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Cadillac, Daimler execs take swipes at Tesla

Despite the financial ties between Daimler and Tesla Motors, at least one Mercedes exec thinks the electric automaker doesn't have a bright future. And over at Cadillac, the message is that Tesla doesn't pose a threat but offers the luxury arm of General Motors more of classroom experience. The Mercedes story runs like this. Mercedes-Benz USA president and CEO, Steve Cannon, said at the New York Auto Show last week that Tesla has "no network" and only offers "little shops that don't have service capacity." He also said: "Folks are buying a Tesla now because they're kind of cool, but if you're a Tesla buyer, you have to have multiple cars. With Mercedes, you have a whole network. You've got no worries. ... Tesla is great, but you've got plenty of well-established brands that mean luxury, like Porsche or Mercedes-Benz, and how long do you think we're going to wait and let Tesla be out there alone [selling premium electric cars]?" "Treehuggers do not buy new luxury cars" – Uwe Ellinghaus For Cadillac's global chief marketing officer, Uwe Ellinghaus, Tesla's EV success represents little other than "a great opportunity and a learning exercise for all of us, and will help us traditional manufacturers to think twice about electric mobility." He added that, "I am not afraid of Tesla. ... There is no willingness to really sacrifice on the traditional qualities of a luxury car. These are not cars for treehuggers, as treehuggers do not buy new luxury cars." Ellinghaus made the comments during a panel discussion at the 2014 Automotive Forum. Perhaps the lesson of Tesla's offer of free Supercharging to Model S owners is what led to Cadillac to recently announce a deal with Chargepoint that gives ELR drivers access to that company's 16,500 charging stations. Read more details on that below. Cadillac and ChargePoint Bring EV Customer Luxury Driving Experience World's largest, most open electric vehicle charging network available to ELR drivers 2014-04-16 NEW YORK – Cadillac today announced a partnership with ChargePoint, the largest and most open electric vehicle-charging network in the world. The collaboration brings Cadillac ELR drivers immediate access to more than 16,500 charging locations on the ChargePoint network. The ELR electrified luxury coupe went on sale at the end of 2013. It embodies Cadillac's Art & Science design philosophy, combining provocative design with progressive technology.

Mercedes says it's tops in luxury sales for 2012, not BMW

It turns out that Mercedes-Benz North America has legitimate claim to being the top selling luxury nameplate in the US in 2012.
While sources such as Autodata had put BMW in the top spot, registration data from R.L. Polk shows that Mercedes customers registering new vehicles topped the Bavarian automaker in the most recent calendar year. Polk says Benz posted 274,123 registrations, compared with BMW's 268,498.
In terms of sales posted, BMW had bested Benz 281,460 to 274,134. But sales are recorded somewhat inconsistently from automaker to automaker. Some book the sales as soon as they are shipped from factory to dealer. There is perennial gamesmanship between the two German rivals, and the sales numbers suggest that BMW pushed out some extra sheetmetal to dealers in the last four weeks of the year.

Watch this perfectly nice Mercedes get crushed by a front-end loader

In a world where the YouTube hoax continues to thrive, it's hard to know what to think of this little vid, but here are the facts as we know them: a coupe that looks like a first-generation Mercedes-Benz CLK gets crushed by a giant front-end loader. There you have it.
Our questions arise in the aftermath - we know industrial resource machinery is heavy, but the Benz gets squashed so flat we wonder if someone's trying to play a joke on us. We hear that the white coupe may have been the heavy-equipment operator's foreman's car, but who knows? The on-camera interview seems awfully conveniently placed, yes? See for yourself in the video below and then leave us your thoughts in Comments.