smk4565

Mercedes doesn’t build $30,000 vehicles, but Chevy, Hyundai and Ford do. Mercedes EV’s need about a 10% price cut to be right in line with Mercedes ICE pricing, the EQS is actually cheaper than an S-class but it isn’t as good a car either. I don’t see Mercedes growing much but they will survive. In 10 years they’ll probably be about 2 million units a year, whereas I think some car companies either won’t be here or will have 25% or half their current size. And bold prediction, no legacy OEM ever passes Tesla in EV sales.

Tesla us 1.8 million capacity now, they can expand Austin and Berlin by another 250k units each, China can expand. That’s 2.5 million next year, then Mexico is w million united for 2025 and they are at 4.5 million units which beats Honda, especially as Honda sales fall when Tesla brings a lower priced model. If it isn’t in 2025 then it is 2026 for sure. Agree, they can’t scale fast enough, even if the Ram REV was $40,000, they could only sell like 25,000 a year probably, which is why it will be a $100k+ truck because they only need 25,000 buyers. And legacy auto is still dumping money into ICE cars and improving ICE plants, they don’t really have the money to put 100% in EV.

They are way behind, but using advertising dollars on a CGI or clay model of a concept car that is way far from production, vs using your advertising on Inegras or RDX's that you can sell today makes no sense. This isn't even close to proaction, yet was getting advertising spend 6 months ago. So deep down they know ICE is dead and Tesla will pass Honda in 2025 I bet. As far as the Ram REV goes, it looks like they are positioning this as a $100k luxury truck, when they need a volume $50k truck. Maybe that will follow, but they better get it going fast or the Cybertruck will take all Ram's sales too, because Tesla will have scale.

I suppose but the legacy OEM's have been showing and advertising EV's to make it look like they have EV's even if they don't. Acura was running ads last NFL season for the electric SUV that is basically just a CGI mock up and I imagine is still 2 years away. All these companies advertise EV's but then they don't have EV's at the dealer and people just buy a Tesla. Tesla is a tough competitor as it is, even harder to beat if Honda, GM, Ford, etc do the advertising for them.

I feel like 2025 is a long way off and a lot can change or it can get delayed. Funny how auto makers used to never talk future product, now they have no problem talking about 2025 models, probably some will talk about their 2026 EV's, Chevy spend all last year advertising the Equinox EV 18 months before it even went on sale. Tesla has changed how they do business.

The drag coefficient difference on those 2 cars is .02 and the S-class is more aerodynamic than a Prius or Tesla Model 3. The jelly bean isn't needed, they already had a good looking, aerodynamic car, just make it electric, and that car is long as hell, lots of space to put batteries laying flat. Have to get that tax credit.

And they need to get their EV cost down too. Especially since their ICE vehicles seem better than the EV ones in style and interior. And the cowl is too high on EQS and EQE. They need to sort all that out as soon as possible, but Audi and BMW have high prices too.

I know the price will come later. It looks like a good product I agree, but if they want $50k for an EV6 which is a Sportage size vehicle, is this $75k, $85k? It is 2 size classes bigger, the Sorrento size EV would have to slot in the $60-70k range. I don't see the path forward for Kia if they are priced above where Cadillac is now with similar sized vehicles, unless the price of these EV's comes way down.

But what is the price? That is the question.

But if it was a Volvo, or had more than 10 dealers or whatever they have, people would know the brand. This car is $30k more than a Cadillac Lyric and is smaller.

The general public has no idea what Polestar is. Should have just made Volvos. And 89,000 Euro starting price for this thing? More money than a Mercedes EQE SUV and it's not a Mercedes. This thing should be 59,000.

I have watched that, I like TFL. Tesla Model Y is the #3 selling vehicle in the country, Tesla Model 3 is #8 selling vehicle in the country based on Q1 estimates. Tesla makes 5X profit per car that Hyundai/Kia makes. EV6 should be targeting 500,000 units per year at $9,000 profit per car if they want to challenge Tesla.

Mercedes has too many sedans too because they don't need "4 door coupes." They would be fine with C, E, and S and I can actually see the need for an A-class or CLA, but not both, because they can use a smaller, lower priced car since the C-class is now as big as a 90s E-class, and in Europe and China they need a small 4 cylinder car. But Mercedes had like 7 SUVs at the time Cadillac had 2. Mercedes has 12 SUVs on their website right now, which is overkill, but they had the SUVs that the market wanted back then, and they have the variety now. And maybe Chrysler, Cadillac and Lincoln should build better cars. And I can put Nissan/Infiniti in there, they are right there with Dodge/Chrsyler in building bad cars. Infiniti and Jaguar could be dead within 5 years, due to bad cars and bad management.

Maybe some people just don't want a full size sedan. But that all goes into the product planning mix being off, at the time Cadillac was really sedan heavy in an SUV market. And if the car was so great, it would have sold, the E-class and S-class still sold.

The Mercedes C-class has gotten better each of the past 3 generations it got better interior and materials. The E-class I think needs to improve, current car isn't really as well built as the prior 2 generations but it is a cheaper car. In 2009 the E350 was $53,200 base MSRP, which is $76,000 in todays dollars. A 2023 E350 is $56,750 base MSRP, they cut cost out of it, I hope they screw that strategy on the next gen and engineer it like no other car, and if it costs $70,000, who cares, people can buy the C-class. The AMG One has an engine that was never made for the road, it an engineering feat just to get it road legal at all. And Mercedes does have the S63 E-performance that has more torque than the Demon 170 that does pass emissions. And I haven't insulted every American car company, I have been very pro Tesla and stated how they will be the #1 car maker in the world in 10 years, maybe by 2030.

Chrysler tried that upmarket push with the 300 back in 2005 and the Crossfire and Aspen, that didn't work. Buick's push to mid-luxury didn't work, Mazda is trying it now and it isn't working. People aren't going to pay $50,000 for a Chrysler when they can get a Lexus for that money or a Toyota/Kia/Honda, whatever for less. And that Chrysler may look good on the surface but I imagine that is all plastic wood, and probably in 5 years that interior will look terrible because the materials Chrysler uses are made to look good new, but not hold up over time. That is what cheap materials do. Stellantis is clueless on quality. Mitsubishi puts quilted leather in $30k crossovers too to try to pull that trick. CT6 had a bad interior and again the quality of materials is a problem. Way too much GM parts bin in that car, anytime I sat in one, all I could think was cheap plastic and budget cuts. Also weak and unrefined powertrains at the start, the V8 showed up way too late. It was a car with no market, if you are going to build a big luxury car it better be S-class good, otherwise make a mid-size car, but part of the problem was also the CTS was upsized to be a discount 5-series, so it put the CT6 into no-man's land in the market. And the badge snob thing is true, people aren't going to touch these brands with damaged reputations. Because Chrysler = cost cutting.

I would imagine once they engineer the inline 6 for the Charger, to do it in the 300 and do the emissions certification or whatever they need to do would only add pennies on the dollar. But how many people would buy a 400 or 500 hp Chrysler 300? But if it doesn't cost them anything, then why not. I think the ship has long sailed on making Chrysler a luxury brand, or even a relevant brand. You could put the Grand Wagoneer interior in a 300 with the 500 hp hurricane I-6 and charge $50,000 for it, and it wouldn't sell. We saw Lincoln try with the Continental and that bombed, CT6 bombed. Big sedans aren't a market, sedans in general aren't much of a market. And if it were an EV Chrysler, it would have to be superior in every way to a Tesla and cheaper than a Tesla to get people to even consider it, because Chrysler is the past, Tesla is the future.

The 2011 Sonata was a game changer for the segment and that car sold well. The next Gen was plain and boring, didn’t do as well. The fish mouth look was just not good. This car looks good now.

I like the look of this, it looks really good. I was never a fan of that fish mouth droopy front end of the last one. This looks pretty sharp and the inside looks good too, compare that interior to like an Altima, Malibu or Legacy and it looks 10 years newer. The pre-face lift car had really fallen off in sales, from like 200,000 a year the last gen to 55,000 or something last year, so they had to abort that styling and go with something else.

Used Hellcats right now are $50-85k for the most part, nothing is going to make those go up in value. So I don’t see the last call demon selling for like $200k 20 years from now when there will be a ton of cheap hellcats and prior demons out there All the prior CTS-V’s, Camaros, Shelby Mustangs all depreciated.

The thing with these last call Challengers is I don’t think they will appreciate. The Charger/Challenger are volume cars that have been around 15 years, the 10 year old V6 cars are worthless. So I don’t see the last call going up in value over time, it isn’t like a Ferrari that was low volume. Secondly, the baby boomers will buy this, and people under 50 could probably care less about this car so who do you sell it to in 10-15 years for profit? And EV’s are fast in a straight line, this car’s one trick is about to be rather common. People will pay for a 90s M3 or M5 because the weight is low. The steering feel and the stuff you can’t get anymore with electric steering and heavy cars.

Catch up when? Ford said they expect to be at 10% margin on EV's in 2026, Tesla was at 20% margin in 2022. Tesla sales are up an estimated 39% YTD in the USA, 46% in China, they are that fastest growing car maker, up 44% last year in a down market, going to be up over 40% this year. The Model Y is the number 4 selling vehicle in the country, on pace for over 400,000 units this year. Mach-E, Hyundai/Kia can't scale at that level and even if they could, I don't think there are 400,000 people that want to buy a $50,000 Hyundai Ionic, or any Hyundai at any price because they never had a car sell that volume. And keep in mind, Chevrolet has 11 vehicles with base price under $40k, Ford has 10, Toyota has 13, Hyundai has 8, and that isn't counting the hybrid version or coupe and convertible as 2 models. That is where those brands do a ton of business. Tesla has zero cars under $40k. Once they hit the price point that the masses can afford their sales probably double or triple. And there is a 500 hp version of the inline six. They could drop that in the Challenger/Charger/300 for an SRT model and it would likely be faster than the 6.4 V8's. Assuming they want to spend the money to engineer it to fit in the car, certify emissions, etc. Not sure if they want to spend any money on a 18 year old platform car at this point, when they can fleet sale Pentastar V6 LH cars a couple more years just to have something to sell.

Tesla is 12 times more valuable than GM, and Tesla made more profit than GM last year, despite having half the revenue. GM's cash on hand is $3 billion more than Tesla's but GM has way more overhead to cover. We are about 5 years away from Tesla outselling Ford and GM globally, about 10 years from Tesla outselling VAG and Toyota, and that could be less if Toyota is slow to EV's which they seem to be.

Back to the Challenger, I get that they are making like 3000 of these, so it is a really limited market, but for $100k plus you could get a Corvette, maybe low end 911 or M5, Tesla Model S, etc. There are lots of fast cars, and if not a drag strip that Challenger 0-60 won't be that good, it won't hook the power up in the real world. But if you do go to the drag strip, and like the one trick, it is a good trick.

Betting against Tesla = bad idea.