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smk4565

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Everything posted by smk4565

  1. smk4565
    I feel like these will be a good deal on the used car market because they'll probably drop in value and Hyundai/Kia products have pretty good reliability and warranty so you can probably pick up a reliable used car with good performance for like half the cost of new when they are about 3 years old.
  2. smk4565
    Making SUVs saved Porsche, not turning the 911 into an SUV. Also the 911 has ridiculous profit margins which helped them, and between the 2 they got the cash to buy 1/3 of VW or whatever they got in that merger/acquisition thing they did. Porsche is a band, Corvette is not. 911 is the same 2+2 rear engine car it has been for 50 years. You can not buy an 911 sedan or a 911 SUV.
  3. smk4565
    As I said in my other post, M is a trim level, AMG is a trim level. Corvette is not a trim level. GMC puts "Denali" on everything, as they should. And Cadillac could use more V-series cars. Making a Corvette SUV makes just as much sense as Cadillac making an electric 2 seat sports car and calling it Escalade.
  4. smk4565
    AMG isn't a car though, it was a tuner company bought by Mercedes. And now is a trim level of sorts. If GM wants to make electric SUV's with Denali, V-series, Avenir, or SS badges all over it, then have at it. A Corvette SUV would be like if Mercedes made an SL electric crossover, or Porsche made a 911 3-row crossover. Makes no sense. Corvette is 2 seat coupe/convertible and has been for 60+ years, it can't be an SUV.
  5. smk4565
    About 2 years Dr. Dieter Zetsche was CEO, Dr. Thomas Weber was in charge of R&D for Mercedes and Tobias Moers was CEO of AMG, and all 3 are engineers, but now they are all gone. Now Ola Kallenius is CEO ( was formally was head of AMG and R&D) but he is an economics and finance guy. So we'll see what happens, they might run into the beancounter abyss also and get run over by Tesla. I agree Tesla's stock value doesn't make sense, but it keeps going up.
  6. smk4565
    Well yeah, I am sure there are other good engineers they can hire. My point was more that the engineers and designers don't run the company, the finance people do. And the danger is them making finance decisions over product decisions. Because they see Tesla worth $750 billion or whatever they are worth and GM worth $70 billion and they'll probably do anything they can to compete with Tesla because the stockholders will demand it. And Tesla copying is where a lot of car makers can get in trouble.
  7. smk4565
    But he'll one day retire or be forced out. Or if they tell him to make a Corvette SUV, he'll have to do it. I tend to think GM isn't that stupid to make a Corvette SUV or Corvette sedan or anything else like that. A Corvette EV sure, but all that is is swapping the gas engine for batteries and motor, it would still be a 2 seat sports car.
  8. smk4565
    I imagine in a few years all these products are going to be pretty similar. Stellantis is going to come up with a couple transmissions, a few engines, 1 infotainment system, and regardless of which brand you buy from, most of the car will come from the same parts bin. So whether the car is called Dodge, Chrysler, Opel, Peugeot, etc, it will be similar with the exception of the styling on the front and rear fascias.
  9. smk4565
    One badge I think, Bronco Sport is similar, they are really trying to push “Bronco” not Ford. Which is fine, but the Ford brand doesn’t have a lot of cache. That’s why their Tesla Model Y fighter is called Mustang rather than Ford E-whatever since all their SUV’s have E names. Ford needs to use their #1 model name to stand a chance against the Tesla brand, but if the Mach-E is a bust then it drags the Mustang down with it. I don’t like calling an SUV a Mustang, nor do I like calling an SUV a Corvette. Early reviews seem pretty positive on the Mach E, but I am curious how it does long term.
  10. smk4565
    I don't think any live Auto show happens in 2021. Who would go even if they had one? It would lose money. Just like how every movie studio keeps delaying their movies, even if a theater is open no one will go and blockbuster movies that would do $100 million in a weekend pre-Covid open with like $8 million and the studio loses money.
  11. smk4565
    A Corvette SUV is a horrible idea, they shouldn't do it. However I think GM will do it. The "Corvette" name still means something because it hasn't been watered down or trashed. If GM wants to make a high performance electric crossover, I'd say that is what Cadillac is for. And if they want to make a high performance electric crossover with a crappier interior call it Blazer SS, or GMC Typhoon or make up a new name. Also not a fan of "Mustang Mach-E" because you know, it isn't an actual Mustang. Why isn't it just Mach-E? This goes to a greater problem with how trash the brand image of Ford and Chevrolet are, why they have to call everything Corvette or Mustang, why the Bronco doesn't say Ford on it, etc. Compared to say Tesla, where the brand matters more than the model. Ask a Corvette owner what kind of car they drive, they'll say Corvette, not Chevy, ask a Model S owner and they'll say Tesla. GM needs to make the Chevy brand cool, not trash the Corvette name with SUVs.
  12. smk4565
    The GV80 really seems to upstage this interior too at the same money. I feel like XT6 is just an also ran, sort of like the MDX and whatever Infiniti is peddling in this segment.
  13. smk4565
    No, they should not split into 2 companies. Tesla is over inflated, maybe they will be able to monetize data collected from their drivers/owners, maybe they will be able to produce self driving cars that generate money for the company like an Uber driver would, but with no driver and the money going to Tesla. But maybe also the Germans squash them in the EV market. A lot of maybes but I think Tesla is over valued. And other car companies should not try to be like Tesla because they aren't.
  14. smk4565
    The problem of this car is the price. $65k for that V8 seems like a decent deal, but not $89k. There are more powerful, faster, better equipped, more modern cars for that same money. But this car will probably be gone in a year or two because car companies aren't investing in sports sedans and sports coupes anymore, or V8s anymore. I was just thinking the other day how the VW Passage had a W8 option before, the Bonneville had a Northstar V8, the Impala had a 5.3 V8 option, and this was all about 15 years ago. Now you are lucky to even find a V6 in a front drive car, they are mostly all turbo 4. And look at how the Sky/Solstice, Camry Solara, Accord Coupe, Altima Coupe, Monte Carlo, Scion tC, and more coupes have been killed in the past 10-15 years. It is all about FWD, 4-cylinder crossovers now. Lexus will soon replace this with that LCX-Limiteless crossover thing, that will probably have a 3.5 V6 plus hybrid combo making about 400 hp pulling 5,000 lbs, and they'll want $95k for it and position it as the flagship Lexus performance vehicle. Because that LC will be dead by then due to no sales.
  15. smk4565
    The interior is where the IS and RC really fall short. I feel like it hasn't changed in 10 years and I don't think it was that good 5-10 years ago either. That interior is a lot of plastic and Toyota switchgear. The engine sounds good in the video, but it too is really dated. You can tell Lexus is just letting their sedans die on the vine, like they did with the GS. The IS/RC will probably be gone in a year or two and they'll keep the ES around since it is an Avalon/Camry and they will probably keep the LS even if it doesn't sell just to have a flagship. I think the M440i might even outperform the RC F at this point. Probably why Toyota went to BMW to make the Supra.
  16. smk4565
    I think they'll charge a lot of this, but clearly they are concerned with the Bronco coming and stealing sales, and they want to create some hype on the Wrangler. I doubt they do a Hellcat though because it would probably drive like total crap, due to off road tires, high center of gravity, etc.
  17. smk4565
    500 hp, 0-60 in under 5 seconds, 300 mile mile range, win, win win. That grille though, nope! BMW styling is a train wreck right now.
  18. smk4565
    The $6300 Inscription package seems like a big waste of money, especially since part of it is a stereo upgrade when there is $3200 then added on for another stereo upgrade.
  19. smk4565
    $87k for a Volvo is bonkers crazy.
  20. smk4565
    It isn't a bad price for the iD4, but the base iD4 is rear drive, and people buy crossovers for all wheel drive even if they don't need it. So when the dual motor comes at $45-50k, that gets to be a lot. And I get that EV's have less maintenance and operating costs, but there are like 100 crossovers on the market, you have to be competitive to get sales. I also think media, auto companies, journalists, etc fall into the trap of comparing EVs only to other EV's. When really you have to compare EV's to all other cars of similar price. Yes some consumers might shop EV only no matter what, but a lot are coming to compare the EV to a gas car.
  21. smk4565
    Small crossover is a great idea for an EV since that is what sells. Most of these new EVs are 4-door sedans, which is exactly what people are going away from. This looks to be a good product at the wrong price. Because people won't really compare it to a Tesla, they'll compare it to a Tiguan or RAV4 that is $30k, and is the same size, acceleration, has same features, etc at the iD4 at $40k. They still need battery prices to drop some more to make these EV's really appealing.
  22. smk4565
    Probably when 3 years old these will be $30k, which will be a great deal.
  23. smk4565
    There is a shortage of big, comfortable cars since most are the sport sedan so I think this will have appeal to those that want a traditional American luxury car, even though this isn’t American. This sort of sits alone in the market but I don’t know if there are enough buyers left for this sort of vehicle.
  24. smk4565
    The big rectangle looks stupid, the rest of the car looks fine, nothing bad but nothing really striking or exciting either. Other problem is the GT-R is the halo car at Nissan, the Z is like the 2nd tier. At a time when sports coupes aren’t selling, I don’t know if they did enough to make this sell. The Infiniti Q60 coupe looks better and probably will have the same price as the Z.
  25. smk4565
    For one, these car companies can just do online video releases of these cars whenever they want, and it is cheaper than an auto show. Then they can have some locations they let journalists come to, to write reviews, get photos, etc. The car company can get the same buzz without the auto show concept. Other problem with auto shows, is 1,000s of people in an indoor convention center all touching door handles, sitting in cars, sneezing and coughing on steering wheels, etc. As long as coronavirus is around, which could be years really, then there is no auto show.
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