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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    No doubt they will do 3 SUV’s and they have a 600+ hp V6 hybrid in the works which I bet finds its way into the larger one. Maybe 4 cylinder hybrid on the small one.
  2. smk4565
    I have said for years that Cadillac should leverage their history and use word names for cars and dump the alpha-numerics. Cadillac has been trying to copy BMW and Mercedes for the past 15 years and it hasn't worked, plus Cadillac basically wants you to forget they even made cars before year 2000, as if they are some new brand like Tesla. They don't even want you to remember the Catera which they made into the early 2000s, let alone products like the Eldorado or Fleetwood. I say this is all a mistake. And I bet every Cadillac fan out there wishes they had more models. Who doesn't want a CTS coupe, CTS convertible, a mid-engine Cadillac sports car, V-series SUV's, etc. And they absolutely still need an SUV between XT5 and Escalade, I think there is room for an SUV above the Escalade. Also why only 1 engine option in an XT5 and 1 in the Escalade? The GLC has 4 engine options counting the hybrid, the GLE has 4 powertrains, GLS has 3 and is rumored to get a 4th, etc A luxury brand should have choices, Chevrolet gives you more engine options in their SUVs than Cadillac does in theirs.
  3. smk4565
    As I said, I think the CLA and CLS are pointless because I think the sedan version of both looks better, and there is an E-class 2 door coupe. But even more so they don't need the SLC because there is just really no market for that sort of car, I think a more track based sports car at that price point would work better. Besides that, Mercedes-Benz Cars did 94.7 billion Euros in revenue in 2017 with 9.2 billion euros in EBIT and a 9.7% margin. All improvements over 2016. Daimler as a whole did 164.3 billion euro in revenue and 14.7 billion euros in EBIT. 62.5% of their earnings are from the cars division on 59% of the company revenue. Cars is their strongest, most profitable division.
  4. smk4565
    Where is the overlap other than SL and AMG GT ? which are basically the same size and price, but one is a luxury car the other is a sports car. There is $55,000 between an E400 coupe/convertible and an S560 coupe/convertible , that is spread apart pretty well. You can argue CLA and CLS are pointless but they are just body styles of the A and E class. Especially when the AMG GT sedan has an inline six option, you might as well get that over a CLS53. And people buy those coupe SUV’s, my friend bought a GLE coupe because he liked that body style, and he had 2 BMW’s before that. Mercedes still has the highest ATP of any full line luxury brand, they aren’t hurting there. I think in 10 years they will be stronger because of their electric cars. Mercedes is going to put a hurt on Tesla because 80% of electric Mercedes won’t need to go down a re-work line or leave the factory with miss-matched door trim, etc.
  5. smk4565
    As far as Mercedes goes, I think they can kill the CLA because they have the A-class sedan which looks better and is more functional. They can also kill the SLC because compact roadster is a pretty tiny segment, they could probably sell that buyer a C-class convertible. But the rest of those cars they need, because they sell wagons in other parts of the world and they sell a lot of S-classes globally and that is their #1 margin car. And like ccap said, having all those choices is good for the consumer. I will say I think the new CLS is ugly, the E-class looks better and the AMG sedan looks better so that CLS is pointless but someone will buy it and it isn’t costing them much to re-body an existing car. Perhaps Chevy could make the Impala a mid-size electric sedan to carry on with the name plate. An electric sedan with external dimensions of a Malibu would have interior dimensions of an Impala, if not more.
  6. smk4565
    Chevy needs to clean up Spark, Sonic, Cruze, Malibu, Impala. 5 cars is too many when they should probably have 3 and make those 3 really good. And those 5 are especially too many when you have Volt and Bolt also, I feel like they could do a plug-in hybrid Cruze and Malibu on the next generation and retire the Volt, or make the Volt a mid-size EV sedan or something.
  7. smk4565
    It is near 4,700 lbs? Holy crap, this weighs more than an AWD V6 S-class and the S-class is a lot bigger car. The real problem with the G80 is the price tag , $57,000 is way too much for that interior. What I don't get about these sort of upstart luxury brands like Genesis, or even some others that have been around, is why don't they make a good interior? Has anyone at Genesis ever sat in an Audi A4? Because I have sat in the G80 and the A4, and the A4 is a nicer car with better build quality. And Genesis is the upstart, they are trying to win people over, they should be offering more for less money. The G70 has a weak interior also, really if this G80 was the $35,000 G70's interior, then they have an argument against the Germans. But you have to fix the interiors, Lincoln is sort of figuring that out now, but they have horrible underpinnings and horrible brand image to overcome.
  8. smk4565
    It looks ugly, but 764 hp of overboots and ability to charge in 15 minutes plus a 2 second 0-60 time all sound pretty awesome.
  9. smk4565
    The Z8 was cool, and if you bought one back then they can sell for $300,000 or more now if they are low mileage. The late 90s, early 2000s was the last time BMW had good styling, and I wasn't even a fan of it then, but they went ugly in the Bangle era, then got conservative and boring and lost after that.
  10. smk4565
    It looks better in silver, but still doesn’t look very good. After seeing this, I feel like Mercedes needs to kill off the SLC and put an AMG sports car out to smash this thing and compete with the Boxster/Cayman/718, and the Corvette.
  11. smk4565
    Front end looks a bit silly but the interior looks good for the segment it is in. I like how the center stack angles toward the driver a bit. The 200 hp model should be fairly quick in a car this small, that 129 hp Eco model sounds like a dog.
  12. smk4565
    It looks like the Fiat, which is pretty disappointing. What happened to the design of the concept car? What a let down.
  13. smk4565
    But the Bolt doesn't look like an SUV. Nor does the BMW i3. Which is a problem. SUV body style is what sells, where as wagons, hatchbacks, minivans, etc do not.
  14. smk4565
    It looks better than the Bolt inside and out, and it is a small crossover which is the most coveted body style, vs some lifted hatchback or whatever the Bolt is. This thing beats the Bolt on all fronts, except we don't know the price of it.
  15. smk4565
    These look good for a small crossover, and because it doesn't look funky like a Leaf or i3, it looks really good compared to other EV's. And this is how an EV should look, you want it be a small crossover because that is the hottest segment of the market, and the range is great too, and it as fast as or faster than other small SUVs. Big question is what does it cost?
  16. smk4565
    The Cadillac website says the CTS starts at $46,000, the 530i starts at $53,000, that is what I was going off. My earlier point was they can’t price a base CT5 at $53,000 like the 5-Series is, regardless of the equipment on it. People expect a sedan to be cheaper than an SUV, if an XT5 is $41,000 to start, a CT5 needs to be $40,000. And yet since the 90s the Germans have done sedan, coupe, convertible, wagon body styles on many of their models and Cadillac is sedan only save for the ATS coupe. Why doesn’t Cadillac make more body styles?
  17. smk4565
    Yes they are hot now, my point was Cadillac is late to the SUV party, the XT4 isn’t at dealers yet and XT6 is at least a year out. You have BMW and Audi still bringing more SUV’s even though they have 5 or 6 already. I don’t think there is such thing as too many sadly. I do think there is room above the Escalade, that is where Cadillac needs to go more so than below the XT4. Really you could put 2 SUV’s above the Escalade if one was ultra luxury and the other was a Lamborghini Urus fighter.
  18. smk4565
    A 4-cylinder rear drive 5-Series starts at $53,000. No way can they price a CT5 there. Cadillac should be going for Genesis G70/G80 pricing. And yes they need more SUVs, I don’t know what is taking so long, SUVs were hot 5 years ago.
  19. smk4565
    True, but you can't buy a CTS right now for 3-series money. The original CTS was the only one that sold well because it was probably even cheaper than the Lexus ES of the time, the other mid-size car for 3-series money that sold well. So what do they do with CT4/CT5 this time around? The current ATS/CTS are dead in the water regardless of what you compare them too, neither sell.
  20. smk4565
    Right, so Cadillac should promote space and comfort, not handling, chassis dynamics, and how much weight savings they got out of the Omega platform, because no one cares what the car weighs except people that go to track days. I don't think I ever heard an XT5 ad saying it was the roomiest SUV in its segment, and I don't know if a Lexus RX is roomier or not, and I don't really care to look it up. But then they run the risk of getting into comparisons with an Acura MDX or Buick Enclave or Toyota Highlander even that all have more cargo space than an XT5 and 3-row seating. Different attributes are going to attract people to a particular car. The Mustang sells well, and it has no cargo room and a near useless back seat and doesn't work in snow, but people don't care. But the Mustang has a clear image and clear advertising, Cadillac hasn't had that clear focus for decades, maybe they did in the Led Zeppelin advertising era, but it has been a long while.
  21. smk4565
    Correct, as I said the ATS dimensions are 183" x 71" x 56" and a 2013 3-series dimensions are 183" x 71" x 56". And that generation 3-series was on sale during the ATS's development, I don't think it was an accident that the ATS has the exact same dimensions as a 3-series.
  22. smk4565
    No they aren't. The ATS's dimensions are 183″ L x 71″ W x 56″ H. When it went on sale the C-class dimensions were 180.8 x 69.7 x 56.3 in. The ATS was slightly larger at the time and they bragged about how the weight was less than a 3-series or C-class, when the CTS came out they said it is lighter than a 5-series and the CTS-V would have more power than the M5. I don't remember Cadillac saying the CTS-V was an M3competitor. If they want to play the mid-size vehicle at small size price (which I do think is a smart strategy for them) then they need to market it that way and price it that way. CT4 needs to be $32,000 and CT5 at $40,000.
  23. smk4565
    Cargo room in the Encore 48.4 cubic feet, GLC 56.5 cubic feet, XT5, 63 cubic feet. Encore legroom Front/Rear: 40.8/35.75 inches GLC: 40.8/37.3 inches Encore shoulder room front/rear: 54.2/52.5 GLC: 57.3/56.5 inches So the GLC is roomier. And you can buy a GLC that is faster than a Corvette Grand Sport. Mercedes isn't trying to sell cubic foot per dollar, they sell technology and performance. No one ever said Mercedes is the value play in luxury, they are usually the most expensive car in the segment, but you get what you pay for.
  24. smk4565
    So why not just back to selling size and space for Cadillac? Make the XT4 the size of an X3 or GLC but $6,000 cheaper, make the XT5 the size of an X5 for a $10k discount, make the CTS/CT5 a mid-size sedan at 3-series money, the CT6 is already a full size car for mid-size money, make the CT4 $29k. At least it would be a strategy they could go all in on and market and promote. Their line up can't decide whether it's wants to be a Lexus fighter, a Lincoln fighter or a Nurburgring conquerer.
  25. smk4565
    The XT4 is 8 inches longer than a GLA, 2 inches shorter than a GLC. Perhaps it will size up well with the new GLB, which rumor is may have a 3rd row, which I imagine that will be a segment exclusive. Bottom line is Cadillac could easily do an SUV smaller than the XT4.
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