Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D • Hacker News Board

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#21

Post by Cumpiler69 » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:53 PM UTC

iforgotpassword wrote: post #18

OK WTF ist most of this? How about not targeting the upper market during inflation? > If I had had this tool when ordering my Porsche 911 a few years ago, I probably would have made a different color choice. Why not focus on what normal people want, like affordable reliable cars, instead of luxury cars with a dozen computers and screens in it where you need to get something fixed twice a year. Look at fucking Volkswa…

>OK WTF ist most of this? How about not targeting the upper market during inflation?

Why? The upper class is the one least affected by inflation. Just look how the stock market is doing. Even in bad times, luxury brands are selling just fine, this has been proven time and time again. Have you seen sales of Bugattis, Ferraris or McLarens slowing down?

The problem is, VW is not a luxury brand, it's an expensive commodity, making it the first thing avenge people axe in tough times.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#22

Post by ben_w » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:55 PM UTC

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #16

formerly_proven wrote: post #4

… and VW drops 23 billion on RND each year, but I’m not seeing 6x the output compared to Tesla.

If you knew VW, it has way more people on payroll doing nothing for huge salaries than Imma-fire-80%-of-people Elon. Love him or hate him, he gets shit done.

He does get shit done.

Sometimes it's good shit, other times it's just shit.

That cost-cutting approach worked with turning Tesla from the butt of (quite reasonable at the time) jokes about "Death Watch" because they kept needing more and more investment money, into the success they are today.

It utterly failed with Twitter, which has lost most of its revenue and is constantly running into legal issues.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#23

Post by up2isomorphism » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:56 PM UTC

The fundamental problem is building a good car and letting customers changing a new Mercedes every couple of years are very different goals.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#24

Post by wslh » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:57 PM UTC

The cynic in me is already asking: where are the flying cars?

They were at the top in F1 until 2021.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#25

Post by rconti » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:58 PM UTC

andrewjf wrote: post #7

bufferoverflow wrote: post #3

[flagged]

Tesla build quality is atrocious, the interior feels cheap, and their repair process is very long cycle time. I’ve known several people in the “never (Tesla) again” camp and now they’re buying Mercedes EVs, rivians (surprisingly) and Lucids. I have had a few Mercedes and they know how to maintain service on cars for a long long time. I’d never buy a Tesla. They are a joke and you’re paying for the name and they used…

> I’d never buy a Tesla. They are a joke and you’re paying for the name and they used to be able to charge a premium because they were the first to market

I'm not sure where you're getting "charge a premium for the name" from. If anything, they're driving prices down. Batteries are expensive; they've cut corners on interiors and stuff like that in order to make them price competitive with ICE vehicles.

Thankfully there are a lot more EVs on the market now but most manufacturers are having a hard time hitting the price/range points of Tesla. Every time I watch an EV review, the Tesla ends up being the benchmark, at least from a cost/range perspective.

I recently watched the entire Out of Spec Motoring I-90 Surge EV "race" across the US, and, impressively, the 2 cheapest cars -- the Hyundai Ioniq6 and Model 3 RWD LR -- were right near the top in terms of roadtrip performance. Legacy automakers are just finally reaching parity.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#26

Post by blackeyeblitzar » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:58 PM UTC

syntaxing wrote: post #14

I haven’t worked in a revenue positive company for over 5 years. But prior to that, once a year, someone would sit at my desk asking for anything I did was “new” and how so. In the states, any “research” work is a tax write off. I wouldn’t be surprised if Mercedes is using this as well.

Yes virtually all companies do this but some are very good (or aggressive) at this game. Classifying things as new research is easy to claim and hard to disprove. Think about it from the perspective of an auditor - they can’t do much more than check something off. Like there’s some vague project plan shared as evidence? Alright this checks out. Next company. The real problem is it’s big sophisticated incumbents who abuse this system. Young scrappy startups that are actually doing R&D often underutilize these tax breaks.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#27

Post by bobthepanda » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:58 PM UTC

wslh wrote: post #24

The cynic in me is already asking: where are the flying cars? They were at the top in F1 until 2021.

Unless energy becomes significantly cheaper we are unlikely to see personal flying cars, and that’s also before you put all the car crashes that happen today and put them above people’s heads.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#28

Post by iforgotpassword » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:58 PM UTC

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #21

iforgotpassword wrote: post #18

OK WTF ist most of this? How about not targeting the upper market during inflation? > If I had had this tool when ordering my Porsche 911 a few years ago, I probably would have made a different color choice. Why not focus on what normal people want, like affordable reliable cars, instead of luxury cars with a dozen computers and screens in it where you need to get something fixed twice a year. Look at fucking Volkswa…

>OK WTF ist most of this? How about not targeting the upper market during inflation? Why? The upper class is the one least affected by inflation. Just look how the stock market is doing. Even in bad times, luxury brands are selling just fine, this has been proven time and time again. Have you seen sales of Bugattis, Ferraris or McLarens slowing down? The problem is, VW is not a luxury brand, it's an expensive commodi…

Then how did we end up with Volkswagen's situation?

Selling 100 cars for 20k each sounds better than selling 2 for 200k.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#29

Post by rconti » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 6:59 PM UTC

mindo wrote: post #10

Yet they are rumored to be sourcing 2026 CLA engine from Chinese Geely. Nothing agains Chinese companies, but aren't MB suppose to be luxury brand? Geely will probably offer vehicle with same engine, more tech for half the price.

Mercedes is pushing some pretty awful motors, like the new C63 4cyl turbo hybrid thing. Of course, a lot of this is driven by regulation, not Mercedes being cheap.

Re: Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

#30

Post by dsco » Sat, Nov 23, 2024, 7:00 PM UTC

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #16

formerly_proven wrote: post #4

… and VW drops 23 billion on RND each year, but I’m not seeing 6x the output compared to Tesla.

If you knew VW, it has way more people on payroll doing nothing for huge salaries than Imma-fire-80%-of-people Elon. Love him or hate him, he gets shit done.

It’s also a result of German unions. It’s practically impossible to fire people in the auto industry, so effectively what we do at VW is we have deadweight organisations where people end up if they are low performers and refuse to leave. The European auto industry is partly a charade to keep people employed.