Jump to content
News
Reviews
Discussons
Activity
Create New...
Close

smk4565

Members
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Posts

    13,727

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    11

 Content Type 

Everything posted by smk4565

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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!
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. smk4565
    Because 99.99999% of new car buyers want a CUV.
  13. 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?
  14. 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.
  15. 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.
  16. smk4565
    Mazda 3.
  17. smk4565
    Interesting how you only focus on the 500+ HP rather than admit that MB will also produce some best effort at that cause their basic engine will start at 75kW or 101HP which is half of what the Chevy BOLT will be which is 150kW or 200HP. There won't be only 1 motor per car. The earlier reports were a 300 kw (400 hp) electric motor would be the base motor for rear drive vehicles. All wheel drive vehicles get another motor or two up front. So there could be a 101 hp motor on each front wheel, a 400 hp motor in the back, now you have 602 hp in an all wheel drive car, or put the 540 hp motor in back and you have 740 hp total. Perhaps also they want a few electric motors of different power levels for use in plug-in hybrids too. Mercedes like in house made stuff, they probably don't want to buy off some other maker, just like they don't buy transmissions from ZF or Aisin. Maybe they need the 101 hp electric motor to put on each front wheel of the mid-engine super car Tobias Moors wants to build. Put 2 of those up front, with a 600 hp V8 in back, and they can go Ferrari hunting.
  18. smk4565
    A twin motor electric with over 500 HP is going to be awesome. Tesla very well could be the future, they are getting ready to fight the future. They aren't going to sit idle and let Tesla pass them by.
  19. smk4565
    It's Mercedes. The naming problems of others do not apply to them. They were the first to create a one letter car and are above all criticisms of such things. They haven't even named it yet, or said exactly what these will be. One can speculate they are going right after Tesla though. Maybe they will make the E-wagen. Perhaps an E-wing with gullwing doors. The good thing about Mercedes is huge R&D budget and they aren't constrained as to what they can build or how many models they can have. A lot of the cars share drive trains and they only have like 4 platforms (not counting G-wagen) that they build a lot of variants off of. While the other guys talk about it, or show concept cars, Mercedes builds dream cars.
  20. smk4565
    Because making an electric car on a platform designed for gas engine in the front and a drivetrain running down the middle doesn't make sense. If they make an electric car platform they can load the floor plan with batteries and electric motors. More interior room, and they have more flexibility with styling. They are making 10 plug-in hybrid versions of existing models though, for those that want an electrified C, E, S, GLE, GLC, etc.
  21. smk4565
    The one car is supposed to be a sedan bigger than a C-class, but smaller than an E-class, for sure they would want that to cost under 50,000 Euro or whatever the threshold is for the German gov't tax credit or subsidy that they have for electric cars. They need volume to justify the platform. The 2nd sedan will be large, and I imagine be based on this:
  22. smk4565
    Mercedes said they are not doing a sub-brand like BMW i, and are not copying them in that. I see this more as Tesla fighters. I am loving the prospect of a small to mid-size sedan with a 536 hp electric motor powering the rear wheels. I could see them doing some sort of GLA electric, that gives them a cheaper fwd electric car, that is better than the B-class. But the fun stuff will be the twin motor 500+ HP stuff like the Tesla Model S. And I think Dr. Thomas Weber will be missed.
  23. smk4565
    Unrelated and zero correlation except in that fanboy mind of yours. The long term plan was to make the CTS closer to the STS size, hence one of the reasons why the STS was scratched.And why you left out the 640HP CTS-V (while including the 469 HP from the STS-V) I have not a clue except to prove that you love cherry picking. Oh and let's not forget one key thing here. They are two completely different platforms. Why is this blatant kind of misinformation allowed here? The STS-V at the time was nearly as powerful as a Corvette Z06, it was the 2nd most powerful car GM had ever made at the time. Hard to compare power from 10 years ago to today, when everyone went up. On size and base level price and power the 2 cars are similar. Also cancelling your mid-size (and top end at the time) name plate, in order to replace it with your entry level name plate makes no sense. Imagine BMW cancelling the 5-series, then making the 3-series a foot longer and $15,000 more expensive an saying the 3-series is now a $50,000 mid-size car. Would have been the stupidest move ever. Maybe the Cruze can replace the Malibu next and they can cancel the Malibu.
  24. smk4565
    2006 STS base price $41,020 ($48,682 in 2016 dollars) 2016 CTS $46,555 Wheelbase: 116.4 Wheelbase: 114.6 Length: 196.3 Length: 195.5 Width: 72.6 Width: 72.2 Height: 57.6 Height: 57.2 Engines: Engines: 255 hp/252 lb-ft V6 268 hp/295 lb-ft I-4 320 hp/315 lb-ft V8 335 hp/285 lb-ft V6 469 hp/439 lb-ft V8 420 hp/430 lb-ft V6 It is awfully close for 2 different model cars from the same manufacturer, 10 years apart.
  25. smk4565
    The 2003 CTS was about 6 or 7 inches longer than the current ATS. Put 5 inches of wheel base in an ATS and your leg room issues are solved, but then it is also going to be near the size of a Lexus GS.
×
×
  • Create New...

Hey there, we noticed you're using an ad-blocker. We're a small site that is supported by ads or subscriptions. We rely on these to pay for server costs and vehicle reviews.  Please consider whitelisting us in your ad-blocker, or if you really like what you see, you can pick up one of our subscriptions for just $1.75 a month or $15 a year. It may not seem like a lot, but it goes a long way to help support real, honest content, that isn't generated by an AI bot.

See you out there.

Drew
Editor-in-Chief

I've whitelisted
Continue without support

Write what you are looking for and press enter or click the search icon to begin your search