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Mercedes Pooh-Poohs Tesla, Says It Has "Limited Potential"
cartechboy (2660665) writes "They say you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. Maybe it should go you shouldn't trash talk the company you partner with. U.S. head of Mercedes-Benz Steve Cannon was just quoted as saying future service of Tesla's vehicles could be 'limited,' and that while it's great, the market could be more attracted to other luxury automakers once their products hit the market. Cannon also suggests that the current infrastructure isn't up to maintaining and fueling electric vehicles, in particularly Tesla's stores and go-to servicing can't handle high demands. Naturally he said Mercedes has the 'whole network' to put customers minds' at ease. Sounds like fighting words to me. Hey Mercedes, where's your Model S competitor?"
There is a reason that Jim Rogers drove around the world in a Mercedes.
From the summary, it seems like they are valid criticisms at the moment. I hope tesla grows and becomes a big player, but both those points seem like they'll need to be addressed as they progress.
what review did Eeyore give it?
As long as you look at the world as it is now and don't account for a fast moving tech world, I suppose his viewpoint is correct.
In the same vein, around 2004 or so, smart phones would have appeared "limited" because the cell and wifi infrastructure didn't exist. Yet, in 10 years, the supply has met the demand (well, arguably), and now smart phones are ubiquitous.
Or it could just be sour grapes.
"First They ignore you, Then they laugh at you, Then they fight you, Then you win."
I think this looks a bit like Mercedes laughing at Tesla...
"Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
Didn't they invest in Tesla a while back, including a joint venture for the electric B-class?
Have any of them actually dealt with a stealership in the last 50 years? (Only reason I get near them, is dealer only parts.)
Seriously; telling me to not buy a Tesla because I'll miss out on the dealership is like telling me not to...drawing a blank...no analogies are bad enough. Anybody?...lets skip the prison rape ones.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Tesla has made an electric vehicle that doesn't make anyone with a sense of style want to puke, and that's a very good thing, but there's just a handful of things they need to do, IMO, to really knock the ball out of the park for electric cars:
1) One needs to be able to charge it quickly, perhaps with an upper limit of about 10 minutes or so, sufficiently to go approximately as far as one could expect go on a tank of gas in a typical car of today. I would not expect to be able to charge it this quickly on conventional house current... it probably would require a dedicated type of charging circuit. But this would make recharging a car at such places not significantly more time consuming than filling up a car with gas, and would make owning an electric vehicle vastly more convenient than it currently is.
2) Charging infrastructure needs to be ubquitous, so that if you can drive there in a regular vehicle, you should be able to get there and back in your electric car as well.
3) The pricing structure for an electric car should be comparable to that of an otherwise similarly equipped gas-powered vehicle... and should not carry a premium cost that is almost equivalent to buying an additional automobile. Making them affordable, in addition to the other two points, will mean that there's no reason for people not to drive one.
If or when Tesla, or any electric vehicle manufacturer, can hit all three of the above points, I'd dare say that the writing will finally be on the wall for the age of gasoline, and I think electric cars could outnumber gasoline vehicles on the road within a decade.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
"...Tesla's stores and go-to servicing can't handle high demands. Naturally he said Mercedes has the "whole network" to put customers minds' at ease."
Yes, I feel so much more at ease knowing there is an entire network of highly trained and certified rip-off artists across the country ready to turn my $35,000 Mercedes into a $60,000 pain-in-the-ass when it breaks down and needs to visit a "certified" repair shop.
"There is a reason that Jim Rogers drove around the world in a Mercedes."
Uh, yeah, a one-of-a-kind purpose-built Mercedes counts about as much as an army tank in this discussion. If you want to make claims about traversing the globe, impress me with an actual product demonstration, not a bullshit one. I would hope one would be able to traverse the globe in a custom-built vehicle that likely exceeded $500K in total costs, regardless of who built it.
My transmission on a Mercedes 2011 GLK SUV just died. The repair cost is $12,000, its almost not worth repairing.
Unfortunately its not covered by warranty - cut off at 80,000 km, we have 83,000 km.
Ironically, just this afternoon I spent 30 minutes on the phone with Tesla to discussing ordering my replacement vehicle. Needless to say:
New Mercedes cancelled.
New Tesla imminent.
Will be here in July.
Maybe Mercedes should focus of the reliability of their transmissions vs focusing on competitors. I will never buy another Mercedes - ever.
PS: You would think having purchased 4 vehicles from Mercedes and plans for another, that would mean something. But you would be wrong. Their side of the story - we were late for our Series A service - hence tough luck.
What he really should have said is all automakers are frightened to death by Tesla and embarrassed beyond all bounds that they did not create Tesla's products. Obviously there is a conspiracy afoot to stop Tesla in its tracks as every state that Tesla sells in has suits claiming that they should not be allowed to exist. The industry is reacting as if Tesla had invented a car that could run for free on a drop of water. The powers that be see the handwriting on the wall and they are have a fit.
Maybe the relationship is over and Mercedes is feeling a little bitter?
What Mercedes needs is a non-committal rebound relationship with a cute exotic Asian carmaker.
They seem to be questioning their identity, so maybe a discrete hook-up with a Tata Daewoo ladyboy?
New Mercedes electric minivan has a Tesla touch
Apr 17 2014, 08:04 ET
Mercedes-Benz (DDAIF) has started production of an electric B-class minivan.
Tesla Motors (TSLA) is providing the 28kWh lithium-ion battery and electric motor for the line.
The model will go on sale this summer in the U.S.
http://seekingalpha.com/news/1...
Not a single one of them thought of adding an electric motor to go from 0 to 2 mph.Going from 2 mph to 60 using IC engines would be a cinch. They could reduce the weight of the engine, they did not have to engneer them to have enough torque at the low end to get the car off to start. The optimization curves will be totally different, and they could have gotten whole seconds shaved off. Like Tesla showed them when it debuted.
They saw diesel electric locomotives replace steam engines in just one decade in 1950s. They know how well electric motors work as traction motors. We are not talking about battery cars, electric cars or even hybrids. Simple lead-acid battery with enough juice to pull the car from rest to 2mph may be five times. Total battery capacity less than half a mile of range. This they could have done back in the 1960s. They could have had the bragging rights on the quarter mile time and 0 to 60 time pissing contests. But no. They did not think of strapping a small motor to remove the low end torque requirement in their ic engines.
They were very straight jacketed think with in the box conformists. May be these mechanical engineers hated the electrical engineers and did not want them anywhere near their crown jewel the power train of the automobile.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
I sympathize. I have a similar story about my former Benz. At 70K miles I had repair problem with the motor. MB's fault really, had to have been set up wrong at the factory. Cost of repair was about $7K. They put in $2K, but I had to fork over the rest. I will never buy another Benz. I have owned several cars. None ever had a catastrophic failure at 70K miles. Of course the dealers will tell you that is why you should buy an extended warranty. My response is the policy and its renewal fee would have been about as much, so it would have been worthless to me. After I decided to get rid of the Benz, I was quite tempted to buy a Model S after driving one. Ultimately I thought I would wait until they add a few features I like that are available on other cars. When the warranty is about to expire on the new car I will buy the Tesla.
It's also worth noting what a huge difference there is when buying a car from a dealership and a Tesla from the store. I think 99% of us share the opinion that buying a car from a dealership is the most insulting retail experience there is. Dealers know it but don't care since the franchise laws protect them from reasonable market forces. No wonder they are all trying to stop Tesla from selling direct to consumers. But car dealers are not the only industry that plays the regulatory game. Just one of the worst abusers.
Imagine how much harder physics would be if electrons had feelings! -Feynman, maybe
May as well be a buggy manufacturer in the early 1900s mocking Henry Ford as not having the infrastructure to support automobiles. "Look!" says the CEO, "His automobiles have to be serviced by one of those rare individuals that knows how, but our horse and buggy work everywhere!"
Prior to widespread adoption of internal combustion engines, gas stations (as such) didn't exist. Prior to widespread adoption of the telegraph and the telephone, infrastructure supporting those innovations didn't exist. Prior to the widespread adoption of the Internet, there weren't millions of miles of high speed data cables crossing the globe with signals directed by complex high-speed routing devices. Prior to the widespread adoption of cell phones and smartphones, there was no infrastructure to support them either.
Yet all these things thrived because the infrastructure grew with their adoption. When someone has a car and needs fuel, he has to figure out the logistics of that himself and it can seem unworkable on a larger scale. When half his neighbors have cars and need fuel, an enterprising young businessman comes along and opens a gas station. When Elon Musk sells a few hundred high-end sports cars (the Roadster) around the world to some rich people, he and his customers have to work out some painful logistics for things like service and it can seem unworkable on a larger scale. Check back in five years and see how much trouble it is to run around in the latest Tesla car then.
Tesla's working because they started at the high end of the market where margins are high and logistics are easier. They've used those high margins to push through massive infrastructure improvements around the US and in other richer areas to allow for an even more rapid adoption. They've established a brand by promising big and delivering bigger, then continuing to deliver long after the sale (improving an existing car? who's ever heard of such a thing?!) Mercedes can claim Tesla isn't a threat, but they're a few years away from either having to spend a fortune trying to catch up or they'll end up paying Elon Musk licensing fees for his tech.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
Maybe Mercedes should focus of the reliability of their transmissions vs focusing on competitors. I will never buy another Mercedes - ever.
Guess what? It's not just Mercedes. I don't know where Mercedes gets their transmissions, but the automatics (tiptronic or not - actually, in some cars, it's a software and shifter issue only) that VAG gets from ZF seem to be quite crap. The A8Q I'm working on right now is on its second transmission, and the first one was replaced in about year two. As leaky as this car is, I wouldn't likely have bought it if it had been on the original slush box.
Germany was the watchword for quality up until the late eighties. But German cars are now, I am quite sorry to say, shit. My father once explained to me (repeating something a wise man must have said to him) that the Germans believed in using the best parts and the Japanese believed in doing the best design such that you could get away with the cheap parts. My experience is that these are in fact the design strategies employed by these nations. The problem with the German strategy today is that the companies making their parts are now making shit. Bosch is now turning out at least as many total turds as roses, for example, if not far more, and all of these German cars have Bosch ignition and traction control (etc.) systems — all the VAGs, all the Mercedes, and all the BMWs, as far as I can tell. These are both exquisitely expensive and poorly designed, vulnerable to water intrusion and for some reason these days typically mounted in the engine compartment. Except my LHD D2 A8, which puts the ABS control module in a really annoying place up under the dash instead of upside down in the E-box right under the PCM where they put it on the RHD vehicles, even more annoying.
Meanwhile, there are very few things that were annoying back in the W123, W126 Mercedes days in the 1980s. Turbo oil return on the diesel was crap. The engine mounts are a bit overcontrived to the point that you can't really torque all the bolts without a special tool, or taking off a bunch of stuff.
PS: You would think having purchased 4 vehicles from Mercedes and plans for another, that would mean something. But you would be wrong. Their side of the story - we were late for our Series A service - hence tough luck.
It's the economy, brother.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't read articles written by children.