC shouldn't be selling pickups (or SUV's) for the price of a Chevy. The GMC should be like 25% more than a Chevy, the Cadillac 50% more than a Chevy so you have actual tiers, like the way GM was designed to be 90 years ago.

Exactly, which is why the Sierra should start at the SLT trim. Let Chevy sell work trucks and the SLE equivalent. No they aren’t, if a loaded Denali 1500 is around $75k, a Cadillac would have to start at $80k. The luxury/sport trims would be $90k, the Platinum $100k, and you could easily have $10k in stand alone options to any of those trims.

But a Sierra starts at $30k. A luxury brand half ton truck would start around $75k for a 2 wheel drive. And I guess we’ll see how Rivian and Hummer do. If Cadillac did a pickup the base model would be like $80k and pushing up to say $110k for a half ton. I don’t see a market for that and GM must not either or they would build it. I am sure Mercedes doesn’t see a market for it either, especially not in Europe or China which are their 2 main markets.

The Cadillac image alone should make it worth more than a GMC, although the Cadillac image isn't what it should be. GM needs to work on that part, I think the whole Cadillac brand needs to push more upmarket but that is another issue. The Escalade has Super Cruise and the bigger screen with some more tech, better stereo than the Denali or High Country Tahoe. The materials and trim are better in an Escalade (more so on the higher trims) than a Yukon Denali according to Motor Trend, and they should be better if it's a Cadillac. The Escalade in base trim though has leatherette seats, you have to go up a level to get real leather which is standard in the Yukon Denali, but skip the base Escalade and go to the Luxury and problem solved there. Supposedly there is an Escalade-V coming, I don't know what has taken this long, there are always people willing to pay more for the best version of something, seems like easy profit margin, but I would imagine there won't be higher power Tahoe/Yukon, and only Escalade, so there is a differentiator.

I am not disputing that people pay $60-70k for some of these pick up trucks ($80k on some of the heavy duties), and then spend even more on after market stuff for them. And as I have said for 10 years, I think GMC should make the SLT trim the standard on every model, and Denali as the step up to get away from the Chevy overlap. This would wipe out 30% of GMC sales, which would piss off GMC dealers, but GM can still sell those people Chevorlets, so GM still gets the money anyway. What I am saying is a luxury brand truck won't work, otherwise these car companies would be doing it.

But AT4 isn't a luxury version, and GM also launched the AT4 and Denali first, before the other trims. I read 50% of 2500's are Denali in the same story, and 50% of overall Sierra's are AT4 or Denali. So maybe like 30% Denali on the overall, with 20% overall AT4. But Chevy isn't doing 30-50% High Country, Ford isn't doing 30% King Ranch edition. Although I have said since the GM bankruptcy, that GMC should be one of 2 things, either a fleet/work truck brand, or a Denali only type brand. They are too similar to Chevy right now. Just using the Sierra as an example, it starts at $30,100, but there is some package discount and GMC.com shows me $29,795 for a base model. The SLT starts at $47,500, and AT4 starts at $54,700 and Denali starts at $55,800. I think the Sierra (and all GMC's) should start at SLT as the base model, then have either an AT4 off road version or a Denali luxury version. Wipe out all those base and SLE trims. That would put them above Chevy, but still doesn't make them a full on luxury line. And a luxury brand truck like say a Lexus or Cadillac, would be nicer than a Denali, and I don't see a $100k Lexus Tundra or Cadillac Silverria selling. But a Lincoln pick up, in base trim, would have to be nicer and more luxurious than an F150 Platinum or King Ranch. So we are talking $75k or so for a V6 1500 truck before options, and running it to 100k, basically Navigator pricing. If there was a market for that, Ford would be doing it.

Right, they sell high trim levels of existing trucks. But even those are probably like a 10-20% take rate or so compared to how many Ford XLT, or Chevy LS/LT level trucks they sell. And what you don't see is Lincoln, Cadillac, Lexus pick ups and I guess Ram's luxury truck would be Alfa Romeo or Maserati. There must not be a market for luxury brand trucks because none of them are doing it.

The chassis for the Nissan Nivera or Navera, however you spell it, was used as the basis of the Mercedes X-class. A lot of the body panels were the same I think, but the X-class had it's own front and rear facia and interior, so similar to Tahoe turned into an Escalade, a lot of shared bones. Although the Mercedes X-class used Mercedes own 4 and 6 cylinder diesel engines and the Mercedes 7G-tronic transmission, not the Nissan powertrains, maybe used Mercedes suspension components, I don't remember. They were on sale in Europe for 2 years maybe and pulled the plug on it. I don't think they sold very many. I did a quick price search, looks like the X-class was $45-85k, but who knows how exchange rates and taxes factor in, cars cost more in Europe, but they were expensive compared to other mid size pickups.

BMW sold the 2002, a cheap car, the Isetta, a really cheap car, scores of 1-series, many fwd 1-series in Europe, the 318i in the USA in the 90s that was dirt cheap. BMW has a wide range of cheap and expensive. The original Mercedes in 1901 was the most power, fastest car in the world, the cars they built in the 1930s were on par with Rolls-Royce and Bentley, the 1963 Mercedes 600 was the most expensive car in the world, double the cost of a Rolls-Royce. They made lots of expensive cars. Daimler paid $37 billion to buy Chrysler and sold it for $7.4 billion. They didn't loot Chrysler of any money, they lost $29.6 billion on that deal. As far as a truck, they do make the G-wagen, they make the Unimog, the best off roader ever, and Daimler is the world's #1 producer of Class 8 trucks. I don't think pick up truck is where Mercedes-Benz wants to be, the Nissan tie in was an experiment to test the waters in Europe without them spending much money, and it was the right move, because a Merceres pick up isn't going to be a popular seller. Much like Cadillac EXT, Lincoln Blackwood, Lincoln Mark LT didn't work, there is no Lexus version of the Tundra, etc. Not a lot of market for a luxury pick up. Mercedes has the higher transaction prices than any of their peers, they also go higher up the price tier than any of their peers. I don't see a Genesis sedan with a base price of $109,000 like the S-class, used G-wagens (2019-2020) are going for an average of $173,000 right now, imagine a used Escalade or Navigator selling for $173k. But as I always say, I like competition, if Genesis or Lexus or Cadillac want to jump into the $200k price range and go against the top Mercedes bring it on. If they want to come to Formula 1 and race against Mercedes then bring it on. Here, 831 hp, 1,033 lb-ft. Where is the Genesis or Lexus rival? The CT5-V Blackwing was GM's best effort, and it is slower than a GT63 on a track, so is the BMW M5 CS and the Panamera Turbo Hybrid, and now the E-performance GT63 is even faster. The fastest 4-door in the world just put the other guys farther back in the dust.

Mercedes isn't going to make a pickup, they dipped their toe in that water and it seems decided that isn't for them. They are a luxury car/SUV company. They are showing 5 EV's in September apparently, for sure EQE, a Maybach SUV, an AMG sedan, and an electric GLB. The 5th might actually be a Smart branded product for China and Europe. AMG GT73 is a plug in hybrid debuting tomorrow, but that isn't an EV. New SL debuts in September, that has a plug-in option I think. And all of that will be on sale in 2022. Electric G-wagen is in the works, to go with the EQ-GLE, EQ-GLS or whatever they call those. Their EV line will probably be bigger than Lucid, Tesla and Rivian combined in 2023, because they have cash, manpower, and factories all over the world. I don't get why Ford would invest in a competitor that is taking away F150 sales. Unless Ford is planning to invest at a low price, what for the stock to pop, then dump the stock for a quick profit, and nothing wrong with doing that. But Rivian's market cap is more than Ford's, so Ford can't take them over, if anything it would be Rivian leading the takeover of Ford or a dreaded "merger of equals" where Rivian and Ford merge in a 50-50 deal, and then Rivian gets half of Ford's assets. I don't know, will be interesting to see how that plays out. EDIT: We don't have to wait til tomorrow, it's here, AMG GT63 E-Performance, 831 hp and 1,082 lb-ft.

My question is more if companies like Rivian or Lucid will be around in 10 years. Once the big OEMs flood the market with EV's they will give the consumers more choice, and also they will have economies of scale that will yield lower prices. Even look at Tesla, they have done mild updates over the years to the Model S, rather than come up with all new versions as a big OEM would do with their cars. I suppose they could get enough of a following and live at a high price point and hang around in the way Lotus or Aston Martin have, but every other low volume manufacture like Alfa Romeo or Maserati is part of a big conglomerate, even JLR and Volvo are owned by someone else.

BMW has the iX on sale Spring 2022, not far off from when the Rivian suv comes out. And if the Rivian truck is so great and the best truck ever, is going to outsell the F150? Answer is no. These EV brands are like boutique brands like Aston Martin or Jaguar/Land Rover that just get sold to different companies since they can’t really survive on their own.

The X5, X6 and X7 are all the Rivian price range. The X8 is coming next year, will be more more expensive than a Rivian though. The iX is supposed to start around $85k, more than a Rivian, but not so far off.

Tesla Model S was about 10 years ago is what I meant. Even the roadster went on sale in like 08 or 09 but there was no volume there. And I don't think that, but BMW has an SUV for a single person, a family, someone that wants an EV (once that iX thing is on sale, or maybe i3 is around still), a 3-row, a performance SUV, etc. Rivian has 1 option, if you don't like that one option you go to the next brand.

The Lucid Air might turn out to be a fantastic car, Rivian might build some great trucks. But if I had to bed on Toyota, VW and GM, or Lucid and Rivian, I would bet on the big guys. Because are Lucid and Rivian ever going to make $25-45k vehicles to take on Toyota, Chevy, Honda, Kia, etc? Or are their plan to stay in the luxury segment and compete with Porsche, Mercedes, BMW and Lexus? Because in the luxury segment, brand name and image matters, and if you ask 100 people on the street would you rather have a Mercedes or a Lucid Air, 99 are going to say "what the hell is a Lucid Air?" I think the competition is great, it will push everyone else to make better cars. So I am glad Lucid and Rivian and these other guys are here.

And their pricing is with $7500 tax credit that not everyone even qualifies for. If you try to build a Pure on their site it all of a sudden says starting at $77,400. And I suspect that model is like the $35,000 Tesla Model 3 that never happened. Let's see when they even deliver these things, because I bet they wait until Dream and Grand Tourings are sold out until they move on to anything under $100k. And really this is a mid-size sedan, before I thought it was more full size, but it is about the size of a 5-series. So this is M5 money, I am sure it is good in a straight line, but an M5 CS can run a 2.5 0-60 also, probably whip the on a track, and probably has a much better built interior than the Tesla cast off engineering team at Lucid has come up with. Agreed that they went with popular body styles, 3 row SUV and pick up. Good move there. But in the time it takes them to get to 6 vehicles, VW group or GM could have 20 EV's. So how does Rivian compete with that? Would you rather a Rivian SUV or a Cadillac that has a big dealer network and GM parts support? These are the challenges that Rivian and Lucid will fast. Tesla was early and got ahead in the EV game, but all the big guys have billions upon billions of cash on hand to crank out new models and carpet bomb the market.