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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

#91

Post by rconti »

adastra22 wrote: post #17
andrewjf wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Why “surprisingly” about rivians? Build quality and serviceability of a Toyota is hard to beat though.

I'm guessing the idea of going from a passenger car to a truck but that's not exactly uncommon, especially because Rivan makes an SUV and plenty of people use SUVs and even 4 door pickups as everyday transportation.

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

#92

Post by mmooss »

bdangubic wrote: post #85
adamredwoods wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plutocracy unveiled.

look at where democracy got us - maybe time to try something else? :)

> look at where democracy got us

It's gotten us far beyond anything humanity imagined before it - or than any other form of government has achieved - in terms of freedom, justice, security, prosperity, health .... It's like early Google investors saying, 'look where that investment got us' - as a criticism!

Name any non-democratic country that compares!

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

#94

Post by mmooss »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #78
mmooss wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Reading mean comments on Elon's social media platform is not "suffering". You can just turn it off and stop using it.

The comments have a real-world impact - does anyone claim otherwise? Why would we even imagine that people magicially forget what they read on X when they log off? The hate spreads and is inflamed, people are conditioned to cruelty, and we know very well where that leads in the real world: brutality, oppression, and harassment. Musk's goal is to terrorize federal workers into leaving their jobs - not just in their X feeds.

How do you not stand against that? How do you spend time defending this person?

> Stop comparing it to life under dictators. Talk to people who lived under Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao or Ceuasescu.

Only life under Pol Pot, Stalin, etc. is bad enough to be a problem and nobody else can be criticized? (And I didn't compare anyone to those people, you did.) That's an extreme standard. And again, do you wait until people are dying and being oppressed? They already are victims of hate, violence, and oppression in record numbers.

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

#95

Post by iforgotpassword »

Cumpiler69 wrote: post #74
iforgotpassword wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Lol I see why your username is green. Guess I've fallen for a troll again. I addressed them all and you get hung up on the fact that you didn't explicitly spell it out and ignore the rest of my post. Enjoy your meal.

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

#96

Post by MrSkelter »

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.

I doubt that a German company is doing that. In addition spinning up a new car is a multi billion dollar enterprise and for 50 years Mercedes have released “the car of the future” in the shape of the new S class. Automotive journalists routinely call it the best car in the world and it’s where innovations start to trickle down from.

Other car companies do great things but it’s easy to see how Mercedes could be spending that much when you factor in that every car has to be completely new at least once a decade.

Chrysler built their biggest hit vehicle on obsolete mid-range Mercedes technology they were able to borrow.

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

#97

Post by tim333 »

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.

My one is packed with not strictly necessary gadgetry and while well made, replacement bits are not terribly cheap.

Like the first thing was the rear left ride height sensor broke and I've never previously even had a ride height sensor on a car.

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

#98

Post by tim333 »

nashashmi wrote: post #40

Apart from the sinister assumptions one could make about the spending, I assume that Mercedes is obviously waisting a whole lot of money on this. Why? Because trying to merge electrical technology with mechanical technology in a highly safety-demanding environment means rigorous testing before 5 year old tech makes its way into the market only to be superseded by newer technologies that can be installed separately. T…

They've been doing this for 139 years so have probably figured that. Come a long way from the Benz Patent-Motorwagen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benz_Patent-Motorwagen

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

#99

Post by Cumpiler69 »

panick21_ wrote: post #42

This is kind of crazy, Tesla at peak spent 4 billion $. And they used spend less then 2 billion $. And remember, Tesla is far more vertically integrated. Tesla has large spend in research for their battery and battery materials manufacturing. The make all their own chips, including even some on the data center. They also build robots. And do much of their own AI work. I must be that Tesla prefers to have some researc…

Well, Tesla is way more streamlined than the large, old, over-bloated ship that is Mercedes. Love or hate Musk, he knows how to run a very tight ship.

While a lot of Mercedes's budget goes to armies of overpaid managers who do nothing except waste time in endless meetings where they either argue and backstab each other, or high-five and backstab each other, in order to advance their careers. Not an environment that breeds innovation and creativity at a high pace.

Whatever is left goes to engineers that do actual work.

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

#100

Post by bdangubic »

mmooss wrote: post #93
bdangubic wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ohh that would be the day! not to sound all pessimistic on this fine saturday but people are too stupid to see the benefits of it

Many places in the world use it now.

many places are not America…

https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/11/18/ranked-choice-voting...

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