In the never ending quest for volume uber alles, Mercedes-Benz has announced that "four new vehicles without a predecessor model will be launched".
The need for scale in the auto industry has never been more acute, and increasing volume is one way to help take advantage of this strategy – especially in a higher margin segment like luxury vehicles. But at some point, Mercedes is going to run into what I call "the Coach effect", named after the handbag company which ended up degrading its brand via a mass downward expansion into outlet stores and lower prices. The current lineup of Mercedes (and BMW and Audi) is jam packed with endless derivatives of the same four platforms. On paper, this is a sound strategy for maximizing economies of scale. But in practice, it creates an alphabet soup of indistinguishable variants while also decreasing the barrier to entry for new buyers – arguably the selling point for luxury vehicles.
Or maybe I'm wrong. You tell me.
The post Quote Of The Day: Mercedes-Benz NEEDS MOAR MODELS!!!111 appeared first on The Truth About Cars.
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