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Mercedes spends $8bn/year on R&D

caranddriver.com

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

#71

Post by iforgotpassword »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #32
iforgotpassword wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then how did we end up with Volkswagen's situation? Selling 100 cars for 20k each sounds better than selling 2 for 200k.

>Then how did we end up with Volkswagen's situation? Upper class don't buy VW. VW is a posh brand for the middle class which has now been wiped out by inflation and rising CoL, that's why they aren't selling. I'm surprised I have to spell out obvious stuff like this.

Bugatti and McLaren are in the same league as Mercedes?

Mercedes has always been the car for the middle class to aim for to show you made it, if that was the kind of thing that was important to you. Sure they also serve the upper class, but then again Volkswagen has Audi for that. And I'd be surprised if sales of the expensive models made the lions share, but I have to check.

But at least in my bubble I see even folks with money turn away from these kind of cars. It's like the car is losing its role as a status symbol.

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

#72

Post by Cumpiler69 »

mmooss wrote: post #67
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It’s also a result of German unions. I expect German politicians to defang the unions soon, similar to what they did with Agenda 2010 [1]. Yeah there will be some strikes and riots, but if the unions are causing an industry to be uncompetitive they're causing more harm than good. It's a shame because while unions are good on paper, over time they seem to default to protecting themselves at the expense of the industr…

> protecting themselves at the expense of the industry Don't management and shareholders and finance do that? German car companies are among the most successful in the world - Germany and Japan sit at the pinnacle of car manufacturing.

>German car companies are among the most successful in the world

Nokia and Blackberry were also the most successful phone companies in the world till about 2007. Then they stopped.

Similarly, there's no guarantee German companies can keep their positions for long with increased competition from US and Chinese companies.

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

#73

Post by wongarsu »

rdtsc wrote: post #19

Hopefully it's about how to make their cars more reliable. /s Somehow Mercedes owners I know always have their car in the shop complaining how expensive it is to own a Mercedes and how often the fancy little features they have always break down.

Obviously there are exceptions, but it's a common theme that expensive cars are expensive to own. You get to beta-test all the fancy new features before they trickle down to cheaper cars, and ease of construction or maintenance take a backseat to other concerns.

Of course you can always get the worst of both worlds by buying a used formerly-expensive car. You get all the difficult and expensive maintenance for features that either didn't pan out or that everyone already has the more robust version of.

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

#74

Post by Cumpiler69 »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #71
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Then how did we end up with Volkswagen's situation? Upper class don't buy VW. VW is a posh brand for the middle class which has now been wiped out by inflation and rising CoL, that's why they aren't selling. I'm surprised I have to spell out obvious stuff like this.

Bugatti and McLaren are in the same league as Mercedes? Mercedes has always been the car for the middle class to aim for to show you made it, if that was the kind of thing that was important to you. Sure they also serve the upper class, but then again Volkswagen has Audi for that. And I'd be surprised if sales of the expensive models made the lions share, but I have to check. But at least in my bubble I see even folk…

>Bugatti and McLaren are in the same league as Mercedes?

I never said that. You're going with offtopic parallels instead of addressing the arguments I'm making.

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

#75

Post by mmooss »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #70
mmooss wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who did Gates publicly call a pedophile? Who did Zuckerberg incite mass harassment against in order to terrorize them and drive them out of their workplace? Which of those people spread and incite hatred against Jewish people, immigrants, trans people, and endless more? Which of them openly backed a political candidate? Which openly and intentionally lied to their shareholders and the market? In fact none of them did…

>Why? Because it's waters down the massive suffering of people living under these dictators had to endure. Musk may not be a good guy by modern ethical standards, but he never caused millions to die or suffer like Mussolini so please lay off comparisons for which you don't understand the historical context. You basically show you have no idea what you're talking about with such gross comparisons.

Fair enough point, but do we wait until millions suffer and die in order to call it out? Causing widespread suffering is a means fully embraced, planned, and enacted by Musk and the team Musk is on. How much more warning do you need?

And they justify it by saying 'we get things done'.

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

#76

Post by Cumpiler69 »

mmooss wrote: post #63
dsco wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Where is there a higher quality of life and are there better cars than in Germany? Maybe Japan? Germany is arguably the most successful economy in the world, with the most successful manufacturing. And it benefits others besides the shareholders and executives. Maybe others should be following their model.

>Germany is arguably the most successful economy in the world

Care to argument? The numbers disagree with you. Germany's share of global GDP decreased massively in the last 30 years loosing to US and China. That's the opposite of a successful economy.

>And it benefits others besides the shareholders and executives.

Who does it benefit? German workers have the lowest median wealth per capita in Western Europe being some of the poorest citizens of the richer developed countries, have some of the highest wealth inequality in EU, and saw the highest drop in purchasing power in the last ~2 years, while many German companies are making layoffs and relocating abroad.

>Maybe others should be following their model.

I don't think making yourself poorer while resting on a glorious industrial past, is a model people and countries want to follow. I'd say Poland's growth is a model to follow, not Germany's decline.

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

#77

Post by Szpadel »

> The 800-volt battery used in the upcoming new CLA has its 912 cells wired in series. That means that if one cell is subpar, the entire string loses efficiency. If each cell were attached to one of these new converters, its four-volt output could be increased to 800 volts and they could all be wired in parallel. And a deficient cell would have a much smaller effect.

This is wrong in so many levels.

It's probably 4x 228 in series so each cell would have about 3.5V nominal voltage to get 800V

We put more and more in series for a reason, EV have peak power like 200kW, it's 250A already for 4V that is claimed here it would be 50000A, cables to handle this would be heaviest thing in the car.

I don't think this converter is able to boost voltage, that would be waste of components, it's for sure meant for stepping down 800V to 12/24/48V used for the rest of the car in low voltage system.

I get it that journalist cannot be specialists in every topic but I feel that they should consult it with someone before publishing

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

#78

Post by Cumpiler69 »

mmooss wrote: post #75
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why? Because it's waters down the massive suffering of people living under these dictators had to endure. Musk may not be a good guy by modern ethical standards, but he never caused millions to die or suffer like Mussolini so please lay off comparisons for which you don't understand the historical context. You basically show you have no idea what you're talking about with such gross comparisons.

Fair enough point, but do we wait until millions suffer and die in order to call it out? Causing widespread suffering is a means fully embraced, planned, and enacted by Musk and the team Musk is on. How much more warning do you need? And they justify it by saying 'we get things done'.

>Fair enough point, but do we wait until millions suffer and die in order to call it out?

Reading mean comments on Elon's social media platform is not "suffering". You can just turn it off and stop using it. You also don't have to work for Elon's companies, you are free to work anywhere else.

Stop comparing it to life under dictators. Talk to people who lived under Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao or Ceuasescu. Comparing Elon or his tech companies to those is a huge disservice to millions who saw actual suffering.

Comments like these come from people in positions of extreme privilege who never knew actual suffering and think they're doing the world a favor with their thought.

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

#79

Post by kkfx »

Honestly? So far the most problematic EVs I've seen are from Mercedes, Tesla and South Koreans EVs suffer much less, Chinese EVs much, much, much less... I do not know who much investments have all automakers but...

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

#80

Post by whiteboardr »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #28
Cumpiler69 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

Car manufacturers barely make money on the smaller high volume cars - eg. Mercedes only makes real profit starting with the E-class and up.
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