smk4565

Agree with all about the Highlander and the VW 2.0T. But VW could have got more power from that engine or done a hybrid or mild hybrid or something. Obviously they must see how well the Highlander and Pilot sell and there wasn’t a 3 row Grand Cherokee until last year, there is a Grand Highlander coming too. Mazda CX-90 is another. Loads of choices in this segment.

The Highlander is 4 cylinder only and the best seller in the segment. It looks like all the other interiors. Fake wood, touch screen on top of the dash, bland exterior, kind of wimpy engine. Better off with a Palisade, Telluride, Highlander or Pilot.

Yawn.

Looks better than the Highlander at least.

All 4 Mercedes EVs each outsell the Lyric right now. I don’t like the EQS or EQE, I think the ICE cars look better and I’d buy the ICE version but at least they give the customer a choice, both are available at dealerships. And they do sell them , this is how car sales are supposed to work, dealers get cars, then they sell them. Then they get more cars in and sell those. This idea of dealers with no inventory and place an order online and get it in a 6 months or a year is not sustainable for a company, especially legacy OEMs who are built on volume. There are only 3 Mercedes dealers in the Pittsburgh area and Bobby Rahal owns 2 of them. Wexford has 15 EV’s and Pittsburgh has 7 but they have half the total inventory there since it is in the city.

The Crown still looks weird to me, not sure who that appeals to because it isn’t classy or elegant like a Century, it is just weird shape with different color panels. Sadly there is probably a market for a Grand Highlander even though they already have a Highlander, Sienna and Sequoia as 3-row vehicles because you can never have enough SUVs.

Cadillac is sold out for 2024 because they have no capacity. Not because demand is so high. They are selling less than 1 Lyric per day, of course there is a 2 year back log. GM is losing plenty of potential customers because the car isn't available. Businesses don't make money on reservations and orders, they make it on selling cars. Rahal Mercedes has 15 EV's on lot Fletcher Jones Mercedes which is the largest in the nation has 15 on lot They don't need to talk about orders and how many they might sell in 2024, this product is available today to buy. And there aren't many Bolts on the lot, I bet those Chevy dealers average 25 Equinoxes and 50 Silverados in inventory and yet there is 1 Bolt. A Chevy dealer should have like 10-15 Bolts easily and really that's a car that should be selling at Hyundai Elantra levels at least, maybe not Civic/Corolla level due to name recognition and reputation but still an entry level car at a volume brand like Chevy should be doing 150,000 easily. They sold more Cruzes than that and that car was junk.

GM is forecasting to build 170,000 EV's in 2023 and 285,000 in 2024. Ford says by end of 2023 they will be at a 600,000 per year run rate, so we can assume 2024 they sell that many. Tesla is forecasting 1.8 million EV's this year, obviously will be well over 2 million in 2024. They are still way far ahead.

21,000 Lyrics for a year sounds reasonable for Cadillac volume, Lexus sells like 125,000 RX's a year and that has been the best selling luxury SUV for a while (although the Model Y might beat that now). So I think 250,000 is not realistic considering that would be like 4 times the volume of an X5 or GLE, double the RX, etc. And the luxury SUV market is only so big, especially with rising interest rates and maybe a slowing economy. But let's say Cadillac really did have 250,000 people that want a Lyric, if they can only build 25,000 a year, then 225,000 people are going to another brand to buy their car. That is my issue with GM's EV's. I think the Bolt is the best new car deal in America if you can get federal and state tax breaks and get one for under $20k, how can you beat a new car with warranty for under $20k that also is cheaper on energy/fuel and maintenance than an a ICE car. On dollars, that is the best car deal there is. And The other GM EV's seem to have good value too. The problem is they aren't on dealer lots. I checked the inventory of Audi, BMW and Mercedes dealers near me, all of them have EV's on the lot. You can go to the dealer today and drive home in an EV, none of this order and wait 6 months crap. The only way anyone stops Tesla's crazy momentum is to have these EV's on lots ready to go. And on the production side you have to match their cost, but from the consumer side, the cars have to be available.

The EQB bottom dweller costs more than every Cadillac except the Lyric and Escalade. 122 Lyrics is for all of 2022. They sold 86 in Q4, less than 1 per calendar day. Inside EV's Also a base, no option A220 is $35,000 with destination. There are a whole lot of Toyota, Ford, Chevy vehicles under $35,000. And that is a 2022 A-class price, I don't even think they are doing a 2023 in the US market, I read they were killing it off, but it still shows on their website. The cheapest Mercedes at the dealer near me is $44,000 for a GLA, pretty sure that isn't the case at a Ford or Chevy dealer. I think 4339 EQS sales makes it the #2 selling full size luxury sedan in the USA, that's actually a big number when you compare it to A8 or 7-series.

First off the Bolt is like 1/3rd or 1/4th the cost of a Mercedes EV, not even in the same market. Also GM's volume in the USA is like 8 times more than Mercedes, they should be selling 8 times as many EV's. A better comparison would be Cadillac vs Mercedes, then you are talking 122 to 5,656. Mercedes is ramping up pretty quickly, a year ago the EQS just went on sale, now they have 4 EV models, all of which are in dealer inventory and the EQE SUV is coming this spring. 5 EV's is a pretty big line up compared to 1 at Jaguar, 1 at Lexus, 1 at Cadillac, 0 at Lincoln, Infiniti, Genesis, Acura.

GM needs to spend more time building EVs and less money on advertising them. They spend millions of dollars on EV ads every month and they sold like 200 combined Lyriq and Hummers last quarter. I think people see these EV ads and just go buy a Tesla.

GM needs battery capacity. They sold 72 Cadillac Lyrics last quarter. Don't they want Cadillac to be all EV in like 3 years? Can't do that selling less than 1 car a day. Instead of spending $850 million on next gen small block V8s, they should spend that $850 million on battery production. They need more batteries.

Toyota is shooting themselves in the foot. They have the size, scale, manufacturing plants and cash to make a big turnaround if they take drastic action. IF they just go down the road they are with just focusing on hybrids and not EV, they'll be in trouble in 10 years. Sandy Monroe has a cost analysis on the Tesla Model Y and it costs them about $29k to build. And Tesla has a new platform update coming that is going to cut cost even further. Not unrealistic to think they they could be building Model 3 and Y for around $25k cost in a few years. Tesla right now is making over $15,000 profit per car so they have proven you can make money on EV's as Mercedes makes about $5,000 per car and has the 2nd best profit per car in the world, it isn't even close. The only reason Tesla prices are what they are is they can't keep up with demand, as they open more factories and have more capacity, they'll cut the price more and the Model Y w ill have Rav4 pricing and Tesla will mop the floor with Toyota and everyone else. This is basically a race to see who can build an EV for equal cost as an ICE car. Whoever gets there first is going to put the companies holding on to ICE out of business.

Mercedes did EQS first, but the standard trim was out before the AMG. Just as the EQE 350 hit the market first, the EQE 500 is just now hitting dealers and the AMG is later this year. They didn't start with the AMG and say the regular one is coming in a year. And the larger EV platform was ready first, but they do have the EQB so that is a lower end Mercedes EV. Future A/B-class Mercedes will be on a new mixed powertrain platform that is designed for EV but can accommodate ICE powertrains, and that comes around 2025 or 2026.

The Chevrolet website now lists Worktruck and RST available summer 2023. So perhaps both launch, then the LS, LT, LTZ or whatever they have in the middle follow. If GM can deliver not the prices they are advertising and not jack that $41k price up to $51k in 2024 like Ford did, I think GM can absolutely slaughter the F150 Lightning. Likewise with the Equinox vs the id4, bz4x, Mach-E, Ioniq 5, etc. All those are closer to $50k and they are Equinox size crossovers. And the other side of the equation is can they ramp up production. Tesla might built 1 million Model Y's this year, and it seems like everyone has supply constraints and can't meet demand. I like GM's use other existing product names and their pricing, no one has driven any of these EV's but assuming GM gets that part right too, all that is left is can they crank out volume.

I bash companies like Lucid for putting out a $150,000 sedan and saying, but oh wait the $80,000 version will follow shortly then it doesn’t show up. Or Ford when the Lightning came out, it was going to be $40k base but they basically just made limited trims for 2022 and upped the base price to $53,000 for 2023. GM is starting with the $105,000 Silverado, so how long before the regular version shows up and at what cost? I believe on the Equinox though the base model arrives first just as was the case with Cadillac Lyric. Mercedes did the same with the standard versions first and the AMG follows. I actually think GM is going to get it right. They are using names with recognition like Equinox and Blazer, not crap like EV6 or bz4x. And GM’s pricing seems to pretty good from what they say but a lot of these GM EV’s are 6-12 months away from dealerships. And you look at $40-43k for a VW or Toyota EV, if the Equinox is $33k that’s a huge win, because why pay $45k for a bz4x when you can just get a RAV4 for $30k unless you only want a Toyota and only want an EV. If the Equinox EV is even $33k with a $3750 tax credit, now it’s back under $30k and that is a no brainer to go EV over gas.

Low end cars will be the last ones with ICE powertrains due to price. It is easy to make $100,000 EV's and thus you can kill off your expensive ICE cars. It isn't easy to make an EV with a $21,000 base price like an Elantra or Corolla. I agree you have to go all the way through the model lineup with EV's but the cost parity isn't there yet. The Equinox EV if they deliver on that around $30k promise would be a great step, but I suspect the gasoline Equinox will be on sale at least another 10 years because it will still be cheaper (at least before you look at tax credits, fuel cost, maintenance, etc). The Mercedes lower end EV would be the sedan based on the Vision EQXX that is coming in 2025 model year. They are working top down, have to finish the top and middle range first.

Which would mean the C9 gets and ICE power plant. They could probably stretch the C8 out to 2030, especially when you look at how long the C4 lasted. If they do that you can probably move right to EV only, which is what I think they should do. EV is the future, and if GM wants to get there, it is easier to do on a high end low volume car than making something like an Equinox EV only.

I think the $104k is a fine price, but you can get a Stingray way cheaper. If the Stingray base price goes up a bit more then the E-Ray looks like a better deal.

The E-ray has some stuff standard that a Stingray doesn’t, but you could equip a Stingray for $70-75k and get what the E-Ray has at $105k. Toyota puts an electric motor on the rear axel of the Venza, Sienna and Highlander and I think it is standard on all of them. Throwing an electric motor on an axle doesn’t cost that much. If it was a $15-20k gap I could see that being reasonable.

If the C8 is the last Corvette with an ICE power plant then they might as well just continue on with the V8. And I never said get rid of the V8, I said do a 4 cylinder hybrid in the base car, and still do the V8 Z06 and V8 E-ray. Although in thinking about it, while I like the V8 hybrid idea, this is like a $30k price premium to add the hybrid, which seems like a lot.

I assume they are just going to stick with the V8 until ICE is killed off, maybe GM can make up their CAFE and emissions requirements elsewhere and doesn't care what the Corvette does. But it is possible to make a 4-cylinder hybrid that makes more horsepower and torque than this V8 hybrid, because it is has already been done. But if they need to get higher MPG out of the Corvette, or want to sell in other countries that have displacement taxes, they could easily replace the base 6.2 V8 with a 2.7T they have in house, add the same electric motor and end up with around 500 hp/500 lb-ft. Then you get AWD hybrids on every model, add it to the Z06 even.

I only read the main details but I like this. AWD hybrid is always a plus. And I wonder if they wouldn’t be well served to make all Corvettes hybrid in the coming years maybe post 2025 and you could do a turbo 4 in back with this electric motor up front and that would still make the power of the current V8 but get them much more mpg and help on the CAFE and emissions side.

People want a Honda, they don't want an Afeela, because they don't even know what an Afeela is. This is just yet another aero car with a plain, no style interior with screens. Boring.