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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    Doubt they will bring back concentration camps. Eventually though electric will overtake gas cars, just like self driving cars will become common. There will always be gas cars for the exhaust note in a sports car, or perhaps longer range driving (500+miles), but when batteries and electric motors get cheaper, the performance level is undeniable. Just think of this, the first smart phone came out 9 years ago. And look how fast things went since.
  2. smk4565
    What is wrong with niche segments? Mercedes is not the only one who can pull that off (looking at you AMG and E Class Wagon). You realize that right? Nothing is wrong with a Niche segment. But if your brand is built on "quiet luxury" you don't try to sell a hot hatch with a high revving turbo 4. That would be like Mini saying they want to introduce a full size sedan with a bench seat, so they can exploit a niche. There should be a Cruze RS hatch to compete with the Focus and Golf.
  3. smk4565
    59.8% of Cadillac sales in 2015 were SUVs, and that was with 2 SUVs and 4 lines of cars. It would seem that 60% of Cadillac buyers wanted an SUV, and probably would have been higher if they had more SUVs to sell. It is hard to get consumers into sedans anymore.
  4. smk4565
    But if 50% of luxury buyers (and that number might be 60%) want a crossover, and Cadillac only has one crossover, then they have a problem. Doesn't matter if Buick and Chevy have 10 crossovers. They need them in the luxury segment.
  5. smk4565
    So the plan is to dump "Quiet Luxury" and make Buick a Euro Sport car brand? That doesn't seem to make sense. If the Verano didn't meet sales targets, good luck on a Regal Wagon or turning an Astra or Cruze into a Buick Hot Hatch. Wagons just don't sell, Hot Hatchback is a very small segment in the USA, even though it is a practical body style.
  6. smk4565
    I'm sure there will be a $100k+ EV car, but it will probably also do 0-60 in 3 seconds flat, so bring it in. AMG is going to be doing electric cars in 10 years I bet. Electric is going to be the future, the gas engine eventually won't be able to catch up.
  7. smk4565
    Early impressions I have heard or read from journalists would suggest the CX-9 is great, and maybe the best 3 row SUV out there. Hopefully people actually buy it, Mazda has some great cars right now.
  8. smk4565
    I actually saw a Model X P90 yesterday, in an electric blue color. I think it is amazing that a 7 passenger SUV can beat a Charger Hellcat or CTS-V, Jaguar F-type R, etc in a 0-60 sprint or a 1/4 mile. I am pretty excited about the future of electric cars, it is like going from dial up to broad band. Even 5 years or so ago when the X5 M or the AMG SUVs came out with 0-60 times of 4.5 or whatever the case was, sub 5 seconds 0-60 time in an SUV was like breaking the 4 minute mile, it was unheard of. The Model X would mop the floor with them; the progress in a relatively short amount of time is amazing.
  9. smk4565
    Here is the MotorTrend Head 2 Head video of the Tesla Model X and Bentley Bentayga. The speed of the Model X is just amazing, as evidenced that it can pull a trailer with an Alfa Romeo 4C on it and still win a drag race vs an Alfa Romeo 4C. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib-02b2ooLY
  10. smk4565
    Cadillac being 1 out of 4 divisions means they don't need to worry about CAFE so much or do a sub ATS car. They do still have to build the body styles that luxury customers want, and unfortunately they want crossovers and not performance cars for the most part. Case in point with the ATS, they release the coupe and V-series and sales go down. It was suggested earlier that the ATS-V is a halo product, but ATS sales dropped after the V came out, so it isn't making more people want an ATS. Mark my words, Johan will get pressure to increase sales, the bean counters will see the easy profits by turing a Chevy crossover into a Cadillac, and that is the path they will go down.
  11. smk4565
    One day you will understand how ignorant your post truly was. BTW, this was bean counting, as well going after the bottom feeder market. mercedes-benz-cla-breakthroughs-large-10.jpg WOW If that does not show MB has joined the rank n file of the Ford, Dodge, Toyota and Chevy buyers, I have no Idea what does. Clearly MB is NOT the Luxury Auto Maker any longer but a mass market machine living off their legacy of past desire to be different than everyone else. Now they are just a Mass Produced Jelly Bean Company of Auto's. Yeah, since they don't make full size V12 luxury sedans, coupes, or luxury convertibles, such as these.
  12. smk4565
    Except the CLA is probably the worst profit margin on any Mercedes. A-class and B-class level Mercedes exist partly for compliance reasons, whether it be CAFE or Euro-emissions or whatever. The other reason is for entry level product, as the C-class is a pretty nice car, it isn't an entry level car. GM just canned the Verano that outsells the ATS and CTS with ease, and is also based off a mass market car with not a lot of engineering work needed to create it. If the Verano wasn't making enough money for GM to keep it, or because they want Buick to be 70% crossover, what is to say they won't do the same to Cadillac, and make them a 70% crossover brand and cut sedans. I think Cadillac will always have 3 sedans, but I wouldn't be surprised if Cadillac goes 70% crossover/SUV.
  13. smk4565
    Cadillac does need 5 CUV/SUV sadly. That is where the market is going. They can easily fit a crossover below XT5 that is Envision size, and they need a 3 row crossover. Escalade is the 4th, and they could find room for another one somewhere. I wouldn't be surprised if the bean counters cut Cadillac down to a 2 sedan line up either, like they are doing with Buick.
  14. smk4565
    I saw a Bentley Mulsanne and a Tesla Model X today. If I saw a new Civic, I didn't notice or don't remember it.
  15. smk4565
    That is why CAFE is pointless to begin with. It courages car companies to make bigger, thus thirstier cars. The only way it would work is to set an MPG target, and the entire company portfolio regardless of vehicle footprint would have to average out to that number. A better option to CAFE is to do a gas guzzler tax and energy efficient credit system. Suppose you had a number like 35 mpg combined EPA for 2016, and you could adjust it up as years go by, raise it 1 mpg every 2 years or something and get to 40 mpg EPA combined in 2025. So from the 35 mpg baseline, for every 1 mpg worse than that a car gets, there is a $100 gas guzzler tax. Thus if a vehicle gets 20 mpg combined EPA, that is -15 mpg times $100 dollars = a $1,500 gas guzzler tax. A vehicle at 25 mpg would have a $1,000 gas guzzler tax, and so on. Then on the flip side there would be a credit for being above the baseline. So a car with 40 mpg combined EPA would have a $500 credit that the government would pay toward the buyer at time of purchase out of the gas guzzler tax pool, and there would be a maximum credit of $2,500, all pure EV cars would get the $2,500 credit. Since we know Americans will always buy crossovers, trucks, gas guzzlers, etc, you never have to worry about the gas guzzler tax pool running too low to feed the fuel efficiency credit pool. The excess every year can be used to fix roads and bridges.
  16. smk4565
    The Civic has a solid following and long history, and it also has a younger person's appeal and buyers that want a sporty look can choose the Civic coupe. Honda also only makes 2 sedans, but 3 crossovers, plus the Ridgeline is like a Crossover pickup, and the Fit is more of a hatchback car, and they have a van. Overall some sedans will get dropped, but Honda will do fine with theirs since they only have 2 to pick from.
  17. smk4565
    The Bentley DOHC V8 even in that 5000+ lb car gets 15/25 mpg. That isn't too bad given the power output and weight. The W12 is like 12/20 (still better than the 6.75 liter V8), but they could add in a hybrid system to add a few mpg to either engine. CAFE has a weird scoring system, size of the vehicle shouldn't matter, fuel economy should. But a Mulsanne is huge, it has a 129 inch wheelbase, 220 inch overall length.
  18. smk4565
    The world may not NEED Bentley, but the world has people that will pay massive money for a Bentley, and with $25,000 per car margins, Bentley isn't going anywhere. There will be a 4-cylinder Silverado before Bentley stops making a 12 cylinder engine. Heck, Bugatti makes a 16-cylinder engine and might be adding a 2nd model!
  19. smk4565
    Because 99.99999% of new car buyers want a CUV. Yet Buick sold 223,055 auto's in 2015 of which 32,000 were Verano. That means Verano made up 7% if sales. That is still not a number to just throw away in the US market. I wish there were more sedans, but the car makers have found profits in CUVs, they are pushing all wheel drive a a necessity, and buyers have to get a CUV or Subaru to get awd, and the buyers want more space, so they get a CUV. Unfortunately there aren't enough people that value performance or driving dynamics, the sheeple want a crossover. And how long does the Regal last? It sells worse than the Verano, probably has slim margins with the discounts they have to offer to move them.
  20. smk4565
    I hope there is an off switch as well. These are good for time you sit a long time at a red light, or sit in a fast food drive through or something like that when you are doing mostly sitting. But they they start shutting the ending off for 2 seconds at a stop sign they get annoying.
  21. smk4565
    Because 99.99999% of new car buyers want a CUV.
  22. smk4565
    Bentley will not go into the history books, maybe they'll make an EV or hybrid, maybe not. But VW has enough cars to offset Bentley's guzzlers. And even then a Bentley Continental V8 gets 2 mpg better than a Chevy Silverado 5.3 liter V8. Does anyone think the Silverado will go into the history books because of emissions and fuel economy standards?
  23. smk4565
    The end of an era, but time catches up with everyone or everything in this case. This engine had a phenomenal run, and it makes sense to go to the W12 and newer V8s that can produce less emissions and similar power. The six and three quarter liter V8 will always be a legend.
  24. smk4565
    A Corvette of that era could be $200k, so you could get McLaren-Mercedes SLR for that money. I would take the 2008 SL550 though, would be better if it had the V12 or AMG engine, but 2008 was the last time the SL looked good, before the weird 2009 refresh that changed it, and the ugly 2013 new model, that for 2017 they have mostly fixed. I don't get why Mercedes doesn't just make it look more like the 50's SL and make it a bit more retro or classic look. The retro look is working for the G-wagen.
  25. smk4565
    Mazda 3.
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