2013 Mercedes Benz Sls Gt Amg 6.3 Roadster Convertible V8 Low Miles Black Series on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Car subscription services: A slow, expensive start — but the potential is huge

Americans are used to paying for subscriptions — to magazines and cable television, for instance — but experience shows they'll cancel when the price of admission gets too high, or there are more tempting alternatives. Cord cutters ditched nearly 1.5 million pay-TV subscriptions in 2017, according to a survey by Leichtman Research Group. Cable TV started out cheap with basic offerings, and then got expensive. The auto industry's subscription offerings are new, but they're starting out costly, and not price-competitive with traditional leasing. The upside is that they take the hassle out of car ownership for busy people by letting the service take care of maintenance, insurance, licensing and taxes. And they give consumers choice, often allowing relatively painless switches between different cars in the automakers' lineup. Subscription services also point the way toward an ownership-free auto experience, and offer an easy transition to a potential world where ride- and car-sharing will be dominant. Subscriptions are here to stay, but consumers may take a while to "get" them. Lincoln's subscription service for lightly used 2015 to 2017 models, offered through the Ford-owned Canvas beginning this year, got off to a slow start. Many early subscribers canceled. Last month, Cadillac announced it would " temporarily pause" its $1,800-per-month Book subscription service for "adjustments" as of December 1. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Snags with the back-end technology used to support the service made some customer-service functions tedious and time-consuming, adding costs for the company." The challenge for automakers is to come up with a strategy that offers consumers a compelling, affordable option to regular ownership, and one that can also make a profit. I think they'll find that sweet spot, but they're not there yet. Jack Nerad, former executive editorial director at Kelley Blue Book and author of " The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buying or Leasing a Car," points out that "A lot of people expected that subscriptions would be very valuable for people who wanted inexpensive transportation, but the reality is quite the opposite. Subscriptions are offering more choices for the wealthy.

Mercedes rules out hybrid supercar, promises SLS successor

The recent Geneva Motor Show was a festival of hypercars, with the presence of not one, but three over-the-top debuts: the Lamborghini Veneno, McLaren P1 and Ferrari LeFerrari. The latter two have hitched their carbon fiber bumpers to the electrification bandwagon by using hybrid-electric powertrains not entirely unlike the propulsion systems we've come to know in cars like the Toyota Prius and Chevrolet Volt. Does that mean the flow of electrons up the four-wheeled food chain will eventually consume our hallowed supercars? Not if AMG has anything to say about it.
AMG Director of Vehicle Development Tobias Moers recently confirmed that not only will there be a successor to the Mercedes-Benz performance division's SLS AMG, he notes that its internal combustion engine will most definitely not be sharing living quarters with an electric drivetrain. Instead, AMG plans to focus on further pushing the power and efficiency envelope of the internal combustion engine and advancing the use of lightweight materials to achieve their goals. The first example of this effort can be seen in the new SLS AMG Black Series that incorporates many weight-saving techniques to shed some 154 pounds from the SLS AMG GT (above), which itself is lighter than the standard SLS AMG.
Furthermore, Moers remarks that his company is happy to leave the hypercar segment to companies like Ferrari and McLaren. He admits that, "Ferrari in the hyper-car segment is still a different brand than AMG. We have to be honest..." So rather than taking the SLS further upmarket to do battle with bulls and stallions, Moers hinted that the next-generation SLS may be joined by another performance model that fits neatly between itself and the C63 AMG.

Mercedes-AMG GT3 racing towards Geneva debut

So far, we've only seen the fundamental road-going coupe version of the new Mercedes-AMG GT, but like the Porsche 911 it targets, you can bet there will be more derivatives to follow. And this is our first glimpse at the first of them. At the Geneva Motor Show next month, Mercedes will showcase the GT3-spec racing version of the AMG GT. The German automaker didn't tell us much more in making the announcement, but did release a pair of cropped teaser sketches showing the sports car with all manner of racing appendages, including what looks like a massive rear wing. Once ready for action, the new Mercedes-AMG GT3 will replace the previous SLS AMG GT3 that won the Nurburgring 24-hour race a couple of years back. But with every automaker and its sister company getting in on the GT3 racing action these days, it'll face some stiff competition on the track. The new Mercedes-AMG GT3 February 12, 2015 Neatly coinciding with the upcoming market launch of the road-going version of the Mercedes-AMG GT, the next stage of the vehicle's evolution is already here: the sports car and performance brand of Mercedes-Benz is presenting a new customer sport racing car that complies with FIA GT3 race regulations in the form of the new Mercedes-AMG GT3. With this, the second customer sport car to be developed by Mercedes-AMG, the Affalterbach company is seeking to build on the success of the SLS AMG GT3 and further expand the customer sport programme first started in 2010. The superb racetrack performance of the road-going GT forms the ideal basis on which to model the new Mercedes-AMG GT3, which is due to make its debut appearance at the Geneva Motor Show. Featured Gallery Mercedes-AMG GT3: teasers Geneva Motor Show Mercedes-Benz Coupe Racing Vehicles mercedes-amg 2015 Geneva Motor Show rendering mercedes-amg gt sketch mercedes-amg gt3