Do The Germans Need To Hit The RESET Button On ALL Their Product Strategies? And If SO, WHO Should Go FIRST?

I love most of the German autos coming out especially the high performance ones but the future is electric.
When you have a $35k EV with the performance of a $80k ICE car then the German become a harder product to sell.
Additionally, anyone can get in a Model 3 nowadays, Tesla will no longer be the “it” car, but they are quickly replacing the Toyota Corolla and will become the most sold car in many countries.

What is a car? Has that definition really changed?
The distant future may be electric - but it will take DECADES for the nations Infrastructures to be updated enough to handle the Electric Load needed to double current EV sales - much less completely replace all ICE vehicles. What good will large EV production be if you are limited to when and where you can charge them - and may not be able to do so at certain times of the year? Will they need to ration Electricity? California is already seeing that renewable Electric Production is NOT keeping up with demand NOW.

At some point in that - the cost of Fossil fuel will crash - making it that much harder for EVS to take over the market as well.

And Reputation and Prestige cannot just replaced by a bunch of Batteries - that is the mistake Tesla made. ANd Volkswagen made. Attempting to claim their cars are premium level vehicles - when they are clearly not - the model S - which really competes with the E/5 level cars in size - has been abandoned by Tesla - and the Model 3 is as barebones as you can get - may as well drive a go cart.

50 years from now we will still be talking about running out of Fossil fuels which was predicted to have happened already in the 1970s. ANd there will still be Used car Salespeople.

USNA Said: Tesla will no longer be the “it” car, but they are quickly replacing the Toyota Corolla

PLEASE let me know when the Toyota Corolla gets replaced by a Tesla.

The issue isn't ICE vs EV. The issue is product. All three have the same issue: too much identical product.

Audi doesn't need the A3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. They should merge the 6,7,8 into a large EV that covers the SAME current price points. The A3/4/5 should be an A4-sized vehicle that begins at an A3 price.

Ditto the dizzying array of the Q12345678910 mess.

Audi is the one most likely to tumble the hardest given that it is the "Oldsmobile" to BMW's "Pontiac" and Mercedes' "Cadillac". And like Oldsmobile before its demise, Audis are dull, boring, and dated looking.

The 4 Series is BMW's "G6" i.e. the beginning of a string of bad decisions.

Lol.
VW Group car sales 2019 = 10,800,000
Tesla car sales 2019 = 367,000

So Tesla only needs to grow 40x to keep up with all of the German brands, and another 40x to keep up with Japanese brands. Good luck with that.

Good comment to bring a bit of reality to Tesla. Good cars but not replacing Toyota or VW anytime soon.

exactly.

Tesla is "trendy" today. They have a descent lineup now, but a long long way to go to begin to outsell the major automakers the US, Germany, & Japan.

And if suddenly all the oil well dried up, automakers like GM, VW would immediately start producing EV's for every existing ICE model they have on the market today. Tesla would never be able to catch up. Ever.

BMW... cancel the X2,X4,X6. make the 3 series the introductory unit, Lower price, get rid of 2 Series or re-name it the 3 series. the buck tooth 4 series, Kill the design.
Audi, get a designer that has some taste that is not only in his mouth.
Mercedes, everything looks alike... sad, MB used to have much more style.

They all have too many models. BMW and Mercedes are in a very tough spot because they don’t have the resources or scale to individually develop both ICE and EVs. Audi will be ok because they can share resources within VW.

If Mercedes does their entire line of EQ right...or better...they will be fine. They should learn from the missteps of the EQC and have more compelling and competitive products in the EV space. They currently have 4 or 5 EQs in development so the next few years should be interesting for the brand.

The key for Mercedes is that their EQs are distinguishing themselves from the rest of the Benz/AMG lineup while still looking relatively like a premium product from a premium brand. Unlike the Audi e-trons that look like an other Audi. And unlike BMW's i products that look too out of place for the brand.

Mercedes second ev looks to be a dud, BMW looks to be trying to electrify existing platforms which leads to poor range. Mercedes/ BMw do Not have the resources to develop parallel lineups of vehicles. They need to partner with another automaker to pool resources if they want to build ICEs and EVs... otherwise they need to go all in on one or the other. Even VW, which has the scale to pull it off, has partnered with Ford.

I am partial to BMW so I would hope they would bite the bullet first. Why?

Styling: The new 4 is a stylistic disaster, the 8 is way to bland from 3ft away, the new giant SUVs with grills larger than the vehicle is all very disappointing. They keep going this way they won't need to hit any reset button, there will be nothing to reset.

Future proofing & EV vs ICE vs ?: I would hope they can develop some seriously innovative platforms that could be full EV or ICE or even ones that could be swappable. As of today the EVs that BMW has come out with are awkward/odd, they need to be mainstreamed into the product line, not some strange outlier. Several years back... maybe more... BMW was heavily investing in hydrogen powered cars. Not sure what came of that but they should have some division dedicated to exploring alternative motors/power trains beyond the ICE/EV duality that we seem to be getting locked into. And they should do it with a sense of urgency, after all they are Bavarian Motor Works.