Price Change

Car manufacturers do not change prices of the car due to currency rate fluctuations... Any one of them. Some year, they earn more due to strong dollars and some years they earn less due to dollar weakness. It is all calculated.

Our advantage is price stays the same and when economy is weak like now, you can talk the dealers down alot more than usual to buy the car. They need cars moving out their doors.

It's a pity you are not in UK you can get a new Merc at discount prices just go on to broadspeed.com and you will see a load of cars on dicount

Like most international manufacturers MB had diversified its production locations. This hedges their bet on currency fluctuations. Most US MB's are now made near Birmingham Alabama from parts sourced worldwide.

EJ > Can anyone explain why the price of MB have not come down. The eruos value

Daimler Benz owns alot of companies and brands... that alot of you may not realize.

They still do own a bit of Chrysler... but what most of you probably don't realize is the Freightliner trucks... that is Daimler Benz trucks in US. Another truck that I did not realize is Mitsubishi Fuso trucks... that is also Daimler's product.

Look them up. They owns alot of brands and products worldwide.

Tiger schrieb:

Sorry, Tiger, there's no company existent with the name "Daimler Benz" - since some time it's called "Daimler", or to be precise "Daimler AG". End of nitpicking ;-))))

Yes, "Daimler AG" ;-))) owns

- Mercedes-Benz cars, vans, trucks, buses

- smart cars

- AMG cars (and tuning)

- Maybach cars

- Freightliber trucks

- Mitsubishi-Fuso trucks

- Sterling trucks - will be closed soon

- Western Star trucks

- Thomas Built Buses

- Detroit Diesel engines and drive trains (transmissions and axles)

- SETRA buses

- Orion buses

Other interests include

- 45 percent in German Toll Collect

- 22.8 percent in Tognum, which in turn owns MTU (and others)

- 15 resp. 22.5 percent in EADS, which in turn is the parent company of Eurocopter (helicopters) and Airbus (aircraft)

- close to 7 percent in Tata Motors in India (which in turn owns Jaguar, Daimler (car brand, part of Jaguar), LandRover

- roughly 20 percent in Eicher Goodearth in India

And there's also a lot of cooperations and joint-ventures...

Ahhh! Po-ta-to... Po-tay-to... same darn thing. I guess I am a purist... I liked it the way it was before... Daimler Benz.

And what will happen when GM and Chrysler merge?

No idea... Probably Daimler will bow out or be part owner of the new combined GM-Chrysler.

Actually only the SUVs -- GL, ML, and R -- come from the US. Most Mercedes are still made in Germany, with some C classes from Brazil.

Daimler is trying to sell its 19.9% in Chrysler to Cerberus. They want OUT!

There was not a big increase during the past year when the euro was rising against the dollar either. So this is probably just catching up.

Mmm... plausible. The thing about this whole thing is I don't know what is the total cost of GM buying Chrysler from Ceberus.

I remembered Ceberus paid 8 or 9 billion from Daimler... and GM wants US gov't to finance the whole thing for $10 billion... but I don't know if that is total buyout or Ceberus will remain with GM... or part of $10 billion to buy out Daimler...

Complicated deal as there are unions, gov't anti-trust... etc. Ceberus getting paid $10 billion on $8 billion invested and only a couple of years is one heck of a profit.

Yes, in my 'youth' (pre DC) it was Daimler Benz, was it not?

I am a bit surprised that they now call themselves Daimler, since there is a British car of the same name.

DAS

Tiger schrieb:

So did I - the company was Daimler-Benz, the cars were Mercedes-Benz.

Nowadays Mercedes-Benz cars (note the lower-case "c") are part of Mercedes-Benz Cars (note the upper case "C"), besides brands like Maybach, smart (lower-case "s") and others.

Lots of info in this brochure (English version)

Juergen

Dori A Schmetterling schrieb:

Yeah, being an old fart myself I can understand you...

The thing is that when they bou... aeh: "merged" with Chrysler they wanted to show that in the company's name.

So they decided to axe "Benz" and to add "Chrysler", which led to "DaimlerChrysler" - not "Daimler-Chrysler" or "Daimler Chrysler", that seemed really being tooo complicated even for the self-acclaimed top-pros of the motorpress...

When they "sold" Chrysler it gain had to be shown in the group's name, that's where "Daimler AG" comes from - nobody knows really whey they didn't rename the group to "Daimler-Benz AG" again...

With the car brand "Daimler" things are a bit more complicated: In 1891 a British gentleman named Frederick Richard Simms aquired a license for manufacturing and sale of the Daimler-engine in Great Britain and many parts of the Commonwealth (Canada excluded).

In 1893 he founded "Daimler Motor Syndicate Ltd.", in which Gottlieb Daimler was part of the board of directors, as well as F.R. Simms was part of the board of directors of German "Daimler Motoren Gesellschaft".

Later in 1896 he founded Daimler Motor Company in Coventry for production of commercial vehicles. In 1904 the company was re-founded due to money problems, which in 1910 became part of the British BSA-Group.

In 1960 Jaguar bought it and then used the name "Daimler" for a chauffeured limousine (DS 420) and for luxurious Jaguar versions, which had fluted front grilles.

In 1989 Jaguar was bought by Ford Motor Company and in late 2007 Daimler AG bought part of the Daimler-brand rights, enabling them to use "Daimler" as trade- and company designation, but no name rights were transferred permanently. The deal cost Daimler AG only 20 million US dollars... (and "no", I don't know what else was part of that deal, but obviously 20 million USD are more than cheap...)

In March 2008 Jaguar (plus Rover (and LandRover) and the name-rights of the car brand "Lanchester") was bought by Indian group Tata Motors. The Daimler/Ford-deal for the use of the "Daimler" name by "Daimler AG" is not affected by the sale of Jaguar.

And so on... a thorough look into the Daimler group namings, brands, rights, cooperations etc. would require to write a book - and definitely not the thinnest one!

Juergen

Yes.

Another puzzle about going to Daimler AG is that "Mercedes" and "Benz" are the big, globally-known names, so Daimler-Benz would have made far more sense.Or maybe another stooopid manager like the one who bought AEG decided on the name for obscure,private reasons...

DAS

To send an e-mail directly replace "spam" with "schmetterling"

Dori A Schmetterling schrieb:

Who knows?? I have given up long ago to look for any factual sense in Daimler decisions, I know they are often simply amateurish and ego-driven... (and not to forget shareholder value and personal income increase)

Maybe they want to have it easier once they bought another carmaker so they can add that name like they did with Chrysler.

There was a stockholder rebellion of sorts to make the name DaimlerBenz, but like most stockholder actions, it got nowhere.

You think maybe DaimlerHyundai is coming?

Lloyd schrieb:

How is that spelled in Chinese?

(yes, I know Hyundai is Korean)