Drew Dowdell

Wait... VW thinks this has market potential in the US, but the Amarok doesn't?

I could see this working well for large families who always buy the same things in bulk. My Costco purchases are rarely ever large enough to justify it. I'm usually just passing by and stop in to pick something up.... like today, I get a prescription filled at Costco and the only other thing I bought was a container of Feta cheese.

I'll let you in on a secret: The head games are no different dating guys. As I've actually been off the market for over 9 years and my partner and I are very much in tune with each other emotionally, it doesn't bother me much. I'm less interested in self driving as I am in active cruise control and automatic emergency braking. I've used active cruise control in a Benz CLS400 driving from NJ up the coast to Boston and having it in that traffic was fantastic. That combined with the automatic emergency braking saved my butt in at least one specific instance during a freak storm on that trip.

Higher than take rates on hi-po mid-size crossovers. There is also the engineering to account for. A turbo V6 xt5 isn't going to have anything to share it's power train with.

When I actually go to my office in downtown these days, I am 90% bus travel. I hate bumper to bumper traffic.

hahah! switch hitters have twice the fun! Don't get me wrong, I looooove driving. What I hate is traffic. When it's bumper to bumper city driving or even heavy volume high speed highway driving, the fun is already gone because of the other drivers who are generally idiots. I to a lot of long distance driving, often weekly. My last trip was Pittsburgh - DC - NYC. Tomorrow I'm doing Pittsburgh - DC and back on Friday. When I drive for fun, I want total control. When I drive for "work", I much rather the car do the work.

Haha, I'm the opposite. I really want adaptive cruise at minimum on my next vehicle.

Apple fans have made Apple one of the most cash rich companies in the world. Tesla could do far worse than having that situation.

Cool. Didn't know. Back to the topic. I don't think the Chinese cars built by Chinese brands would work. They don't have the quality know-how yet. The ones overseen by GM or Volvo could be okay, but I'm not sure that Costco, which prides itself on customer satisfaction, would want to hang their hat on that.

I really don't feel like the two compete that much. The 3 will also end up being priced much higher than the Bolt once options are added in... so I expect the Bolt to sell fairly well. I'd rather a 3 than a Bolt for appearence sake, but I wouldn't turn down a Bolt if it was the only one of the two that was accessible to me financially. That's going to be the biggest thing with these cars (and the next gen Leaf), is financial accessibility.

The Ridgeline is great for people who only occasionally need a truck, but still have a definite need for one. It would probably suit my partner quite well.

Yea, I know you meant a restaurant. I didn't know you owned a restaurant.

I still don't see the benefit to PSA. They now have 3 mainstream brands. No economy brands. No Luxury brands. No presence in the US. Miniscule presence in Asia. Opel's presence was through Buick and Holden which are both now cut off. Without GM behind them, I don't see the point of Opel in the global marketplace as part of PSA.

Wait... wut?!?

The big thing is needing to re-engineer the turbo-V6 to work in a transverse layout and with the new 8-speed or 9-speed auto. I am unsure if the transverse 8-speed is built to handle the torque of the 3.6 TT. Watch the XTS.... if the V-sport continues after the refresh (and I suspect it may not), then you may see the 3.6TT show up in other FWD based vehicles.

The new SuperDuty is indeed a great truck. I've only driven a top shelf $70k version (Limited Diesel) and was really impressed there. I didn't find the ride to be as bad as Cars.com described. So, I wonder if there are substantial suspension differences between the W/T and the SD. It would be a deal breaker for me if so. What's not news is that the newest truck available beats the oldest one. That's almost always how this segment works... GM, Ford, and Ram each trade places at the top of the hill for a couple years each.

I make far too many trips to Costco, but I like that I don't need to remember to buy something for months. I have 6 months worth of deodorant, toothpaste, garbage bags, dishwasher detergent, and allergy meds in the house. What's crazy is that is one package of each, but many times I'm getting 6 months worth of product for the price of 2 - 3 months worth at other stores. I agree with you on the condiments. For stuff like Mayo or Ketchup, I use Aldi and buy a smaller jar. Aldi is another place where I've found the store brand to largely be equal or better than brand name (with some exceptions, but I've found out what they are). I use costco for a lot of my apartment stuff lately. I can buy attractive and stylish tile in bulk for less than anywhere. I can buy nice plumbing fixtures, appliances. They are usually the best deal on tires if you can find the model tire you want. My new laptop that I bought back during a Costco black friday deal was a planned purchase and I still to this day cannot beat the price for the unit I got. Anyway, my other reason for picking Mazda and Nissan. Mazda has already shown a williness to manufacture cars for other brands. They build the Yaris iA and the Fiat 124. Nissan probably wouldn't mind using up some spare capacity building another version of the Titan and Armada, which aren't selling all that well.

What kind of take rate do you see for a Turbo-V6 XT5? 5%? 10%? Keep in mind the target market for these cars.....

That version of Epsilon's time is ending. The XTS is done after 2020. I'd expect one more Impala refresh, and then it will move off Epsilon after that if it continues. Once the current crop of vehicles is done, I expect that there will be a shuffling of platforms. Where those cars land is anyone's guess at this point.

I'm surprised GM is still using the 6.0. It's pretty out of date at this point. The definitely need to move to the 6.2 Ecotec3. That would be an instant upgrade that would give it more torque than the competition.

Correction. Cadillac doesn't need to put a Turbo V6 into the XT5. GM already had to add a 3rd shift to Spring Hill to build Acadias and XT5s. Adding a Turbo V6 won't do anything to increase sales.

Good write-up and welcome back Bob!

The Buick can have an optional Turbo V6 and Cadillac can do the same. Plenty of people don't care about speed as long as it is sufficient enough to merge onto the freeway... for that, the current V6 is sufficient for Cadillac as a base engine.

There are definitely deals to be had at Costco, but only if you can actually use all of what is being sold, even if you can't, sometimes costco is still better. We can never get through the whole box of salad greens from costco before they go bad, but even if we waste half the box, it is still a better deal at costco than the grocery store for the same stuff. Kirkland brand products are another category entirely. I have found their stuff to be really good quality and lower price than the brand name. Paper towels, contractor bags, allergy meds, toothpaste, gasoline all equal or better than the top tier brand name counterparts for substantial discount. For example, I can buy 6 months worth of Kirkland brand Zyrtec (365 count) for two of us for $14. Target brand Zyrtec is $12 for a 25 count. Brand name Zyrtec is even higher priced. Even when name brand paper towels are on sale at Costco, the Kirkland brand paper towels are still a better deal. Kirkland contractor bags are the best deal anywhere for top strength bags. Kirkland stuff tends to be good quality, but not flashy. The Mazda line-up seems to fit that bill. I'd just transplant that over and then rely on Nissan for the trucks. Naming would be simple. C2 (3), C3 (6) for the cars. S2 (CX-5), S3 (CX-9), S4 (Armada) for the crossovers, T1 (Frontier) and T2 (Titan) for the trucks, and V1 (NV200) and V2 (NV Cargo). I left out C1 and S1 intentionally in the event the brand took off and they wanted to add the Mazda 2 and Mazda CX-3. No showroom that I've ever seen. They just have a web portal where you can arrange a purchase. They are the largest single automotive transaction broker in the US these days.

Well, that's above your paygrade. Your job is to assemble a lineup of existing vehicles that could easily be rebadged into this new brand.