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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    ​This is your prediction that the plug-in 3-series will outsell the gas 3-series. OK; let's wait & see how THAT pans out. It won't outsell the gas 3-series because the gas model will be cheaper. But in Europe over 50% of BMWs sold are diesel, the plug-in take rate might be pretty good over there since people are already paying a premium for diesel and the $7-8 a gallon fuel prices. The plug in broadens the appeal, and prevents current 3-series owners from defecting to another brand with a hybrid.
  2. smk4565
    I think consumers will buy whatever the Germans build. Because they will be first to market, they will advertise it right, they will convince people that it is the best technology and what they need. And really it is just an extension of existing powertrains and existing models for all of them. People already like the 3-series, they'll like a plug-in 3-series more. They are giving people more fuel economy, more power, plus the new technology to brag about. They'll sell them.
  3. smk4565
    The A8 has some track record. The 7-series and S-class have 30-40 years of name recognition and history to fall back on. People know what an A8 is, they know what an S-class is. The CT6 is new, so people don't know what it is. The number in it doesn't matter, the name just sounds like CTS, I think people will think it is just a bigger or longer CTS or worse a V6 CTS, that should be $50k, but will be shocked when it costs $75k. I still stand by if Cadillac really believed that alpha-numerics were the best thing, then Escalade needs to be renamed XT8, for continuity. The fact that they won't rename the Escalade proves that Cadillac doesn't even believe in their own naming scheme. Johan preaches that CT5, CT6, CT7, etc is what is needed, but their #1 product has a word name, why don't all products take the Escalade's lead?
  4. smk4565
    They must think they will sell, if there will be a plug-in 3, 5, 7 series, a plug in C, E, S, GLC, GLE, GLS, A3, A4, A6, A8, Q7, R8, Panamera, Cayenne, Bentley Continental, etc. Unlikely that BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and Bentley will all be wrong.
  5. smk4565
    VW already has a massively profitable luxury group, adding Ram and Jeep to their mix would make them stronger, because Ram and Jeep are profit centers. If they bought FCA they would not need Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Skoda, Seat, and Lancia. They could dump half the brands, and rebadge the models they want to existing brands. Then you take 6 brands into maybe 2 or 3, and VW brand obviously stays, so you get 3-4 strong mainstream brands to go with the luxury powerhouse they already have. The Problem with GM's 8 brand strategy is Pontiac, Saturn, Oldmobile, Buick and GMC were all on some level competing with Chevrolet and each other. VW with FCA could cover the entire market from 3rd world city car, to American pickup truck to $300,000 luxury sedan to $2 million sports car. They can go from Fiat Panda to Bugatti Chiron and everything in between with massive economies of scale and dealer network.
  6. smk4565
    That we are, I think every German sedan and SUV by 2018 model year will have a plug in hybrid.
  7. smk4565
    For the 50 years Cadillac was the sales leader, they had Fleetwood, Deville and Eldorado pretty much the whole time. They are a 5th or 6th place luxury brand now with their alphabet soup and the Escalade is what keeps that brand alive. And how exciting can advertising be for "CT6" and I can see consumers confusing it with "CTS" which for years was an entry level model. Good luck to Cadillac trying to convince people the CT6 is on par with the big Germans. At least "Fleetwood" and "Eldorado" have some weight to them and they might be able to draw on heritage a bit in the advertising. Lincoln is in the same boat. Their cars are lousy, and the alphabet soup names are forgetable and easily confused with an Acura MDX. If they had Continental, at least it is a memorable name and would stand out. Cadillac and Lincoln need to draw people into the showrooms and you need recognizable products to get traffic in the door.
  8. smk4565
    And some googling shows Skoda took a $570 million loss in 2013. And that is with a line of products based on the Golf platform, and the Superb is a Passat. They are losing money to resell what they already designed and paid for at VW. VW could replace most of the Skoda line with VW brand cars, and if they owned Fiat, the Panda, Punto and 500L could fill in the gaps that the Golf, Jetta and Tiguan don't cover. Skoda is just VW's Pontiac, and volume does not equal strength.
  9. smk4565
    I bet in the 2020s Cadillac goes back to word names and goes back to the heritage. Once they piss away what little equity they have with CTS and ATS for possibly even lower selling CT3 and CT5, and the CT6 disappears in the higher end of the luxury market, they will go for another change. By 2020 Johan's naming experiment will have failed, and GM will do what GM does and go with new product and a new name to make people forget about the last product that didn't sell. I predict Fleetwood, Eldorado, Seville, and maybe even Deville are back in business by 2025.
  10. smk4565
    They can dump SEAT and Skoda also. Jeep and Ram are the profit centers of FCA, at least in the USA. I am just saying if VW were to buy them, then you don't need VW, Chrysler and Dodge brands, so either Chrysler or VW has to go away. The other option is move the 300 and repackage it as a $35-45,000 Phaeton, move the 200 to be a new Dodge Avenger and kill the Chrysler brand. Then Dodge would have the Dart, Avenger, Charger, Challenger, a real 4 car lineup, plus the Journey and Caravan. VW would get a full size car and resurrect the Routan to replace Town and Country.
  11. smk4565
    I remember when the 540i and 740i were V8s. The renaming stuff is sort of crazy, imagine searching for a used 3-series and having to sort out 330i, 335i, 335xi, 335i xDrive, 340i, etc Makes sense though to up the power, the 3-series had been at 300 hp for like 9 years. I didn't realize they were going to have a plug in so soon, I think the C-class plug in isn't coming in until fall or winter, BMW might beat them to the punch.
  12. smk4565
    Not surprised that Toyota and Lexus are the most reliable. Clearly every Toyota goes for 500,000 miles with no maintenance. Perhaps also a study could be done on most boring car to drive. Toyota would win that too.
  13. smk4565
    Or sell this company to VW and be done with it. The Chrysler 200 is selling, the Passat is not. VW has no minivan or commercial van or pickup, so the Ram Tucks don't overlap, and Jeep is proving that they still sell and Jeep is a valuable brand. Rework the Dart to a Chrysler 100, the 200 sells, keep the 300 and Town and Country. Kill Dodge and Fiat, let the 38 people a month that want an Alfa special order it.
  14. smk4565
    But a possible $70,000 Cadillac CT6 is going to have a 4-cyldiner, so by that level of engine placement the Regal should have a base turbo 3-cylinder and the top end Lacrosse a turbo four. Personally, I think Cadillac should use the 330 hp V6 as their base CTS and CT6 engine, turbo 4 in ATS only. I am all for the "there is no replacement for displacement" argument, since the Maxima, Camry, Passat, Accord all come with a V6, I'd have no problem with a Regal V6. If the Malibu is 4-cylinder only, giving the Regal a V6 is a good way to separate the two.
  15. smk4565
    The 200 is selling well, looks like they actually came up with a winner. I don't get how the Compass and Patriot are still on sale, let alone people actually buy them. Those haven't be redesigned in 10 years it seems, and the new Renegage and Cherokee are similar size and price for more entry level Jeeps. They should kill the Compass off now, maybe keep the boxy Patriot.
  16. smk4565
    Those new C-classes are sweet. I was hoping to get one as a loaner on my last service visit, but I got a GLK instead. The Journey must have a lot of sales to Avis and National. People can't seriously buy that thing.
  17. smk4565
    I agree with Drew. Take the Suburban for example, that is Chevy's longest running name plate. If they changed the name, I bet sales would drop. If Toyota changed the Camry name, sales would drop because people know what the Camry is, they are familiar with it and trust it. When you launch a new product and change the name, you need extra marketing to get people to know what it is, you have to build up emotion and get people excited about the product. Case in point, the Ford Five Hundred, no one knew or cared what a Ford Five Hundred was, so off to the redesign studio and back came the Taurus because the Taurus is recognizable.
  18. smk4565
    Does this count fleet cars? Some of those cars are high on rental car lots, so there could be a buy and sell after one year. The C-class surprises me, unless people are trading the old one on the new model year, normally I'd think people would keep one of those. The X1 is tiny, so I could see the yuppies trading to an X3 after a year and realizing they bought a small wagon more than a crossover. Charger, Sonic and Cruze not surprised, I am surprised the Chrysler 200 or Dodge Journey isn't on there. If they even make the Journey still.
  19. smk4565
    I am pretty sure if Ford called their sports coupe the Willard or the Henry or the Edsel back in 1965 rather than Mustang, it would not be here today, and would not have been a sales success. Name recognition matters. Why not rename the Malibu, Impala and Corvette to CV4, CV6 and CV8-S? Simple, CV = Chevrolet, the number for how many cylinders, and S for sport. Wonder how that would affect sales. Oh right it would crush them because no one knows what a CV8-S is and they want a Corvette. Just like Lincoln is better off with Continental rather than MKS and Cadillac is better off with Fleetwood and Eldorado rather than CT6.
  20. smk4565
    This car is really ugly though, it looks Japanese. The first gen Volt looked good in the front end, even though the headlights stole a bit from the 2005 era Acura TL, I still liked how the front of the original Volt looked. The 2016 has a much better interior, and this is a much better price than the $40k of the original Volt, but still $34k is a lot of a compact Chevy. Although a Prius is overpriced too.
  21. smk4565
    But they'll keep those X1 and GLA buyers and move them up the ladder. The Best selling Mercedes SUV is the ML, and the E-class when new is often their best selling car, so their middle models still sell well. The Lexus NX has allowed them to push the RX into the $45k range and it still sells well. The ATS is just as cheap as a GLA or NX or X1, Cadillac just isn't getting big volume out of it like other lux brands are.
  22. smk4565
    The Germans will have a load of plug in hybrids also and that adds more cost to a car than a diesel engine would and talk about weight. The battery pack alone in a plug in could be 400 lbs. A Tesla Model S is nearly 5,000 lbs because of the batteries. There is talk that the Mercedes quad turbo diesel will make 400 hp and 627 lb-ft of torque. That sounds pretty sweet, if it gets 35 mpg highway, that is hard to pass up.
  23. smk4565
    The AdBlue stuff the diesel cars need is once every 15,000 miles and is like $80 or something. If you get a new or certified BMW it has prepaid maintenance, so you don't even pay that the first 4 years. It isn't overly expensive. Plus diesels run forever and ever, the longevity of diesel engines is another argument for it. The regulations do need work though, the gas tax should be raised to make regular gas and diesel prices the same, make diesel cheaper than premium gas and watch it sell. A gas tax is a better way to influence consumer purchasing and fund new roads. Most of our roads are crap, higher gas tax could be used on better roads (if they do the right thing and don't waste the money which the government may likely do). And if 87 octane gas and diesel cost the same, you encourage more high mileage diesels to be sold. This would work better than CAFE. On a side note, gas guzzler tax should be applied the same to all vehicles, not just cars, trucks should have the same gas guzzler rules. The Escalade or Ram Hemi pickup, should have the same gas guzzler tax an Aston Martin or Ferrari would have. Pick a number of like 16 mpg combined, if it is lower, then you pay a gas tax. Watch how fast something like the Escalade would get a diesel option if the V8 came with a $3000 gas guzzler tax. And for people that don't care about money and are going to drop $80k on an Escalade, they'll just pay the tax like people buying a Dodge Viper pay it.
  24. smk4565
    But if the German trio all have 40-45 mpg sedans and the ATS and CTS can't crack 31 mpg, Cadillac has a problem. Not only will BMW and Benz have a diesel is almost every model but a plug in hybrid of almost every model also. Gas only isn't enough anymore.
  25. smk4565
    Well they might as well fleet sale Equinoxes. The retail ones probably have decent incentives on them anyway. And people will buy used SUVs, so the rental companies can probably get better resale on an Equinox than they can a Malibu. They might prefer an SUV to a rental car. Because the Malibu or Cruze or 300 might get that rental car stigma and have crap resale value, but most American car shoppers have such a love for crossovers, that even if the Equinox has a 40% fleet rate, they'll still want it because it is a crossover.
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