Passenger cars are not garbage trucks. We are not talking about marketing a different kind of vehicle to an industry or business, we are talking about marketing a different category or passenger car to a different group of passenger car buyers. Mercedes has been known for decades as the builder of competent, luxurious autos, at least in the US. Toyota and Honda have been known for decades as the builders of competent, reliable compacts. Nobody is going to beat Honda or Toyota (or now even Hyundai) at that game. MB needs to stick with what it does best. Quick sales numbers of low-end cars to people who just want a Benz is great for profit in the short term, but when you start shooting for numbers, and turning out restyled models and new models every 2-5 years, quality suffers. Maybe not for Honda, but for a company like MB, that strategy does not jibe with a decades-old corporate philosophy of letting the engineers build the right cars.

I think we've seen what the strategy change has done for quality and reliability in the last few years. My family owns 4 post-2002 MBs, their first Mercedes in each case, and none of the 4 plan to buy again.