
smk4565
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Everything posted by smk4565
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Chevrolet News:All-New 2023 Chevrolet Colorado goes All Turbo
smk4565 replied to Drew Dowdell's topic in Chevrolet
Looks like good improvements over the prior model. Turbo 4 is a good idea as well. Not sure why they don't just go with 2 tune levels on the engine, two versions of the engine, both making 310 hp seems a bit meaningless. -
GM's CEO says they are going to outsell Tesla, and I just looked it up and she said in the USA by 2025. Would be more ambitious to state worldwide, but GM isn't in Europe anymore. https://fortune.com/2022/07/20/general-motors-tesla-electric-vehicle-sales/ GM told Fortune Magazine here they plan to build 1 million EV's in the USA by end of 2025 and 1 million in China. So there is 2 million number they need to be on par with or perhaps beat Tesla. But to sell 2 million cars you need some big volume sellers. Personally I hope they pull it off, we need more EVs on the road and I am sick of Tesla sales going up 40-50% per year without even introducing any new models. Someone has to challenge them.
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Because the XT6's sales volume sucks. The Lyriq should aim to double that. Even if they do 50k units here it would still be behind most mid-size luxury SUVs. But if they can do 50k here, and 50k in China, that gets them 100k units a year, that would be pretty good I think.
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No luxury brand will sell a car that does volume like the Model Y. That is what should have the traditional OEM's concerned. The Model Y at the pace they are on could be a top 10 selling vehicle in the USA, and the Model 3 could be also. The GLC and GLE can do about 70,000 units each in a year, BMW X3 and X5 can usually do numbers like that, Lexus RX over 100k. I am. not saying the Lyriq needs to do 200,000, but they should be able to do 50,000. And stuff like the Equinox EV needs to be a 250,000 a year vehicle. Right now, Mach-E, Kia EV6, Ionic 5, iD4, etc are all sort of niche cars doing 25,000 sales a year each, that isn't a lot of production in a market of 17 million sales per year under normal conditions. Mary Barra is the one that said GM will sell more EV's than Tesla by mid-decade, so that's 3-4 years away. Tesla will have a 2 million vehicle year capacity within a couple years. So if GM is going to top 2 million EV's a year they need 4 vehicles at 250k units a year, and 10 at 100k a year. That's a lot of volume EV's, 1 or 2 of them have to come from Cadillac.
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Doesn't matter what his favorite brand is, because no brand is going to beat it on a track. And it is an accomplishment, it has a Formula 1 engine in it, there are only 4 companies that even make an F1 engine, and only 1 had the guts to put it in a road car.
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Cadillac hasn't delivered any Lyriqs yet. They have sold zero YTD per GM's Q2 sales report. You are comparing their future orders to what Mercedes already sold. Also they aren't near the same price or same segment, so it's meaningless anyway. 20,000 units a year for a mid-size luxury SUV would be among the worst sellers in the segment, it would be on pace with the XT6's sales volume this year. Model Y did 161,000 last year and is up this year. 200,000 a year should be no problem for them and they might hit 250,000 given the sales increases Tesla is seeing. And that's just in the USA. Tesla sold over 50,000 Model Y's in China in June 2022, it was the #1 selling SUV in the country, is #2 for the year. It's outselling the Honda CR-V there.
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I always wait for an actual production version with price to really evaluate something. Other than maybe looks, you either like it or you don't. For all we know the Celestiq will have 1,000 hp for $100,000 and maybe it's an insane deal. And sort of\, an A220 lease is $439, GLA $469, CLA is $499. XT4 is $409 a month lease, CT4 is $419, CT5 is $479. The Cadillacs are cheaper but either way you don't really need to be "rich" to drive any of those.
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It can't pass our emissions here and it probably doesn't make financial sense to build it, but they did it. A Formula 1 engine in a road car is probably the best piece of engineering ever for a road car. If anything it shows how Mercedes doesn't just do what the bean counters say makes sense, I applaud them for building it. And am waiting for someone to make a car faster around a track than it. Your favorite brand won't build a faster car.
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You can lease a Cadillac for $409 a month, it's on their website. I don't think you have to be rich to afford that.
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ATP has nothing to do with revenue when you have no volume. Cadillac doesn't have enough buyers willing to spend "MORE". People are willing to spend money on Escalades, not the rest of their stuff. If people were willing to spend more for a Cadillac, the CT5 would cost more than an E-class or 5-series and outsell them. Likewise with the CT4 vs the 3-series, or the XT5 vs the Lexus RX, or the XT6 vs the MDX.
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20,000 is not enough, need to be able to produce 100,000 a year for the USA, probably same number for China. Lexus sells over 100k RX's just in the USA. I read Ford plans to produce 270,000 Mach-E's next year. But they have sold 17,000 in the first half of this year. Not sure how they get from 34k a year to 270k a year, but scale is what matters. Tesla is the only car maker producing EV's at scale right now, all the other guys keep advertising their EVs, but they don't have them on dealer lots. Tesla sales are up 46% this year while the market overall is down 18%. There is demand out there for cars and EV's especially, but no supply.
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If Cadillac we such a cash cow to begin with GM would not have had to file bankruptcy. GM didn't get enough volume or profit margin out of Cadillac back then. They could have done a car like the Sixteen, I never expected a 13.6 liter V16 to hit production, that would be a CAFE and emissions nightmare, but they could have done a full size car with the supercharged Northstar to stay more cost effective and had a big luxury car that probably what they were doing for DT7 at the time. (could have put the supercharged Northstar in the Escalade 15 years ago also) But there are probably a lot of things Cadillac would have done different if they had a redo. Going forward, the Elmiraj is a good looking car, even though coupes/convertibles are practically sales proof, I would still bring back the Eldorado and use those 2 concepts and the Lyriq as a guide. If they can price the Lyriq at $62k, and they should be able to build a coupe for less than an SUV, I don't see why an Eldorado coupe can't also be $62k, maybe $65k if you dress up the interior a bit more or need a little money for suspension/handling. Then the dual motor Eldorado can be $70k, add $5-10k for the convertible, whatever that costs, probably would have to go soft top for weight given that it's an EV. And I'd size it similar to a CT5 or Lyric, somewhere in there, a full size coupe will never sell, keep it mid-size, then you can do a mid-size sedan that shares parts with it, plus you are sharing from the Lyriq too to keep cost in line. We also haven't seen the production version of the Celestiq yet, only a concept car with no stats. So we need to see the the actual proaction car to see if they did get the quality, materials, etc correct and if what they built is worth the price.
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Because the point was brought up that Lucid is a threat to Mercedes. If Lucid is threatening to put Mercedes out of business they Honda, GM, Hyundai/Kia who are all smaller companies should be really worried. In reality, I don't see Lucid as a threat to any OEM because there is a limited number of people buying $100k and up cars, and if that is all you do, it is hard to make profit as an independent, which is whey Bentleys have VW parts under them and Rolls-Royce has BMW parts and why Aston Martin buys engines, transmissions, electronics and infotainment off Mercedes because these small companies can't develop that stuff, it costs way too much. Lucid only survives if they start selling $40-50,000 cars at volume.
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Revenue, ATP has zero to do with Revenue. Mercedes had $136 billion in revenue in 2021, GM $127 million and Honda $124 Billion. My earlier point at Lucid not being a threat is because Mercedes is a huge company, Lucid is not. Lucid lost $4.7 billion last year, and has $5.4 billion cash on hand, they only have enough cash to get through 2023. You keep saying Mercedes is going down market, then post a graphic that their avg sales price is up 25% in a year, and then you complain that them killing their entry level mode in the US is a failure. So you don't want them to sell an A-class, but complain when they cancel it? Also keep in mind the CLA will become the entry level Mercedes and is priced higher than the CT4, CT5 and XT4. Cadillac has a high ATP as a brand because their lower end cars had terrible sales volume and the Escalade does high volume. I have also said for over 10 years Cadillac needs to go up market. But it was Cadillac who priced the CT6 $30k under rivals, Cadillac who killed the CTS and replaced it with a CT5 that was $10k cheaper, Cadillac killed off the rear drive SRX for a cheaper front drive SRX at a lower price point. Cadillac killed the XLR after 1 generation instead of doubling down and making better car to justify the price tag. Even when the last CTS was around, it was like $8k cheaper than a 5-series or E-class. I have also said for years that they should go above the Escalade and most Cadillac fans are like "you can't do that, the Escalade is the top of the brand." Not only should Cadillac be doing the Celestiq, they should do an SUV above Escalade and a sports car above the Corvette. I just don't like the body style they went with for the Celestiq.
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That's all fantasyland. Mercedes-Benz had higher revenue than GM or Honda in 2021. Mercedes-Benz is not a small car company like Lucid, Aston Martin, Lotus, or even Mazda. They don't need a partner, don't have to worry about being too small or not being able to scale volume like Rivian or Lucid will have to worry about. Mercedes is scrapping the A-class in the USA. The S-class outsells all competitors combined, the G-wagen is going for like $200k on the used market, in the up market they are the most in demand brand. The AMG GT starts over $100k, goes over $300k (the Nurburgring record holder), GT 4-door is $100-200k (the 4-door vehicle Nurburgring record holder), a $3 million hyper car that will become the Nurburgring record holder. They have Maybach SL, Maybach EQS, Maybach EQS SUV coming, and a Mythos sub-brand that will be above Maybach and build custom made and one-off cars. Chevrolet sells more vehicles over $50k than Cadillac does, so does Ford. Meaningless statistic. Cadillac quality better than Lexus? XT5 more reliable and with better resale than a Lexus RX350? 10-15 years ago people made the argument that Cadillac is back because they had a 556 hp CTS-V, a 469 hp STS-V, the XLR, an Escalade doing well, then 5 years ago it was a 640 hp CTS-V, another new Escalade, the CT6 "flagship" and people said Cadillac is back and Cadillac sales are worse now than they were then, and pretty much all those products aside from the Escalade are gone. 10 years from now, the Lyriq, Celestiq and Formulayiq small crossover will all be dead, the Escalade will still be there (in EV form) and there will be a new GM at Cadillac and another renaissance 5 year turn around plan bing announced.
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G90 I meant.
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I don't see Lucid as a big threat, they have no dealers, no charger network like Tesla, no real support system. And they have 1 car selling at low volume. Low volume car companies don't work, look at how often companies like Lotus and Aston Martin, are constantly in financial trouble, Jaguar gets passed around to new ownership ever 15-20 years. Brands like Rolls, Bentley, Lamborghini, could never make it on their own, they have to be owned and developed by a big conglomerate or else they wouldn't exist. Lucid will eventually not have the money to develop cars, develop infotainment, self driving tech, etc. Even Tesla who has money, has a 10 year old Model S still out there because they don't have the time or money to make an all new version.
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This generation S-class is outselling the Lexus LS, 7-series, A8, GV90 and Panamera combined this year. I don't see any other car outselling the rest of its segment. And I think the Rolls Phantom looks quite good, better than the Ghost or the Bentleys.
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The EQS isn't the top Mercedes, the S-class, G-wagen, AMG GT, Maybach GLS all cost more, the SL isn't priced yet, but it will cost more. EQS is like 5th in the pecking order at Mercedes. And it is going fine, they sold 4,048 YTD in the USA, which is more than the Lexus LS or BMW 7-Series and 8-series, or Audi A8 or Porsche Panamera. Porsche Taycan sold 4,449 thus far. And the S-class is still the #1 selling large luxury car (outsells 7-series, LS, A8 and Panamera combined). So EQS isn't doing too bad considering it is the #3 selling full size luxury car, with #1 in the same showroom stealing sales from it. Although the Taycan is actually a mid-size, the EQE is the same size as the Taycan, but Taycan is EQS price.
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Both exist though. If I were buying a car now, I'd prefer and EV since I think that's the future and I'll for sticking a middle at foreign oil. But I'd buy an E-class or S-class over an EQE or EQS because the EQE and EQS don't look good, and the E-class and S-class do look good. Also aren't enough EV's out there yet, not many body styles to pick from, most brands have 1 or none to pick from. So that Celestiq still has to compete with the Rolls and Bentleys that are out there now, they aren't only competing against Lucid or the EQS, and really they don't compete against Lucid, the Lucid Air is .4 inches longer than the last Cadillac CTS. The Celestiq I assume is way larger than a Lucid or Model S.
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I am not an EQS fan, but I think the EQS looks better than the Celistiq. The Celistiq looks more like Cadillac's take on an Audi RS6 Avant (which the Audi looks better too) and not their take on a Bentley or Rolls. Also the EQS isn't the flagship Mercedes, this is: And it's the only certified Level 3 self driving car available.
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Looks too much like a station wagon, it doesn’t look expensive on the outside. The inside is tacky but it’s a concept car and they’ll change that and make it more normal on the production version. I guess they don’t want to talk power or performance until the production version is shown.
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Chevrolet News:2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV Reveal
smk4565 replied to G. David Felt's topic in Chevrolet
I get that the vehicle is all new, but it looks similar to the current Blazer, just a little lower and longer and more wagon like. Aside from the fact that the Blazer should be a Wrangler/Bronco competitor (which would instantly double sales), I think GM went with a similar formula for the EV that they use now. And GM crossovers aren't really class leading or top sellers in any segment. The switch to EV is their chance to do something different and try to recapture market share. A lot of EV's have long wheelbase, the Hyundai Ionic 5 overall length is less than an Equinox, but the wheelbase is just 2 inches shorter than a Tahoe. The Blazer EV wheelbase is longer than the Tahoe's. -
Chevrolet News:2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV Reveal
smk4565 replied to G. David Felt's topic in Chevrolet
This vehicle inside or out isn't too far off the gasoline Blazer, but the EV is $10k more. The Blazer as it is, isn't very popular sales down 17% YTD, 33,104 units sold YTD. Venza is down 48% this year and still sold 35k units, but Toyota sold 70k 4Runners, Hyundai sold 58k Santa Fe, Jeep sold 134k Grand Cherokees, 99k Wranglers, Ford Edge 51k, Kia Sorrento 39k. The Blazer is kind of a back of the pack seller in the mid-size SUV $35-50k segment. I think they either needed a bigger departure from the current model or lower price. The Hyundai Ionic 5 starts at $39,950, that's probably where the Blazer should have been. -
Chevrolet News:2024 Chevrolet Blazer EV Reveal
smk4565 replied to G. David Felt's topic in Chevrolet
I read the LT trims are fwd, and the RS is rear drive and awd is optional but I think you have to get the bigger battery for the awd.