EQS (V297) [Official] Mercedes-Benz EQS

[Mr. Mercedes]

The interiors of the EQ's HAVE to be improved in terms of build and finish, otherwise they're kidding themselves.

 

[Sunny]

Why bother? It is beyond salvageable. Cut the loses and move on.

 

[Rolf]

Why bother? It is beyond salvageable. Cut the loses and move on.

Totally agree, the EQS has been a dismal failure for Mercedes Benz and a minor FL with star headlights is not going to save this car, I don't think sales will improve and it could be making a massive loss.

 

[Design FIRST]

Totally agree, the EQS has been a dismal failure for Mercedes Benz and a minor FL with star headlights is not going to save this car, I don't think sales will improve and it could be making a massive loss.

Yes, this could be likened to an undertaker applying makeup to a corpse prior to its burial. The successor to the EQS sedan, the electric S-Class, cannot be presented soon enough.

 

[PHYBENZ]

I lease an EQS. Have had it for a year. While in certain spots the interior is certainly of inferior quality that my C43 with Designo interior, I truly love how I haven't been to a game station in a year, the mileage per charge is consistently 330 or better, it is super smooth, quiet an the tech is second to none. Yes, certainly not the best looking car on the road, but it still gets looks on the road, though maybe for the wrong reason!

 

[Gianclaudio]

Why bother? It is beyond salvageable. Cut the loses and move on.

Yeah, but those stars in the blinkers....

 

[Matski]

Without the outer ring, that 3 point motiff is getting more Mitsubishi than it is Mercedes.

 

[Rolf]

Without the outer ring, that 3 point motiff is getting more Mitsubishi than it is Mercedes.

I do feel the latest Mercedes models are becoming more mass market than the previous models which reflected real luxury and supreme build. The latest Chinese cars are showing a level of build quality and materials that are better in some cases and they much much cheaper.

 

[KiwiRob]

I do feel the latest Mercedes models are becoming more mass market than the previous models which reflected real luxury and supreme build. The latest Chinese cars are showing a level of build quality and materials that are better in some cases and they much much cheaper.

I think you have to go way way back to the W124, W126, W140, R129 era to find the last Mercedes which were built like Mercedes should be built.

 

[martinbo]

I think you have to go way way back to the W124, W126, W140, R129 era to find the last Mercedes which were built like Mercedes should be built.

There've been others that were well-made to be fair, W211 (especially facelift) and W204 come to mind as solidly-built Mercs. I'm sure there are others of that generation.

Edit: In fact, W212 - although not much of a looker - was a nicely solid build too.

 

[AbsoluteUnit]

I do feel the latest Mercedes models are becoming more mass market than the previous models which reflected real luxury and supreme build. The latest Chinese cars are showing a level of build quality and materials that are better in some cases and they much much cheaper.

The W214, while looking quite chintzy, is built a lot better than the 213.

As for the chinese cars. Well we'll see if they can sustain it. It's a lot easier to be cheap when your labour costs are minimal.

 

[Rolf]

The W214, while looking quite chintzy, is built a lot better than the 213.

As for the chinese cars. Well we'll see if they can sustain it. It's a lot easier to be cheap when your labour costs are minimal.

I am sure the cost of labour in China is gone up due to the improvements in the standard of living for the rural people who migrated to cities to search for jobs.

 

[Merc1]

I do feel the latest Mercedes models are becoming more mass market than the previous models which reflected real luxury and supreme build. The latest Chinese cars are showing a level of build quality and materials that are better in some cases and they much much cheaper.

Yeah it’s easy to wrap junk in nice materials tho. What about the actual car underneath?

M

 

[KiwiRob]

The W214, while looking quite chintzy, is built a lot better than the 213.

As for the chinese cars. Well we'll see if they can sustain it. It's a lot easier to be cheap when your labour costs are minimal.

Chinese factory workers aren't paid a hell of a lot less than factory workers in Eastern Europe, they're much better paid than India factory workers. My previous employer has a factory in Poland and one in China, the Poles were paid about 15% more than the Chinese. The gap is rapidly closing. The other big difference is the Chinese automakers are more vertically integrated than any other automaker, like Tesla they use larger pressing for bodies and use less components per vehicle.

You can argue till you're blue in the face but China has mastered the art of building most items, they can put things together quicker and ore efficiently than anyone else. The Japanese had this advantage for a long time, I remember my dad when I was a kid saying he would never buy Jap crap, since he sold his last Audi back in the 90's he's only owned Japanese cars except for my mums Ford Puma.

 

[Matski]

Chinese factory workers aren't paid a hell of a lot less than factory workers in Eastern Europe

Poland is still quite a way behind Germany or the UK in that respect.

It's also not just what's getting paid to the workers, there's a knock on cost of, for example, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity/paternity, pension contributions etc. which will vary quite a bit, and I don't know, but I suspect the further east you go, the less other benefits the workers get.

 

[AbsoluteUnit]

Poland is still quite a way behind Germany or the UK in that respect.

It's also not just what's getting paid to the workers, there's a knock on cost of, for example, holiday pay, sick pay, maternity/paternity, pension contributions etc. which will vary quite a bit, and I don't know, but I suspect the further east you go, the less other benefits the workers get.

Yes. There's also greater work pressure, less overall freedom.

Does that matter to the end user? Probably not. In the most cynical corporate capitalist sense only the end product should matter. But the world is more complicated than that.

In any case Western economies won't be able to compete with manufacturing that is heavily subsidised by the Chinese government (with the possible usage of indentured labour), so there will be tariffs to protect their own business interests.

Finally, there's more to cars than just how pretty the interior looks. It needs to be able to last, and then there are the electromechanical and safety systems. We'll see what the future holds.

 

[KiwiRob]

Chinese workers have it at least as good if not better than the US. Retirement age is 55 for women, 60 for men. holiday pay is 10-15 days per year, or more depending on employer, pensions are paid by the state, plus employers have to pay an additional 8% to the employees defined contribution pension plan, sick leave is anywhere from 3 to 24 months, healthcare is provided by the state. Maternity leave is 158 days plus 15 days for each child of a multiple birth pregnancy at full pay. 90% of Chinese own there own home, compared to 65% of Americans and 47% of Germans. China also has a high savings rate, better than all bar 3 European countries, Ireland, Luxemborg and San Marino.

A lot of the components in vehicles today come from China, I learned this a couple of months ago, most car glass for manufacturers throughout the entire world is made in China. The back window of my mini was smashed, it went to BMW to be repaired, I was chatting to the guy whilst he did the job, the new window came out of a box with made in China stamped on it.

 

[bmwz4coupe]

Chinese workers have it at least as good if not better than the US. Retirement age is 55 for women, 60 for men. holiday pay is 10-15 days per year, or more depending on employer, pensions are paid by the state, plus employers have to pay an additional 8% to the employees defined contribution pension plan, sick leave is anywhere from 3 to 24 months, healthcare is provided by the state. Maternity leave is 158 days plus 15 days for each child of a multiple birth pregnancy at full pay.

But don’t suddenly do a conveniant switch from Europe to US. US has very few vacation days compared to European countries, and almost a lack of a public social security system.

 

[Sunny]

Chinese workers have it at least as good if not better than the US.

Your stupidity is mind blowing! US workers have the right to free speech, right to vote. When a Chinese worker have the right to say f#ck Xi in his ass, as a US worker has to say f#ck Biden in his, come back.

 

[KiwiRob]

Your stupidity is mind blowing! US workers have the right to free speech, right to vote. When a Chinese worker have the right to say f#ck Xi in his ass, as a US worker has to say f#ck Biden in his, come back.

Got it wrong again Sunny. We're only discussing working conditions nothing else. Working conditions for most US workers are hardly world class.

If you want to take about free speech, lets give it a go, you can say what you like, but if the person you're talking about doesn't like it you are not free from the consequences of that free speech. Everyone can vote hooray, but due to the undemocratic nature of the EC most peoples votes don't count, only the voters in a handful of swing states decide who wins POTUS.