Who Is Gonna Win This Battle? Maserati And Alfa Romeo Target Tesla In EV Push

This reminds me of two drunks holding each other up. Germans will win in the end.

Indeed.

Then you factor in that Alfa-Romeo and Maserati have done nothing but deliver one expensive sales dud after another and imagining Alfarati being a force in the EV market becomes a tragic comedy.

If anything, this is BS window dressing to keep stocks artificially high to force Hyundai-Kia to pay too much for the crown jewels of Jeep and Ram.

Audi is about to scorch the market.

Given it's high prices your opinion is irrelevant.

Ask a Mercedes dealer if they consider Tesla a luxury brand. Their opinion counts for something. They can each tell you how many unit sales they lose to the brand every month. Same goes for Audi, Cadillac, Lexus, BMW, Jaguar, Porsche etc....

@CC either you're full or crap or you hang out with people who are full of crap or both.

OF COURSE the Mercedes dealer is going to SAY Tesla isn't isn't a true luxury car and therefore not competition, but that 100% BS. His hand is in your underwear giving you a happy ending because he wants to play into your need as a Mercedes buyer to believe that none other is even remotely in its league, but make no mistake he is lying to you to make a sale.

As an example.

Locally a salesman was fired from Maserati for saying that Maseratis were hand built. They most decidedly aren't any more than a Camry is hand built. When asked why there was a new 2017 on the lot when we were nearing the end of the 2018 model year, he said that because Maseratis are hand made it's like fine wine. If you prefer the nuances of a certain vintage then Maserati will make it for you. He then told the customer that the 2017 is really a 2018 as far as the DMV is concerned. #FIRED

I'd fire a Mercedes salesman if he were idiotic enough to say that Tesla doesn't compete with his products. I expect the complete opposite of sales personnel. I expect them to be knowledgeable about the competition and never to badmouth the competition.

So let me lay out what marketing research says.

Where a $100K Mercedes and a $100K Tesla are both available, they compete against each other. Full Stop. Shoppers in the North-American market RESOUNDINGLY shop on price first and then type within that price. Full Stop.

Of course you're probably saying "Mercedes is a luxury brand" and "Tesla is an EV brand" as if somehow that's a real distinction. It isn't. That's idiocy, but...

Moreover, what in hell do unit sales have to do with a brand being a luxury brand? Answer: NOTHING

Is Mercedes more luxurious than Maserati because it sells more? If that's so then the Rolls Phantom is trash and the F150 is king.

@joneshamilton, that may be, but it is irrelevant given how the market works. Tesla most decidedly IS impacting luxury manufacturers with the S, X and 3 as customers that would have gotten a Mercedes etc. buy Teslas instead.

Dear CannadianComments - the Idea that you should ask a dealer - who has a vested interest in the results - whether his car is a Luxury Brand is a non-starter - OF course they are going to say YES - and even give reasons why. Even the Hyundai Genesis dealer is going to say his car is on the SAME level as a Mercedes.

ANd they are NOT - Prestige is part of the Equation as well as the cars themselves. There are the first tier Premium car producers - and then there are the Also Rans - and Tesla is NOT first Tier - nor is Volvo - or Buick - Or Lexus - Or Infiniti - or even Audi. Their product mix is usually lower end vehicles - certainly Audi selling only 50 A8s last month in the USA - tells you they are not really competitive in the Upper Tier.

AS far as Tesla against FCA - Tesla will sell more cars than the two FCA brands - that tells you little about them. Both are losing ground - the longer it takes for Tesla to produce the BASE Model 3 - the more likely competition will come in and take away sales. Since Tesla has already admitted they could not survive if they produced the Base model - and since the other Tesla's are getting old - They will hit the wall within the next three years and likely will be absorbed by another manufacturer - that plant in China is a pipe dream - they don't have enough money to do it right now - and it is likely Wall Street will Balk at another BIG influx of cash.

Eventually - FCA - whose product is also falling far behind - will also have to be bought out by another. THey have little current product -no really new platforms - and they still have major reliability problems.

They will both lose. Tesla will quickly become an afterthought once the big boys (VW, Toyota, GM, Ford) electrify their lineups (read Ford's announcement today). Tesla's best chance for survival is to sell EV tech to companies that are too small to develop their own (FCA, Honda, Mazda, BMW etc.)

I've been hearing that for years. Once X enters the market, Tesla is screwed. So far, very few companies have stepped up. By the time other volume vehicles are out, Tesla will already be selling 500k EVs a year and have 20,000 superchargers. The slower the traditional companies are, the less likely they are to regain marketshare.

Maserati and Alfa are both languishing State-side, and I don't believe that electrification will make a difference.

You're 100% right, but this is Marchionne channeling Musk. FCA doesn't have money to engineer products, so this is just smoke and mirrors. When they do an all-new product it has something not quite thought out or they take the old product and claim it's a clean sheet design. Either way this is BS.