Mercedes Moving Towards Exclusivity And Will Let Lexus And The Others Scramble For Those That Can't Afford Luxury

Not a bad strategic move but M-B will have to up its quality, materials, old fashion bank vault feel, and design. Can be done but don't do it on the cheap.

The booming Certified Pre-Owned market has freed up Mercedes to move further upmarket taking full advantage of its Maybach & AMG lines developing models exclusive to those brands

They also have proven that attainable doesn’t necessarily mean cheap/poor quality with the latest A Class family of vehicles which have been a home run for the company around the world

This strategy is a total departure from what they just started doing now.

So....are they planning to kill off their smaller vehicles up to the C-class/GLC-class or maybe the E-class level? and then focus on ultra-luxury features from there & up?

Maybe Daimler sees too much "exposure" on the low-end of the auto market. Harder or less-profitable in the small/compact market, especially with so many "upscale" competitors from the mainstream automakers. It's possible that Daimler is "mature" enough now to partner with a mainstream automaker, remain in the background, provide good older platforms/options, & let them do all the heavy-lifting for the lower-end vehicles.

This is what they should have done in the first place instead of vying for the Honda Accord crowd.

Smart move, Tesla is chipping away at their volume market and the margins are going to be low to compete.

This is some nonsense designed to please institutional investors and analysts. In the US market (#1 or #2 globally) all lux vehicles except the very top are driven by incentivized leases...impossible to get away from that as they need the volume to amortize development costs. There is no way for them to move upmarket in pricing (a la Porsche) without losing lots of sales.

This means they will acquire a brand for the space they vacate.

Retreating upmarket just doesn't work. Jaguar tried that it is likely to cause the brand to die.

Could Mercedes be planning to buy Jaguar or Alfa-Romeo?

I think Bentley would be a better buy.

Incorrect. Mercedes NEEDS a volume brand to remain independent; it just doesn't have to wear a Mercedes badge.

Start by cutting off stupid A & B series

dlin said: Start by cutting off stupid A & B series

Those are douchebag cars!!

So that's why de drives them.

still the worst money pit and stays there