Autoblog

It's lonely at the top. If you've got a big budget to buy a big luxury sedan, you're typically looking at a Bentley Arnage or a Rolls-Royce Phantom (Mercedes tried to make a go of it with Maybach, but never really managed to establish itself outside the Persian Gulf and hip-hop videos). Now Jaguar's new owners at Tata want to take on the establishment with a storied name of its own: Daimler.

Not to be confused with the Mercedes parent company, Daimler has the same roots as the British subsidiary of Gottlieb Daimler's operation. Between 1896 and 1960, Daimler made a range of elegant limousines. After being acquired by Jaguar, the brand was relegated to becoming the top trim level of Jaguar XJ saloons. When Tata bought Jaguar, it also acquired the rights to the Daimler name (which the German company shares under license). Tata is now considering reviving the Daimler brand with a new luxury range, but it'll have quite a job on its hands distinguishing itself in name from the Mercedes parent company and in essence from the known quantities of Rolls-Royce and Bentley.

[Source: Auto Motor & Sport (Sweden) via The Truth About Cars]

Normally the privately owned Chrysler LLC is under no obligation to reveal its financial performance to Wall Street, but yesterday the Cerberus-owned automaker was forced to show a few pages from its accounting books thanks to one of its largest stakeholders and former owner, Daimler AG. The German automaker revealed that in the last six months, its 19.9% stake in Chrysler has cost it $585 million. To clarify Daimler's numbers, Chrysler also revealed yesterday that the loss being attributed to it, all of which was incurred in Daimler's first fiscal quarter of the year, is around 65 million euro, or $103 million, using American accounting standards. Perhaps realizing that all analysts had to do was multiply Daimler's loss by five to arrive at Chrysler's total loss for the last quarter, the automaker just came right out and said it lost about $515 million. While a mere pittance to the $8.7 billion worth of red ink Ford spilled during Q2, it was enough to drag down Daimler's numbers halfway around the world.

[Source: The Detroit News, Photo: Fire Monkey Fish | Licensed under Creative Commons 2.0]

When it comes to increasing fuel economy, turbochargers are the replacement for displacement. The combination of highly efficient snails and smaller engines provides the power people expect, while reducing the overall weight of the vehicle. Like other automakers that have realized that forced induction is a suitable stop-gap for improving fuel economy, Mercedes-Benz is in the process of developing turbo'd engines that will proliferate throughout its lineup in the next two and a half years.

Thomas Weber, a Daimler board member in charge of research and development told Automotive News, "All our vehicles will have turbocharged engines in series production by the end of 2010 at the latest."

Mercedes is joining BMW and Audi by investing heavily into forced induction, primarily to cope with new fuel economy standards in the U.S. and Europe. But turbos are only going to take them so far. Mercedes plans to introduce hybrids into its lineup towards the close of the decade, beginning with the S-class sedan in 2009. According to Weber, zero-emission vehicles are the automaker's long-term goal and Daimler intends to push heavily towards fuel-cells and electric-powered vehicle in the future, including an electric smart fortwo which will go into production sometime in 2010.

[Source: Automotive News – Sub. Req.]

With sales of the Mercedes-Benz S-Class down 23 percent in the United States, and off nearly 12 percent worldwide, Daimler officials are showing concern. The luxurious S-Class is the most profitable model in the lineup, contributing up to an estimated 25 percent of Daimler's pre-tax profits, the drop is getting painful. With the exception of the new C-Class (up 38 percent), overall sales for the German automaker have fallen in the first six months of the year. In response, Daimler is diverting shipments of vehicles to China and Russia as those emerging markets have yet to see a slowdown.

[Source: Automotive News, subs. req'd]

Click above for a high-res gallery of the Maybach Exelero

Big-bucks enthusiasts annoyed that they're not the only ones at the club with a Veyron can now ensure that they arrive in total exclusivity. That's because the one-off Maybach Exelero, commissioned by Fulda to act as a high-profile demonstrator for its tire line of the same name, is now for sale. The Exelero isn't some delicate flower of a show car. Based on the Maybach 57 and powered by a 700-horsepower version of that car's turbocharged V12, the Exelero reached 218 mph at Nardo. In many ways, Exelero represents what Maybach could have and should have been -- a place where daring styling and incredible performance could merge with extreme luxury to compete with Rolls-Royce and Bentley. Instead, while the marque's sedans clearly get the luxury part of the equation right, in terms of styling, they basically work in anonymity, looking like peculiar old S-Class sedans. There's nothing anonymous about the Exelero, though, and for €5,000,000 (around $7.8 million USD), you can drive the sybaritic supercar that Daimler should have given Maybach all along.


[Anamera via eGMCarTech]

A few months back, Tesla Motors revealed that its upcoming WhiteStar sedan would be available in two variants, a pure battery electric like the Roadster and a range-extended electric more like the Chevy Volt. We still don't have many details on the car, although we do know that lessons learned while working on the drivetrain for the heavier sedan have been fed back into the Roadster for its updated 2.0 drivetrain.

As a small start-up with limited resources, developing a new engine for the WhiteStar would obviously be problematic. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk let slip in an interview with Fox Business News that the company has reached a technology deal with German giant Daimler (formerly of DaimlerChrysler infamy). Without any official comment from Tesla yet (we'll update you when we here something), one possible scenario for the deal is that Daimler will provide engines for the range extended WhiteStar. Daimler has always struggled to make money from Smart and the micro-car builder has a 1.0L three cylinder engine that might make a good range extender. If Daimler supplied 10,000 or so of those engines to Tesla, it could help drive down Daimler's costs. The other possibility is that Tesla might be licensing battery management technology to Daimler, but that scenario seems less likely.

Update: Tesla VP Darryl Siry declined comment on the matter.

[Source: Just-Auto - sub. req'd]

The sale of Jaguar and Land Rover to Tata means that the two British marques will have to look elsewhere for the parts normally supplied by Ford. Following the news that Daimler could be a supplier to both automakers comes word from Dr. Z himself that a deal is a distinct possibility.

Daimler holds a seven-percent stake in Tata Motors, which could make an easy case for Mercedes to supply Jag and L.R. with the necessary components to wean them off of Ford. Dieter Zetsche told Auto Motor und Sport that, "If Ratan Tata approaches us regarding the supply of components, we would be open to talks." AMG-powered XF, anyone?

[Source: Auto Motor und Sport via Automotive News – Sub. Req.]

Daimler may have divested 80.1% of its ownership in Chrysler, but the German automaker is still feeling pain from the Pentastar. The value of Daimler's portion of Chrysler has dropped from $2.18 billion to $852 million not even a year after the two parted ways. The loss of nearly $1.4 billion in value is a fair chunk of change, even for the mighty Daimler, but the news is not all bad for company shareholders. If Daimler hadn't sold Chrysler to the private equity firm Cerberus as fast as it did, the automaker's stock would likely be in much worse shape.

Since the privately owned Chrysler, LLC doesn't have to report earnings, it claims that its fiscal standing is all peaches and cream. According to Chrysler, the company has had positive earnings since it was bought out by Cerberus last year. The official line that explains the discrepancy with Daimler's reporting is that U.S. accounting rules are much more favorable than those overseas. Damn accountants.

[Source: Automotive News - subs. req'd]

Daimler will take the next two years to decide whether to invest more in its failing Maybach flagship marque or else shut it down. This comes from the mouth of Daimler and Mercedes chief Dr. Dieter Zetsche, who inherited the problem-child brand from his predecessor, ex-CEO Juergen Schrempp.

After ditching Chrysler, another deal that was orchestrated by Schrempp, Dr. Z may be inclined to shut down Maybach, too. By all accounts the ultra-premium brand has not been a sales success, barely reaching ten percent of its original sales forecast. In speaking with TheCarConnection.com, however, Zetsche insisted that Maybach's profitability "does not matter" in the face of demonstrating Mercedes' capability of competing with archrival BMW's pinnacle Rolls-Royce (and Volkswagen's Bentley), but that may prove to be all talk if Maybach doesn't present a solid business case. Zetsche confirmed that there are currently no plans on the table for new Maybach products – cutting short speculation over a new baby Maybach positioned between the current 57 and the Mercedes S-Class – and that even the outrageously-priced 62 Landaulet was unlikely to make much headway in turning the brand's fortunes around. We guess P.Diddy and his crew will have to find another ride.

[Source: The Car Connection]

According to the latest reports, Mercedes has finally realized why its A-Class and B-Class compacts haven't been doing so well: they're boring, overpriced and underpowered... and that's a losing combination. So for the next generation of the two model lines that's expected around 2011, Mercedes is reportedly preparing to turn up the volume.

Although the next-gen baby Benzes will reportedly stick with front-wheel-drive, they'll sit lower to the ground – and save production costs – by ditching the expensive current models' sandwich platform. Whereas the 193-hp 2-liter turbo is currently the most powerful engine offered between the two related models, sources indicate that the top engine could offer as much as 230 hp, possibly sourced from BMW off all companies whose 1-Series Mercedes hopes to target with the sportier new A and B-Classes. Meanwhile, reports also suggest that competition from the up!coming Volkswagen models could compel parent company Daimler to bring back the previously slow-selling and subsequently discontinued Smart ForFour.

[Source: Auto Motor und Sport via Motor Authority]