Mercedes-Benz Vision EQXX

[Greg Locock]

You have it upside down. Car manufacturers can only sell cars profitably that people want to buy. Big wheels with low aspect ratio tires are an incredibly profitable upgrade. Big engines likewise.

SUVs/crossovers as a dominant market segment came about because 80% of car buying decisions are made by women. They like SUVs. Very few SUVs are designed for off roading, so that argument is pretty much irrelevant. As an example the management took our prototype SUVs to a famous 4wd destination and spent a happy week playing.

My boss was on the trip and said "I don't know why anyone bothers with a 4wd, these were fine".

My mechanic put the car up on a hoist and walked around it pricing up all the damage. $5000.

[Andres125sx]

You have it upside down. Car manufacturers can only sell cars profitably that people want to buy. Big wheels with low aspect ratio tires are an incredibly profitable upgrade. Big engines likewise.

SUVs/crossovers as a dominant market segment came about because 80% of car buying decisions are made by women. They like SUVs. Very few SUVs are designed for off roading, so that argument is pretty much irrelevant. As an example the management took our prototype SUVs to a famous 4wd destination and spent a happy week playing.

My boss was on the trip and said "I don't know why anyone bothers with a 4wd, these were fine".

My mechanic put the car up on a hoist and walked around it pricing up all the damage. $5000.

No I don´t have anything upside down, I´ve just posted the obvious, engineering is not the main reason for car manufacturer decisions, wich is exactly the same you´re saying Greg so, what do I have upside down?

Wheels went bigger and bigger, then tire manufacturers, since those wheels were way too high, started manufacturing eco tires to reduce wear and cost, even if that reduce grip, but since they are way too big and grip is in excess for most cars, that´s not a problem.

Now EV manufacturers are reducing tire size again as range is reduced with bigger wheels than necessary. At some point they will start getting wider again.... and at some point (with Autonomous cars probably) they´ll start getting thinner again.

We humans are this stupid

[Greg Locock]

What I'm saying is that wide tires/big engines/SUVs are customer driven, it's not evil marketers pushing them onto hapless customers.

[Greg Locock]

What I'm saying is that wide tires/big engines/SUVs are customer driven, it's not evil marketers pushing them onto hapless customers.

When car companies have tried to force sensible changes down their customer's throats, then like the Honda Insight, the Ford 3.2 litre I6 (instead of a 3.9), and so on and so forth, they end up being sold at a loss.

[DChemTech]

What I'm saying is that wide tires/big engines/SUVs are customer driven, it's not evil marketers pushing them onto hapless customers.

When car companies have tried to force sensible changes down their customer's throats, then like the Honda Insight, the Ford 3.2 litre I6 (instead of a 3.9), and so on and so forth, they end up being sold at a loss.

It's a spiral, typically. If car manufacturers make larger cars and market them as safer, more comfortable etc., people will start buying them. Which will result in more such cars hitting the market, at cost of other models, and after some time it becomes the norm - and anything that deviates from the norm, unless it has a very good marketing concept (and, it's hard to beat years of 'bigger is better and safer and faster and more comfortable'), will do poorly - the companies are, in that respect, stuck in a grave they dug themselves. Very hard to backtrack on that.
There are two ways out I think. One is to accept that they can't really crawl back and now state that smaller is actually more comfortable and safer and such. But you can still face it head on, and perhaps with a very strong marketing campaign focused on sustainability, get some consumer groups engaged. The issue there is that those groups will likely prefer BEV over 'small, low-consumption petrol', and the groups that prefer petrol don't care about sustainability.
The other option is to have politics interfere. For years, the message by producers was that more power meant better vacuum cleaners. They couldn't crawl back on that anymore - until power was very simply curtailed by a political decisions. The same could happen for cars.

[nzjrs]

What I'm saying is that wide tires/big engines/SUVs are customer driven, it's not evil marketers pushing them onto hapless customers.

When car companies have tried to force sensible changes down their customer's throats, then like the Honda Insight, the Ford 3.2 litre I6 (instead of a 3.9), and so on and so forth, they end up being sold at a loss.

It's a spiral, typically. If car manufacturers make larger cars and market them as safer, more comfortable etc., people will start buying them.

I don't doubt it's a coupled system, but I think Greg is speaking from experience of how one side of that system makes and evaluates information and makes decisions about which cars to bring to market.

I think the 'woman make purchasing decisions' is mostly uncontroversial so you can see that is the forcing function, and maybe you can see the models offered as the gain, and what comes out at the end is multiplicative spiraling around everyone buying an SUV.

[A13EX_f]

The other option is to have politics interfere. For years, the message by producers was that more power meant better vacuum cleaners. They couldn't crawl back on that anymore - until power was very simply curtailed by a political decisions. The same could happen for cars.

And the Germans also installed cheat devices into vacuums to get around the law on this too (sound familiar)

[Tommy Cookers]

More to do with low drag, like the Le Mans racers before they put in chicanes. The EV-LM 😂

low 'drag' - but mechanical drag (aka 'rolling resistance') is ignored
mechanical drag will be proportionate to the (high) vehicle weight ...
and will rise with quite a lot with speed (but is still disproportionately large at normal speeds)
though the EV designer sacrifices grip to reduce mechanical drag
the car could easily measure its 'tractive effort' - and display this (along with calculated aero drag) in real time ?

yesterday this car was shown on my TV - the nice lady said it does 87 mph 'and that's enough'
so around this speed tyre mechanical drag/'rolling resistance' will be 30-40% - maybe 50% of aero drag
(though eg V rated tyres would have less RR at 87 mph Mercedes will fit low speed-rated tyres)

RR is developed as the contact patch is allowed to unload by wheel rotation ....
the faster the rotation the more the tyre approaches its natural speed of relaxation - to or beyond its natural shape
so the internal work (ie heating) increases substantially at this higher speed

high speed-rated tyres have a higher natural frequency (of relaxation) - so their RR is less eg at 87 mph
this higher frequency can readily be heard as more conspicuous tyre noise heard eg by cyclists
a 'safety' feature absent from the 87 mph job ?

note to self - RR doesn't increase at legal speeds if wheel dia is large enough eg motorcycles

[Jolle]

About tires (and cars) getting bigger and bigger... yeah, its a problem but, a car like the this isn't meant to replace AMG models or SUV's that only see a bit of city life. There are other EV's in the works for those.

Most cars on the road are still VW polo's with skinny tires or in Mercedes case, the car that this EQXX would replace: a base diesel C or E class with Eco-branded rock-hard low resistance tires.

[Greg Locock]

Given a non insane development team a larger car WILL be more comfortable, better ride, and safer. That's why cars grow over time, the first point of evaluation is your previous model and you have to 'beat that'. Nobody on the team is actively pushing for smaller cars, except maybe styling would like lower, but they also do ergonomics so have to consider egress/ingress and headroom, and the fuel economy people think more about Cd and RR and mass and engines than they do about cross sectional area. I can assure you that one way to generate significant customer backlash is to make something worse on the new car than on its predecessor.

For a classic example look at a Mk I Golf and how the weight of the base model has changed. You might also compare the customer-driven change in features, and the legislation driven change in features.

[Jolle]

Given a non insane development team a larger car WILL be more comfortable, better ride, and safer. That's why cars grow over time, the first point of evaluation is your previous model and you have to 'beat that'. Nobody on the team is actively pushing for smaller cars, except maybe styling would like lower, but they also do ergonomics so have to consider egress/ingress and headroom, and the fuel economy people think more about Cd and RR and mass and engines than they do about cross sectional area. I can assure you that one way to generate significant customer backlash is to make something worse on the new car than on its predecessor.

For a classic example look at a Mk I Golf and how the weight of the base model has changed. You might also compare the customer-driven change in features, and the legislation driven change in features.

And because the Golf keeps growing, the best selling VW in our country here is, since the Golf V, the VW Polo (by a factor of three!). Which is roughly the size of the 80's Golf. (and on skinny tires with steel rims)

[J.A.W.]

Given a non insane development team a larger car WILL be more comfortable, better ride, and safer. That's why cars grow over time, the first point of evaluation is your previous model and you have to 'beat that'. Nobody on the team is actively pushing for smaller cars, except maybe styling would like lower, but they also do ergonomics so have to consider egress/ingress and headroom, and the fuel economy people think more about Cd and RR and mass and engines than they do about cross sectional area. I can assure you that one way to generate significant customer backlash is to make something worse on the new car than on its predecessor.

For a classic example look at a Mk I Golf and how the weight of the base model has changed. You might also compare the customer-driven change in features, and the legislation driven change in features.

Very true, M-B built the 'compact' W201/190 series in the `80s, but dropped the concept of a small
but high-quality/pricey unit due to buyer resistance, only reviving it decades later as a cheaper SUV
'mum-bus' A-class 'entry vehicle' intended for women buyers..

Given the cost penalty of EVs, (even with Gov't incentives/anti-ICE sanctions) & the physical laws
appending to mass/capability factors, its unlikely a VW Polo will "UP!" the ante to match, as such...

[Jolle]

Given a non insane development team a larger car WILL be more comfortable, better ride, and safer. That's why cars grow over time, the first point of evaluation is your previous model and you have to 'beat that'. Nobody on the team is actively pushing for smaller cars, except maybe styling would like lower, but they also do ergonomics so have to consider egress/ingress and headroom, and the fuel economy people think more about Cd and RR and mass and engines than they do about cross sectional area. I can assure you that one way to generate significant customer backlash is to make something worse on the new car than on its predecessor.

For a classic example look at a Mk I Golf and how the weight of the base model has changed. You might also compare the customer-driven change in features, and the legislation driven change in features.

Very true, M-B built the 'compact' W201/190 series in the `80s, but dropped the concept of a small
but high-quality/pricey unit due to buyer resistance, only reviving it decades later as a cheaper SUV
'mum-bus' A-class 'entry vehicle' intended for women buyers..

Given the cost penalty of EVs, (even with Gov't incentives/anti-ICE sanctions) & the physical laws
appending to mass/capability factors, its unlikely a VW Polo will "UP!" the ante to match, as such...

At the time the 190 was the smallest Mercedes. Since the C-class kept growing, they introduced smaller cars. Compared to then, we have the A, B, smart 2 and smart 4. All the manufacturers keep introducing smaller models all of the time when they models grow over time. For VW the Golf was at one time the smallest of their models. Then came the Polo and when that grew the Lupo and Up, etc etc. BMW same: started with the 3, then we got the 1 series and the mini.
The best selling cars in Europe are not the C-classes or 5 series but the Peugeot 1007, Small Toyotas, VW Polos and fiat 500’s.

[J.A.W.]

No, the `80s W201/190 was discontinued by M-B - as too small - whereas its next-size up W124/300
series was a success, & duly morphed into the C-class, but it was only after M-B 'went cheap' that
small cars were reintroduced into their line-up, (& not even M-B badged, with the micro-car Smart)..

Currently, an effective 'autobahn sturmmaschine' in EV form cannot be small/inexpensive.

[Jolle]

No, the `80s W201/190 was discontinued by M-B - as too small - whereas its next-size up W124/300
series was a success, & duly morphed into the C-class, but it was only after M-B 'went cheap' that
small cars were reintroduced into their line-up, (& not even M-B badged, with the micro-car Smart)..

Currently, an effective 'autobahn sturmmaschine' in EV form cannot be small/inexpensive.

Having driven, owned etc most of them myself. The W124 became the E-Class.
The W201 (190) was succeeded by the W202, the C-Class. The size difference between the W201 and W202 is small.

The 190 was a selling succes at the time.