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Drew Dowdell

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Everything posted by Drew Dowdell

  1. Drew Dowdell
    very different cars, particularly in interior room. going by the chart above, the Cadenza is already irrelevant though. It's a shame because the Cadenza is a credible alternative to the Avalon and better looking than Azera
  2. Drew Dowdell
    Excellent analogy!
  3. Drew Dowdell
    I think they're planning on expanding along with the stinger.
  4. Drew Dowdell
    Chicken and egg. The Chinese had virtually no charging network last time I looked. Interest will grow when filling stations do.
  5. Drew Dowdell
    Now you're just making stuff up to knock the Americans. I like the XTS a lot, you know that, but I'm still willing to concede that the Continental has a better interior.
  6. Drew Dowdell
    No one buying comfort cruisers cases about the 0-60 as long as it is sufficient.... anything under 6.0 is more than enough. The C-Class is just too small for it's price to be a comfort cruiser. Someone looking for a Continental size car wouldn't give the C-Class a second glance.
  7. Drew Dowdell
    As for the strict legal structure, I couldn't tell you. However, Tesla purchased them and is including SolarCity in its quarterly and annual reports now. It is reporting on assets of solar equipment purchased for future leasing and it is reporting revenues from electrical generation. Those are in the totals in the Q1 Report I posted earlier today. I assume they're fully financially merged at this point.
  8. Drew Dowdell
    Tesla has more irons in the fire than just automotive now though. They have SolarCity as well which seems to be turning a profit. Currently, it is only a small percentage of Tesla's revenues, but it doubled those revenues in a single quarter.
  9. Drew Dowdell
    You'll want to send your Thank You note to Mark Reuss. He's the one who's kept this car alive for as long as it's been going on. He had major input in the Zeta program way back when he was working in Australia.
  10. Drew Dowdell
    There are 3 more gears in the box over the old 2.0T diesel. It'll do fine.
  11. Drew Dowdell
    A base A6 is rather spartan inside. I'd put the Continental slightly higher than the CTS right now... primarily because of the CTS's center stack and the capacitive touch controls. For comfort concerned drivers, that better interior goes to the Continental over the CTS hands down. You keep looking at the Continental as a $50k luxury car.... it's not. It bases at $44k. That's mid-range C-Class over at Benz, and even if you bump it up to $53k looking at E-Class you're in a taxi-cab that you can't even plug your iPhone into with spending an extra $45 for a cable. $53k gets an AWD Turbo V6 Continental with leather compared to a RWD Turbo-4 E-Class with plastic seats. If you have $53k in your pocket to spend... and not a penny more... the Continental gives you more performance and more luxury. Period.
  12. Drew Dowdell
    You're talking about a time of extraordinary financial turmoil not seen in 80 years that saw many of the largest financial institutions in the country ruined. GM was making money and being profitable right up until the Bear Stearns collapse. Don't try to paint it like it was an ongoing thing to keep GM running. GM took the loans yes, but they paid them back and came out of it a profitable company. Tesla has yet to be a profitable company. They'll get there someday, but that looks to still be a year to 3 years away.
  13. Drew Dowdell
    1.5T - around 184 lb-ft (about the same as the 1.5T in the Malibu gets) 2.0T - around 260 lb-ft (about the same as the 2.0T in the Malibu gets) 1.6 Diesel - The old 2.0 was not a GM motor. and 250 lb-ft will be more than enough to move this new lighter Terrain along smartly, especially with a 9-speed automatic. You have to basically ignore horsepower numbers in diesels. They're low because diesels turn at half the RPM that gasoline motors do and still produce the same torque. Horsepower is a measurement of torque at a specific RPM... since the RPM is lower, the horsepower numbers are lower. In passenger cars, horsepower is nearly meaningless..... in diesel passenger cars, it is entirely meaningless.
  14. Drew Dowdell
    I don't see Musk's ego allowing him to give up control of Tesla or SpaceX or SolarCity (which is now part of Tesla anyway). He's not going to sell... and he's got the cash to push forward with more investment if he wants to. Plus, for now... he's the darling of the stock market and can issue more stock if he wants to.
  15. Drew Dowdell
    They are making money building cars..... as long as you don't count the money they're spending trying to build more cars.
  16. Drew Dowdell
    In their recent shareholder update for 2017, Tesla reported strong Q1 revenues of $2.7 billion dollars, more than doubling performance of the same quarter last year and an improvement of $411m over the final quarter of 2016. However, losses also grew from $282m last year to $330m in 2017, or a per-share loss of $2.04. Tesla reports that most of the loss comes from capital expenditures for the Model-3 development, Gigafactory development, and acquisition related activity surrounding SolarCity. Subtracting SolarCity revenues, Automotive related revenue is reported at $2.289 billion, up 123% year over year. Vehicle margins excluding ZEV credits are at 27.8%. Energy generation revenue is up significantly over Q4 2016 to $214m. Currently, Tesla is sticking with an outlook of 61% to 71% growth in annual vehicle deliveries, however Tesla indicated they will revise this guidance in Q3 after Model-3 production begins in July. Photo courtesy of Tesla Motors Tesla Q1 2017 Shareholder Update (*PDF Warning*) View full article
  17. Drew Dowdell
    More information about "Tesla Revenue Grows but So Do Losses"
    In their recent shareholder update for 2017, Tesla reported strong Q1 revenues of $2.7 billion dollars, more than doubling performance of the same quarter last year and an improvement of $411m over the final quarter of 2016. However, losses also grew from $282m last year to $330m in 2017, or a per-share loss of $2.04. Tesla reports that most of the loss comes from capital expenditures for the Model-3 development, Gigafactory development, and acquisition related activity surrounding SolarCity. Subtracting SolarCity revenues, Automotive related revenue is reported at $2.289 billion, up 123% year over year. Vehicle margins excluding ZEV credits are at 27.8%. Energy generation revenue is up significantly over Q4 2016 to $214m. Currently, Tesla is sticking with an outlook of 61% to 71% growth in annual vehicle deliveries, however Tesla indicated they will revise this guidance in Q3 after Model-3 production begins in July. Photo courtesy of Tesla Motors Tesla Q1 2017 Shareholder Update (*PDF Warning*)
  18. Drew Dowdell
    That was never the Vibe's purpose. It was meant to be an outdoorsy small crossover kinda along the lines of a Subaru Impreza Outback. Excitement can be more than just speed and handling. Keep in mind some of the other products at Pontiac at the time, the Aztek (for all its warts, was actually a surprisingly good off-roader for being a chopped up mini-van, and offered a tent option, and had one of the best AWD systems offered at the time), and the cladded Montana, which also offered AWD. Pontiac was attempting to offer two forms off excitement in those days.... on-road performance or off-road adventure. As a strategy, I could see it working. It was in the execution where they failed.
  19. Drew Dowdell
    Seeing them in person, the platform sharing with the Q7 becomes very obvious. then my mind wanders....
  20. Drew Dowdell
    See these are the dumb comparisons that C&G exists to combat. The G90 base price is $24,000 more than the base price of the Continental. The CT6 is $10k more than the Continental and the CT6 product mix is heavily skewed towards the mid to high trims (they're intentionally not building many of the 2.0T RWD models) pushing its real-world base price even higher. The models you should have chosen were CTS, G80, and A6. Compared to those, the Continental is quite competitive. Telsa does running upgrades on their models over time. I don't see a need for a full Model-S replacement, but they could do a refresh on it... give it a new interior that sort of thing.
  21. Drew Dowdell
    Vibe was the tail end of a decade and a half long venture where GM got to learn Toyota manufacturing processes. The value of that can be seen in the rest of the GM lineup today. The Astra would never had made it as a Vibe... 1: it was too small 2: it was too underpowered (even by Vibe standards) 3: No AWD.
  22. Drew Dowdell
    If someone else is paying the maintenance, the 7-series, but I'd still look longingly at the Town Car. If I have to pay the maintenance, the Town Car.
  23. Drew Dowdell
    No. I think he's upset at the perceived difference in market value of the two companies. Also, GM no longer receives the level of aid it once got and even if all EV credits for Bolt, Volt, and CT6 PEV expired tomorrow, GM would be a continue to be a going concern. Can we say the same for Tesla which is already losing money with those credits?
  24. Drew Dowdell
    Eh.... The RWD ones maybe. The FWD are too close to Camry for comfort.
  25. Drew Dowdell
    Lincoln had been below its class with the MKS for years... I'd say even going back to the first FWD generation of Continental.... after the last RWD Continental, Lincoln gave up on competing on interiors. Today's Continental I'd put on par or higher than other vehicles in its price class. As an experiment, I just priced out a CT6 Platinum. Checking every box got me to $91k... That is a lot of car, features, and options compared to an S-Class that start just around that same price. And you don't get any of the fancy options in the S-class at that price that the Cadillac has.
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