Jim,

It was an article in the British weekly magazine "Autocar" about 3 months ago about Mercedes declining performance (sales down 1% vs BMW sales up 4.5% in 2003) including customer satisfaction and fleet reliability statistics.
From the links you provide BMW in fact employ more people in the car division than Mercedes 104342 vs 104151 !
Mercedes sold 1.2 m units vs 1.1 BMW's in 03 (I think it's fair to include Mini if you include A class as both are at the same price point) however BMW made 25% more profit overall.The "Autocar" article may of been using 04 sales figures,however the trend is clear and the new 1 series BMW will increase volume further.From the figures the two companies do seem evenly matched when all is said and done.
My main point,this being a tech forum, is I think BMW make more engine types than Mercedes.
If you get a chance drive a BMW 330 TD and a double vanos petrol and it's clear how much the inline 6 has moved on in recent times.The Merc V6 is also a fine engine as I've found in my own C280.

adam

Adam -

Thank you for the reply. I think we are basically in violent agreement here, but see the facts somewhat differently. So it appears that Mercedes branded vehicles outsold BMW brand vehicles by ~10% in 2003. Does this include only passenger cars? I'm curious because Daimler also sells heavy trucks, commercial vehicles, vans, etc. - they are in many markets in which BMW does not participate.

My main point is that overall DC is a much larger entity than BMW group, and as a result likely has financial resources not available to BMW. Don't forget that DC owns outright the Chrysler brand globally, and that adds 2.6M additional sales to the corporate portfolio. Also 500K commercial vehicles. And I don't think we are including Smart here, but that's small potatoes.

I'm aware the Mercedes car group is going through a rough patch while BMW is on a tear. BMW is certainly more profitable per unit than Mercedes. This certainly neutralizes some of the size advantage of MB.

I've read that on a per unit basis the most profitable automaker in the world is Porsche. Not having looked up the figures I strongly suspect Toyota is far and away the most profitable automaker in the world. I believe their margins are double those achieved by BMW and they sell several times more vehicles annually.

We have limited ability to sample either BMW or MB wares in the U.S. BMW does not import any diesels whatsoever. None at all. Virtually all BMWs currently sold here are powered by the 2.5 or 3.0 liter variants of their current inline six. We do of course get a number of the 4.4 liter V8 engines in the 5 and 7 series car. And of course a trickle of the V12 cars, but these are very rare.

Mercedes actually sells a broader variety of engines in the U.S. We receive cars with supercharged inline 4 cylinder engines, the M112 V6 in two different displacements, the M113 V8 in three different displacements, plus a few V12 powered sedans and coupes. AMG cars have supercharged variants of the v^ and V8 engines. MB sells a single diesel in the U.S - the E-class sedan is available with the 3.2 liter CDI engine. See how deprived we are?

- JimY