smk4565

I look at cars every day, The materials and fit and finish in American cars just isn’t as good as the Japanese or Korean cars, plus Hyundai and Kia give a lot of equipment for the money. I drive a 2020 Escape 5 days a week, the difference between that and a 2008 Mercedes is dramatic, and I get that the Mercedes is more than double the money, but it’s 12 years newer too. The Escape just isn’t a good car, it’s an average appliance. So GM can roll out all these EV’s but unless they fix the reasons that people don’t currently buy GM cars it won’t matter. And I think sales will actually drop because consumers may get sticker shock when they see a $45-50k Equinox EV

Compare a Malibu to a Camry/Accord or an Equinox/Escape to a RAV4/CR-V. The Honda and Too are just better vehicles, you can make the Equinox electric, and RAV4 electric and consumers are still going to buy Toyota and GM is going to fleet sale the Equinox and still sell half as many. The wild card to the EV war will be if someone decides to lose money on them in an attempt to gain market share. Tesla basically did that for 10 years and became the most valuable car company.

The FedEx trucks look good, and I think making more trucks/vans EV will go a long way to reducing emissions and noise in cities and neighborhoods. Still not a fan of the new GM logo, just like I am not a fan of the Mercedes "EQS" font, the classic is better. What GM hasn't mentioned in their EV future, is are they going to fix their terrible interiors and build quality? Because every car company is going to build EV's, so the current market leaders, I think will stay market leaders if not even gain because people are already willing to pay a premium for a Toyota over a Chevy/Ford/Hyundai, or pay a premium on a Mercedes/BMW over any other luxury brand. A Chevrolet interior, quality and resale value is still worse than a Toyota, if they don't fix that, it doesn't matter what the powertrain is. EV's will push prices up, I can't wait to see how may Hyundai Ionic 5's they sell when it is priced and sized like a BMW X3. This is why the VW iD4 has bombed, priced and sized like a BMW X3, priced above a Rav4 Prime that comes with Toyota reputation, more power and performance. It was obvious that vehicle wasn't going to sell, it is an overpriced bland appliance, terrible name too.

I actually thought their $77,400 was after tax credit, because Tesla advertises car prices like that, they give you the after tax credit price, which you may not even qualify for. And let's see if they actually build that car or if next year the base Air is delayed, then all of a sudden the 2023 model is $84k base. Much like the $35k Model 3 that never happened. The Air does a lot of impressive things, but the interior is not on Mercedes level. The EQS is an ugly car, but I don't think the Air is that good looking either. If it said Camry on the front, no one would question it. Also the Mercedes EQE is the same size as the Air, so we'll see how that price comparison goes.

The EQS has a HEPA filter in the front. The EQS has hospital operating room quality air on the inside, which other cars do not.

Agree, big oil will lose influence over time. And Wall Street is all about EV, that's where the money goes, the legacy auto makers see a company like Rivian or Lucid who have sold about 7 cars between the two of them valued higher than Ford by the investor community. Thus legacy auto maker shareholders tell the board they need to make EV's or else they are going to pull out and give their money to Elon.

A Camry Hybrid can probably bring that money if it isn't too old. But you can look at any used Toyota in about any segment and it has higher resale than the competitors. FJ Cruisers and 4Runners bring stupid money on the used market or at auctions. Bottom line is Toyota has an advantage in the mind of the consumers, that's why they are the number # selling car brand and have great resale. And I suspect they'll be fine with EV's. Anyone that thinks Lucid, Rivian, Bollinger or some upstart is going to challenge Toyota is delusional. I doubt Tesla will really challenge them at the end of the day, because we've yet to see Tesla scale up or be able to put new products on market every year.

You can look at how many 200k plus mileage Toyotas and Lexus are out there. Also look at what those sell for compared to an American car. Whenever I run values on cars for work, if it is an FCA, Ford or GM product nearing 200k miles or above, the car is basically worthless, maybe $3k. A 200k mile Camry could still be a $10k car, because there is an expectation that Toyotas just last forever.

Agree that Toyota made a lot of mistakes, and is way late. But if they pull a 180 and go all in on EV then I wouldn't be surprised if they have a line up of EV's at better prices than the competition and with the Toyota reliability/quality/resale advantage that they have now over competitors.

2030 is a long away off, you can develop a car in 3-4 years, and Toyota is big enough to develop multiple at one time. This isn't one product at a time Tesla, Toyota probably has more cash and resources than any other car company. Although they are also more cautious and slow moving than most car companies, as they hate risk. I think they are late to the party, maybe that will hurt them, maybe they can use their size and scale to catch up and it won't matter, time will tell.

The Cheapest Lucid Air (Pure), which you can reserve now, but it isn't in production until spring 2022, is $84,900 base price before tax credits. A Mercedes-AMG E53 which is the same size, has similar performance and a better interior is $75,000 base price. A Lexus LS which is a larger, more luxurious car than the Air Pure starts at $76,000. The Air has hype because the top end version has over 1,000 hp, but the middle trim has to go against E63's and M5's, the Taycan and Panamera, the lower trim against established German sedans and Lexus and this isn't a big segment. Infiniti, Cadillac, Lincoln, and Acura have all got out of mid-large luxury sedans, and Lexus killed the GS because there is no growth in this segment. The 2022 Model S starts at $94,990, and if you order today, you get it July of 2022 (estimated). That car is super fast, but it has a pretty mediocre interior. BMW, Audi and Mercedes can all undercut that price with the EQE, A6 E-Tron, and i5-series EV thing and have a better interior, better car. The market will flood with EV's, but these near $100k cars are such a tiny part of the market, no one is really even attempting a volume EV, outside of maybe Tesla with the 3/Y, but even those the global volume on that is a fraction of what a Rav4 or CR-V does globally.

Cost is what is going to matter not battery degradation. Most people aren't driving more than 50 miles a day, I think range and battery degradation are highly over rated, and probably that narrative was started by car companies wanting to sell gas cars and not really form consumers. The question is what can be done with cost, Since they are starting with the Denali, I would guess this is another $100k or close to it pickup truck, maybe it's $75k like a Rivian. But the Hummer is over $100k, the Lucid is $149k. The real winner of EV future is who can make a mid-size sedan or SUV that electric for Rav4 or Camry money. Who can make an EV pickup that costs as much as an F150 XLT, where the main build of sales are. This is where it could be Tesla, and if so, all these other guys are in big trouble.

That GV60 is actually quite ugly. The GV80 and G80 look pretty good, but other cars seem a bit off, and maybe that is because they are trying to make thinks look more bold or stand out to get attention.

I don't love their design language, but it isn't bad either, I'd take it over what Acura or Infiniti are doing. I think they are doing some good things, but there is still some ways to go to get up to the level of the leaders.

BMW i3, i8, and the coming iX and i5, and i7. In those cases the i is for electric cars. on a 328i, yes it means injected. For the short term you have to build ICE and EV side by side. Everyone is doing it, which is what will really stretch these OEM's and probably kill the small ones off that don't have enough resources. Or the ones that go too early will burn up cash too fast, the ones that go too late will be left behind.

BMW has "i" and Mercedes has EQ, so obviously Cadillac would just follow in their footsteps with "IQ" Personally I hate all these EV names and putting "I" or "E" on everything, everyone does the same thing and it is pretty pointless, just name the car. Scion already made the IQ, and it sucked. It doesn't really matter though, Cadillac will have an all new naming scheme in 2027 anyway.

Dealers may move to a customer order model and not carry inventory. Carrying a lot of inventory is a pretty good use of real estate and money, they could cut all that out and probably save a lot of money, and let people just order the model, color, spec they want. And you really only need to keep 1 of each model as a demo on the lot for test drives. Also the dealership model is in question anyway. All these start ups like Tesla, Lucid, Rivian, etc aren't using dealers because obviously they are starting with a clean slate and see the dealership model as flawed. And the legacy OEM's should really treat dealers like Apple treats retailers. Apple sets a retail price on a product and that's the price whether you go to Target, Walmart, Best Buy or the Apple store. And if you don't sell it at Apple's retail price you lose the right to sell their product. So given that if Ford says the Mach-E is $42,000, then any dealer that doesn't sell that car for the exactly $42,000.00 sticker should lose their franchise rights, end of story. Then the price is the same at every dealer nationwide, no market adjustments, discounts, no price haggling, etc. OEM's give dealers too much power, cater to dealers too much. Tesla has no dealers and outsells Cadillac with 500 dealers. And in the new EV world, one way to cut price down would be a direct sales model.

We could also see Chinese electric cars come here and drastically undercut Ford and GM in price. I wouldn’t really bet on it, but it possible that the Chinese do what the Japanese did 50 years ago when they take into the American market quickly gained ground. That could accelerate the EV push.

I would be all for EV's only in 2030, but I don't think the technology will be there. Maybe in 2035. The battery tech just has to get way better and cheaper so these EV's are in another price tier. The Mach-E, Model Y, VW iD4, etc are like Toyota RAV4 size, but cost $20k more, you have to erase that gap by 2030 if you want to get rid of ICE. A lot can happen in 10 years but that is asking really a lot.

Right, next year you can, because they are only selling the top model to start. So the EQE, A6 E-tron, BMW i5, etc will all come to market in a year or 2 against it. And the Model S is there, the Taycan and E-tron GT are there at the $100k+ price point. If Lucid can beat them all, more power to them. But it took Tesla 10 years to gain traction, if Lucid takes until 2030 to gain traction and get 4 models on the market, most of their competitors will have 2-3 times as many. This market is going to be flooded with EV sedans, and there aren't that many $75k+ sedan buyers that exist, that is why the RLX, Continental, K900, GS, CT6, CTS, MKZ all died, I think the Jaguar XJ died, and is coming back as an EV. But sedans aren't where the market is, even the E-class and 5-series are down from what they used to be, and they are sort of last men standing as most others gave up.

The next generation S-class can look like the current S-class and be electric. No reason the 2028 S-class has to look like a jelly bean. I'm sure they will style it in a way that they think will sell best.

Tesla was first, so they will be the hot brand, Lucid is just the next EV brand, not the original. Also if you look at just Model S sales, they aren't that strong. The great majority of Tesla's volume is Model 3 and Y. And you can get a Model S for like $75k even. It will probably be another year before Lucid has a model under $100k, and then how long before they have a full line? I know people love these EV start ups, but any big OEM could probably put out 5 electric SUVs, a pickup or two, a van, a couple sedans and a coupe and have a full line up in about 5 years time. Because they are used to overhauling a line up ever 5-7 years. There is no way Lucid has an 8-10 model line in 5 years time. I just watched Sandy Monro's video on where he thinks the market will be in 2030, with Tesla having 25% of the US market, the Chinese having about 25% and companies like GM and Ford and Toyota being under 5% market share. Which I just don't see happening, Chinese cars won't catch on that fast (unless they are like 50% the cost of an American car) and these EV brands even if they build manufacturing capacity, aren't going to get their price down to beat ICE or the legacy car maker's price. Tesla is getting outsold in the USA and the world by BMW, Mercedes and Audi right now, and Lexus in the USA. All credit to Tesla for pushing the industry to EV's and creating competition and shaking up the market, but no chance in hell is Tesla selling more cars than GM, Ford, and Toyota combined in 9 years time.

For sure this is the last gasoline S-class. I suspect the S-class outsells the EQS with ease worldwide (baring some crazy EV credits in certain countries). So if the S-class is more successful combined with the "traditional" (read old) buyers in the big car segment that aren't looking for futuristic looks, I would think the S-class's look will be evolutionary as it always is, but just have batteries in it (which will also be more compact come 2028 when it's time for a new S-class). And this jelly bean EQS will be dead. Wouldn't be surprised if the same thing happens with the E-class, there will be another gasoline E-class for 2023-34 I'd imagine, probably run that to 2030 or so and gasoline then that will go all EV too.

The S-class is a better car than the EQS, that is problem 1 for Mercedes. The S580 looks better inside and out and has a better interior than the EQS. I am not a fan of the jelly bean styling of the EQS. The next S-class will be an EV only product and the EQS will basically die off so that will solve that. The Lucid Air is actually the size of the EQE, so I'd be curious to see how the EQE's AMG version stacks up when it has more performance than the big soft cruiser that is the EQS. The Lucid Air looks like a really good car, I just don't know who is paying $139k at dealerships that don't exist to find them.

This is what they need to do when you have companies like Rivian and Lucid who never even delivered a car worth more than Ford or GM. Investors only care about EV's but I don't know how the masses are going to afford them at the prices they are at now.