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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    Capital Investment is building a new factory, it has nothing to do with research and development. If GM says we are going to spend $100k per Cadillac dealership to make them nicer, that doesn't come off the R&D budget, it comes from capital investment. Because real estate is capital. I would argue Daimler has a broader range of product than GM. That could be bad thing for Daimler as they are all over the place, so that drives up R&D cost since they have so many model lines, but not he flip side, if all those lines are profitable, it should off set that. Daimler makes all these products (including 37% of class 8 trucks sold in USA): These busses too: These vans: And all these cars/suvs
  2. smk4565
    And Daimler sold 2 million cars and a few hundred thousand tucks and busses, compared to 9 million cars at GM?
  3. smk4565
    I never said they were first, the 2017 Audi SQ7 has it now, they are actually first, it just isn't sold in the USA. It has 2 turbos and an electric supercharger, on a 4 liter V8, but it is a diesel, we'll never get it here. Audi says it gets 30-32 mpg US, and it has 435 hp and 664 lb-ft of torque. But if they can do it, Mercedes can do it, they should be able to get 30 mpg on a GLE or GLS with a 3 liter straight six.
  4. smk4565
    Capital Expenditure is different than R&D though. Even look at Mercedes car division spending 5.67 billion Euros last year, that is over $6 billion on just the Mercedes line. No car brand has that sort of budget to work with. If Cadillac got 1/5th of GM's budget (5 brands with Opel last year, I'll ignore Holden) that is like $1.8 billion. Take VW's $13 billion R&D budget and divide up between all the brands they have, and how much do each one get?
  5. smk4565
    I never said anything about Daimler's profit. If they made $9 billion profit last year that is AFTER they paid R&D, just like it is after they paid labor cost materials, etc. In fact their thinking is that since they have made record profits the past 4 years they can sacrifice some and spend more on R&D and spend 500 million euro on a battery factory and more on factory upgrades etc. They are cash rich right now due to their huge sales volume.
  6. smk4565
    I don't see GM's BAS system adding 70 hp. If so they could have the 2.5 inline 4 up to about 250 horsepower and the 2.0t up to 330-340 and then they could take the 3.6 V6 out of production. And expand use of the 3.0 turbo and hybrid that.
  7. smk4565
    $8.8 billion per year budget. It was around $7 billion spent in 2016 and they are increasing R&D 22% from 2015 levels which was already higher than their competitors. Dr. Zetche has said on tv not to expect profit increases the next few years because they are pouring money into R&D. And the S-class has been a full decade ahead of the pack for a long time. Run that scenario with $17.6 billion over 770 days and see what you come up with. Daimler has the 3rd largest R&D budget in the auto industry, trailing only VW and Toyota who are about 4 times larger and they spend nearly as much as Toyota who spends about $9 billion a year.
  8. smk4565
    The 48 Volt system lets you make it a mild hybrid though. And a much better version than what is out there now, and for way cheaper than something like a Prius set up. And you have an integrated starter/generator, you get rid of the alternator, get rid of drive belts, run everything off electricity. That cuts parasitic losses, also improves packaging. The E-turbo comes into play too, less plumbing, less turbo lag, etc. Every car is going to do this, Mercedes and Audi are just the first ones. Continental and Delphi have these systems in the works too and they think it will add 13% fuel economy at like $800 cost to the car.
  9. smk4565
    Daimler has set their R&D budget to $8.8 billion for 2017 and 2018. Divided by 365 days is $24.11 million per day, which is over $1 million per hour. EV's are less than 5% of the market place, Mercedes has to sell gas cars. They have a plan to spend $10.8 billion to produce 10 EVs by 2022. Tesla spent $834 million on R&D last year. Mercedes is coming for Tesla, but they also have to have the market ready for electric cars.
  10. smk4565
    No alternator drain, since there is no alternator, saves some weight too. The electric motor gives a boost from start, lowering rpm on the gas engine, makes the start/stop system smoother, regen braking powers the battery. Not sure if it will be on all engines, but Mercedes is using an electric turbo on their hyper car, I think they can E-turbo with 48 Volt. Audi A6, A7, A8 are going to 48 volt too
  11. smk4565
    Mercedes laughs at their $5.9 billion in R&D spend. Mercedes spends over $1 million per hour on R&D. The other thing Mercedes does that is smart, is no manual transmissions, no more diesel in the US, and once they get the inline 6, that will share 75% of the parts with the inline 4, and they already cut out the 5.5 NA V8, the 6.3 V8, the 5.5 turbo V8 is next to go, they will only have the 4.0 V8 by next year. They already cut down the number of engines they use. BMW has too many configurations of cars. No one will care if they drop a 2-series manual, or if the 5-series offers 1 diesel instead of 4. And 0% of buyers will miss a manual 5-series, it is big luxury sedan in 2017.
  12. smk4565
    I love the idea of the 48 volt with the inline engine, this is supposed to be 15-20% more efficient than the current 3.0 V6 which gets 18/25 mpg in the middle weight E-class. So we are probably looking at 22/29 mpg on a 475 hp sedan. They are adding this to the 4 cylinder too, which will be really good for the mainstream stuff. As far as naming scheme goes, I always thought they could keep it simple with 300, 400, 500. But then you run into a problem were an E500 has a 3 liter turbo 6 and an S500 has a V8. So the AMG 63 and 53 thing sort of makes sense. 48 volt will be standard on all Mercedes. Plug in Hybrid and EV will have some sort of EQ Power badging.
  13. smk4565
    Never mind on the R-class, the seem to be picking up G-wagen like resale, a 2007 R63 is $35-40k and 7-10 year old R350s with are going for $10-20,000 even with over 100k miles. I wouldn't buy any FCA product, they all are unreliable. My dad has a Dodge Caravan with the Pentastar and has spent like $4,000 this year on maintenance and had another $2200 repair that was covered by warranty.
  14. smk4565
    Somewhere out there is a Mercedes R550 with adjustable height air suspension with your name on it. I haven't looked at prices but they have to be practically giving them away. Or get an R63 AMG and you can out run Stingers and Mustangs and the like.
  15. smk4565
    They need a scalable EV architecture that can be used for sedan, coupe, crossover, etc. It is almost easier because you can put all the batteries in the floor pan and a couple electric motors. The packaging is better, so multiple body styles should be easy.
  16. smk4565
    Would be better to have a platform designed from the ground up for EVs, such as their competitor from Stuttgart is doing. You wonder why they don't just take the i3 chassis and make a sedan out of it and call that the 3-series EV. I would they could make it look like a regular 3-series.
  17. smk4565
    What I am saying is that it is the same size as a Camaro or Mustang with similar performance and price to those 2 but with way more practicality. Kia should be targeting sports car buyers you want more a more practical car. Not targeting 3-series drivers who won't consider a Kia and who are going to buy an X3 anyway because they want to get out of a sedan and into an SUV for more practicality.
  18. smk4565
    The Camaro is 188-190 inches long, the Mustang 188.4 and the Stinger is 190. So it is sized right there with those cars has turbo 4 base, probably priced the same, it just has 4 doors.
  19. smk4565
    I give them credit for putting that much power in an XE, but it looks a little too Fast and Furious (1st movie) for my liking. But it is good to see Jaguar putting out products now, after years of having a 2-3 car line up of dated product.
  20. smk4565
    Pricing seems right, it is priced below Envision but it like a class above in terms of size. I don't think it will sell much though just because wagons struggle.
  21. smk4565
    Which is why the Stinger shouldn't be super high performance and 60 grand. I read in South Korea it might start at like $27k, which if it is priced like that in the USA, it is incredible value. The Stinger needs to target the Camaro and Mustang (and Challenger/Charger), go after the sports car buyer who wants more practicality, but doesn't want to give up the performance. The Stinger is only 2 inches longer than a Camaro or Mustang. That is Kia's formula for success with this car. Going after luxury sedans is suicide, when you have sales of a lot of luxury sedans down 20% as buyers go to crossovers.
  22. smk4565
    I like the Stinger, but it's appeal is the value play. If it costs as much as a German car that appeal is gone. The V6 Stinger does 0-60 in 4.9 seconds, same as a $56,000 BMW 540i. Good value, but I can't see Kia putting a twin turbo V8 in the Stinger and then having to charge way more money.
  23. smk4565
    The ZL1 has a really good time, anything under 7:30 is really fast, under 7 minutes is insane fast. It was mentioned that Mercedes doesn't have the record, I just said what their fastest time is. And they are going to beat the P1, it is as good as done. @A Horse With No Name good thing Mercedes isn't Ferrari or McLaren or they'd be losing
  24. smk4565
    So if they bring out a V8 Stinger for $65,000 is anyone going to buy it? Or will they just buy a BMW or Audi instead.
  25. smk4565
    The fastest Benz time at the Nurburgring is 7:10 for the AMG GT R. But I suspect the Project One car will beat the P1, and even the P1 LM which they only made 6 of.
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