smk4565

I am actually glad that 1/3 of Mercedes are under $50k, because that takes sales away from Acura, Volvo, Lincoln, Lexus, Cadillac, Infiniti, etc. The A-class, CLA, GLA, GLB (aside from being needed in China and Europe with displacement tax and CO2 regs) in the USA take away sales from Volvo XC40/XC60 and S60, Acura RDX/TSX, Cadillac CT4/CT5, XT4, Lexus NX/UX, etc. No reason to let those brands take that volume when Mercedes can take it. And people will pay double the price for that Maybach than they could get a Navigator or Escalade for. Shouldn't Lincoln, Volvo, Cadillac, Lexus, Acura, Infiniti, Tesla and Jaguar all wonder why no one will pay $200k for one of their cars? Zero of those brands are on par with Mercedes until they have a $200,000 car.

Yes you can get a Mercedes for $45,000, you can also get 5 different ones for over $145,000, not sure why it matters. Point is, I don't see Tesla taking on a big threat from $50,000 Kias and Hyundais. The Hyundai Ionic 5 is the same size as a Tuscon, but the Ionic 5 is double the price. People aren't going to spend $50k for a Hyundai compact crossover. Now maybe Hyundai/Kia roll out a $399 a month lease on those things just to move them and that is how they do it.

Lincoln has no credibility now either, not much has changed. I have heard what people liked about the Avalanche was it rides/handles better than a Silverado, because it is basically a Suburban, which is 1 body, not 2 pieces, has better suspension, etc. I don't disagree that there are advantages to it, or that they couldn't sell some volume with it. I just think GM beancounters must have figured that they could sell X number of Avalanche/Escalades but 80-90% of X would just buy a Silverado/Suburban anyway. So even if they lose 10-20% of X units, that is cheaper than building and marketing another model. Not much different than the Germans saying less coupes and convertibles, they figure those people will just buy something else off the lot and if they lose a few people, oh well. I still have doubts that if there were a Lincoln or Cadillac pick up for $85k and a Black Label/Platinum for $100k that it would sell. GM and Ford must have done market research on that and don't see volume there. Years ago, I might have thought they don't want a pick up on a luxury dealer lot, but Lincoln tried it twice, and Lincoln is SUVs only now. Cadillac, maybe if they are trying to be a performance/luxury brand don't want a pick up there, but I doubt they care about that since they make 3 FWD crossovers. So the only reason they don't exist must be that their market research tells them they won't sell.

I don't know if there will be so called $25k or even $30k vehicles from rivals. The Hyundai Ionic 5 is supposed to start around $44,000, the Kia EV6 around $45,000 and those are base models, so add the options and you are at $50k or more. For $50k are you going buy a Tesla or a Hyundai? People are used to paying $50-60k for a BMW or Mercedes, or a Tesla for that matter. But people won't pay $50-60k for a Kia, the K900 flopped, the Stinger flopped, the Cadenza flopped. The Telluride does well, but those are more $40-50k, and a 3 row SUV. Where as the Kia EV6 is smaller than a Sorrento, I think $50k for a Kia compact crossover is a hard sell. The American ones are larger sure, but you can't compare a GLS to a Lincoln Aviator or Cadillac XT6 which are much smaller and cheaper. At least the X7 and GLS cost roughly the same as the big American SUVs. In my example though, the EQE and Model S have nearly identical dimensions, and EQE is supposed to be priced the same as the Model S, sounds like those are competition. The EQS is a foot longer and double the price of the Model S, those aren't direct competitors. That would be like saying the Mercedes S-class and Audi A6 are competitors, they aren't.

All the Germans will have big line ups of EV's, Genesis is going all EV too. So question will become can Tesla keep up with introducing new product, new models, new body styles, new interiors, etc. The Model S has had basically 2 mid-cycle refreshes in nearly 10 years, nothing done with the Model 3 since launch. The Germans usually do an all new model every 7 years with a refresh halfway through. Look at how slow Tesla is to get new product out now, I don't think they'll be able to keep up with how often the competition can pump out new models.

It is a fast car, but that is their top end, the Model S starts at $69k, and $130k for the Plaid. Basically the costs of an E450 or BMW 540i to the E63 and M5. Same price structure, same size cars. Mercedes will have AMG EQE to complete with the Model S Plaid. The EQS53 is 750 hp, now if they named that car the "53" it must be because there is a "63" in the works. There is always an AMG 63. And all they announced so far was EQE350 with single motor, obviously there will be a dual motor, and then an AMG above that. And considering pretty much every car they make has 2 levels of AMG, I don't see why they would change it on the electric cars.

There is no long wheelbase GLS, or X7 for that matter. But the regular Escalade and Navigator and Grand Wagoneer are not too much bigger than the GLS and X7, more importantly they all cost roughly the same. But the GLS and Escalade are the closest vehicles between those 2 brands, as the GLE and XT6 are close in size and price, etc. The Model S is not close in size or price the the EQS, however the EQE is almost identical to the Model S. Just as there will be an EQ C-class that will be the size of a Model 3, and there is going to be an EQ A-class under that. Mercedes is going to have 4 EV cars to Tesla's 2, I don't know why anyone would compare a mid-size Tesla to a full size Mercedes when there is mid-size Mercedes also.

What would you like to compare them by? Length, width height are all within an inch on EQE and Model S, and the EQE estimated cost is the same as a Model S.

Publications compared EQS and Tesla Model S, because for a month or 2 the EQS was the only EV Mercedes. Tesla Model S dimensions: 196" L x 77" W x 57" H wheelbase 116.5" base price $69,000 Now which of these 2 cars is closer to the Model S: EQS dimensions: 207" L x 83.6" W x 60" H wheelbase 126.4". est base price $124,000 EQE dimensions: 196.6" L x 77" W x 59" H wheelbase 122.9" est base price $65,000 EQS AMG, EQE, EQB all released in production trim, on sale in 2022. EQG and Maybach EQ-SUV concept shown, but those are 90% of the way to production, those are 2023 models with the standard EQS SUV and EQE SUV, and AMG version of the EQE, supposed to be a Maybach EQS also. By the end of calendar year 2023 Mercedes will have more EV's than Tesla. They might not outsell Tesla, but they are going to have more models.

I think the exterior is pretty meh, they missed on the exterior as the E-class and S-class look far better than the electric cars, why would I pay more for an uglier car? Interior of the EQE looks awesome, they nailed that. Problem is they are designing these EV's by wind tunnel, they need to sacrifice 10 miles of range in the name of styling.

First off, pointless comparison as the EQE is identical in size to the Tesla Model S. That is the Model S competitor, Tesla doesn’t have an EQS competitor, maybe they should build a full size luxury car, although they have other more urgent needs. Mercedes does have catch up to do, but they are on a mission. They released 3 new EV’s today (GLB, EQS AMG, and EQE) and near production ready concept electric G-wagen and Maybach SUV. 5 new EV’s in one day, plus a promise of EQE and EQS SUVs for next year. They are coming for Tesla. A Maybach is way more money than a Hummer, also that Hummer interior isn’t that nice. Where I think GM could do well is doing a midsize suv that is off road focused and EV that takes inspiration from the Hummer, but it half the cost and they can sell Chevy and GMC versions. So when you have people interested in a Hummer but don’t have $100k or don’t want a vehicle that big they have an easy transition to a sale.

Mercedes is the #1 selling luxury car brand in the world, yet "they do not sell that many luxury vehicles" ??? Who is selling more luxury cars than them? Who has a higher % over $50k, over $100k, or whatever other number you want to pick from. I don't know that Mercedes "wants" to go down market, I mean a CLA has the same price structure of a Cadillac CT5, it isn't really down market, it is priced like Cadillac most expensive sedan. Mercedes needs small cars for fuel economy and emissions reasons, they can't just sell V8 AMG's. Plus they want to have a complete line up of small, medium, large to hit a wide range of buyers, you have to have entry level product to bring people into a brand. It seems to be there is nearly $100,000 price difference between the Mercedes full size SUV and the GMC. Please find me the Lexus or Audi sedan in this price range: And I would love to see the BMW "Ultimate Driving Machine" rival to this: And then there is this guy that has 37 exterior color choices 31 interior color choices. Part of luxury is choice, what does Tesla have, like 4-5 exterior colors and 2 interior colors? Will the GMC Hummer have 37 color choices? Uh-oh, it is also rather easy for a CLA250 to cost over $50k:

Mercedes is doing an electric G-wagen, there is your answer. The G-wagen is the king of all SUVs, I am shocked there isn't a Maybach version of it (besides that convertible they did on the last one), but they'll have the electric and it will still be an icon. The public wants SUVs here, of which Mercedes has 9 of them, and 2 more coming next year, I think 11 is enough freaking SUVs. But in China sedans still sell, same with Europe. Mercedes sells like 325k units in the USA, vs 2 million outside of the USA, the American market isn't what steers their ship, like these other car companies. Tesla has problems for sure getting new product out, but their current product is still selling faster than they can make it. So what we basically have here is a race to flood the market with EV's and then you also need people to buy these. But assuming people do buy EV's, then it comes down to who can get the product out, and that will be the companies with deep pockets and lots of manufacturing capacity. Which is the VW's, Mercedes, GM's Toyota's of the world, and not the Rivians and Lucids of the world. Lucid just had a big stock crash yesterday as a lot of their early investors cashed out since they had agreements to keep the money in for 6 months or something and the time frame passed. Lucid stock is down 23% in the past 6 months, GM down 7% Tesla up 12%. Ford, Honda and Diamler have small gains, but Toyota is up 18.4% in the past 6 months, Toyota has $46 Billion cash on hand, that's a crap ton. But GMC is supposed to be better than Chevy, not equal to Chevy.

I advocated for GMC Sierra to have SLT, AT4 and Denali trims, but also I would keep 2WD, 4WD, turbo 4, 5.3 V8, 6.2 V8, and regular, super and quad cab configuration, plus 2500/3500 also. I want to wipe out basically any Sierra under $45-50k and steer those buyers to Chevy. The Tundra has a supercab only available on the base model, other wise is the quad cab with 1 engine choice. That is my problem with the Tundra. Plus the Silverado is the competitor to the Tundra, and they can run a dozen versions of the Silverado if they want. And there is no point to 40 SUVs, but that is what car companies do, I just watched a video on the Corolla Cross today, because Toyota clearly thought they need more SUVs and the 6 or 7 they have wasn't enough. And maybe the Yaris Cross will come here, why the hell not, more, more, more SUVs is what car execs think.

They don't have to copy the 1920s, but have brands more defined by price structure. So if you have a small SUV for example, the Chevy starts at $25k, the Buick version $30k, the GMC $35k and the Cadillac $45k. But right now an Equinox and Terrain overlap in price, the Envision and XT4 are like $4k apart. Probably even more so important now that Buick doesn't have sedans, at least when Buick had sedans, they could focus on cars while GMC did trucks in the Buick-GMC dealership. Jaguar-Land Rover has the same problem, once they kill all the Jaguar cars and Jaguar just makes SUVs, what is the point of 2 SUVs of the same size, same price, same engine, same switchgear, etc in the same dealership.

But the Lincoln Mark LT failing sort of proves my point. Even if it was a badge job, if the Lincoln badge carried weight, and people wanted a truck from a luxury brand, they should be willing to pay extra for the badge alone. And I agree the Mark LT was poor execution, what would need to happen is more of the difference you see in a Navigator and an Expedition Limited to justify the price difference. I write estimates on cars, the Avalanche basically has the same parts and schematics as a Suburban, they are a Suburban with the roof cut off in back basically, so it would make more sense to build them with the Suburban rather than the Silverado. But sales declined on those, GM obviously thought there wasn't enough of a market for Avalanche/EXT or that people would just buy a Silverado anyway and they'd still get their money. The Tundra is super dated, engine sucks, it is way too thirsty and they don't have enough variants over all. They make like 9 versions of the Rav4, yet like 1 version of the Tundra, no wonder it does't sell. If Toyota was aggressive with the Tundra as they are on Camry and Rav4 re-designs and engine choices and hybrids, then I think the Tundra would hit that 200k. The Titan/Armada/QX80 are a disaster, also super dated and never were competitive to begin with, they should just kill all that off, make some 3 row electric SUV, bring back an Xterra BOF SUV based of the new Frontier that is like $30-40k, people would buy that. Bu Luxury truck, you are talking about a luxury trim of an existing truck. For sure there is room for Denalis and F150 Limited. But do you see a market for a truck from a luxury brand, like Cadillac or Lincoln or Lexus?

And those are base models with no options. That doesn't exist on a dealer lot. Here is a GLB without any options added on True car over $50k: And here is the Cadillac CT5, is the ATP on that really $37k? Your TrueCar numbers are worthless because all it is showing is an expected sale price on the base trim, base model, no options vehicle. And that vehicle doesn't even exist on a dealer lot. Just like GMC sells 40% Denali, or whatever the rate is, people put options on Mercedes too, people buy E450s, they buy AMGs, buy more V8 S-classes than V6 ones. It's the same thing on just about every brand.

Couple things, 1. Luxury brands tend to have high lease rates because wealthy people trade cars more often and want a new car every 3 years. They have the disposable income to do that. Where as a middle class, or maybe lower middle class buyer (if they can even afford a new car anymore) are going to look at something to finance on a 5-7 year loan and try to keep that car 8-10 years to get value out of it, because they can't afford to go buy a new car every 3 years. 2. Brands with high resale value can offer attractive lease rates, when brands with poor resale value can not. Toyota should actually be able to kill it in leasing because of the resale value they have. 3. Fiat on there is an outlier, I suspect that is a manufacturer subsidized lease that they loose money on every one, but they have union contracts at factories they can't close and need CAFE credits, etc and no one will buy them, so they give them away on a lease. Yes they should. And you can still share platforms and some powertrains, that most consumers don't care about or know the difference. Especially in an EV world where everything is a chassis full of batteries with a body bolted on top. I am all for economies of scale to drive down cost. But you need 3 tiers, like going form Holiday Inn to a Marriott, to a Ritz Carlton. There needs to be a clear difference int he product.

Their #1 selling car in the USA this year is the GLE, average sale price on those is $75k. Their #2 seller is the E-class, which costs the same as a GLE, and #3 is the GLC. For the first half of 2021, 74,034 of Mercedes 160,646 sales were vehicles with a base MSRP over $54,000 (46.1%). If you add in C-class and GLC (which some body styles like C-convertible and GLC Coupe base over $50k and average sale prices of those lines would top $50k) you get 121,978 out of 160,646 which is 75.9%. And some CLA, GLB, GLA are selling for over $50k, but let's assume those cancel out with base C300's selling for under $50k and call that a wash. For Cadillac, 20,716 of their 73,406 sales in the first half of 2021 are vehicles with a base MSRP over $50,000, which is 28.2%. Also interesting to note, that Mercedes with just their cars that start over $54k outsell the whole Cadillac brand.

GMC shouldn't have any fleet, they can sell those through Chevy. GMC is supposed to be a level above Chevy, it shouldn't overlap Chevy. All 4 GM brands basically cover the same price ranges, that makes no sense. The Corvette is a Chevy, so value should be in there, that is why I have said I could see a turbo 4 or V6 with say 375-400 hp as a base Corvette for $55k, then the V8 Stingray can start at $65k, or even $70k, just put a little extra equipment standard on the V8 that is optional on the base car. And you'd have the Z06 at the top. Then you make a Cadillac sports car that starts at say $90k or $100k, and then goes upwards from there, to deliver luxury the Corvette can't, and a top end Cadillac would deliver performance above a Z06. My point is more that Chevy should be lower cost and volume based. Thus the Corvette shouldn't be a $100k+ car, the $100k car should be a Cadillac, with Cadillac level service, Cadillac dealers, etc. And GMC shouldn't be selling pickups (or SUV's) for the price of a Chevy. The GMC should be like 25% more than a Chevy, the Cadillac 50% more than a Chevy so you have actual tiers, like the way GM was designed to be 90 years ago.

Exactly, which is why the Sierra should start at the SLT trim. Let Chevy sell work trucks and the SLE equivalent. No they aren’t, if a loaded Denali 1500 is around $75k, a Cadillac would have to start at $80k. The luxury/sport trims would be $90k, the Platinum $100k, and you could easily have $10k in stand alone options to any of those trims.

But a Sierra starts at $30k. A luxury brand half ton truck would start around $75k for a 2 wheel drive. And I guess we’ll see how Rivian and Hummer do. If Cadillac did a pickup the base model would be like $80k and pushing up to say $110k for a half ton. I don’t see a market for that and GM must not either or they would build it. I am sure Mercedes doesn’t see a market for it either, especially not in Europe or China which are their 2 main markets.

The Cadillac image alone should make it worth more than a GMC, although the Cadillac image isn't what it should be. GM needs to work on that part, I think the whole Cadillac brand needs to push more upmarket but that is another issue. The Escalade has Super Cruise and the bigger screen with some more tech, better stereo than the Denali or High Country Tahoe. The materials and trim are better in an Escalade (more so on the higher trims) than a Yukon Denali according to Motor Trend, and they should be better if it's a Cadillac. The Escalade in base trim though has leatherette seats, you have to go up a level to get real leather which is standard in the Yukon Denali, but skip the base Escalade and go to the Luxury and problem solved there. Supposedly there is an Escalade-V coming, I don't know what has taken this long, there are always people willing to pay more for the best version of something, seems like easy profit margin, but I would imagine there won't be higher power Tahoe/Yukon, and only Escalade, so there is a differentiator.

I am not disputing that people pay $60-70k for some of these pick up trucks ($80k on some of the heavy duties), and then spend even more on after market stuff for them. And as I have said for 10 years, I think GMC should make the SLT trim the standard on every model, and Denali as the step up to get away from the Chevy overlap. This would wipe out 30% of GMC sales, which would piss off GMC dealers, but GM can still sell those people Chevorlets, so GM still gets the money anyway. What I am saying is a luxury brand truck won't work, otherwise these car companies would be doing it.

But AT4 isn't a luxury version, and GM also launched the AT4 and Denali first, before the other trims. I read 50% of 2500's are Denali in the same story, and 50% of overall Sierra's are AT4 or Denali. So maybe like 30% Denali on the overall, with 20% overall AT4. But Chevy isn't doing 30-50% High Country, Ford isn't doing 30% King Ranch edition. Although I have said since the GM bankruptcy, that GMC should be one of 2 things, either a fleet/work truck brand, or a Denali only type brand. They are too similar to Chevy right now. Just using the Sierra as an example, it starts at $30,100, but there is some package discount and GMC.com shows me $29,795 for a base model. The SLT starts at $47,500, and AT4 starts at $54,700 and Denali starts at $55,800. I think the Sierra (and all GMC's) should start at SLT as the base model, then have either an AT4 off road version or a Denali luxury version. Wipe out all those base and SLE trims. That would put them above Chevy, but still doesn't make them a full on luxury line. And a luxury brand truck like say a Lexus or Cadillac, would be nicer than a Denali, and I don't see a $100k Lexus Tundra or Cadillac Silverria selling. But a Lincoln pick up, in base trim, would have to be nicer and more luxurious than an F150 Platinum or King Ranch. So we are talking $75k or so for a V6 1500 truck before options, and running it to 100k, basically Navigator pricing. If there was a market for that, Ford would be doing it.