BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards
thedrive.com
thedrive.com
This sounds bad until you realise that over the past 20 years manufacturers switched from cast iron to full aluminium blocks, which have over twice the thermal conductivity.
There's no need for 4.0+ displacements anymore, because they were only there because of the low (tolerable) power density of iron block engines.
Sure, turbos etc. sound like a hack and a hack they are, but the era of V8 rumble is gone for good.
All this will be replaced by electric anyway.
tell that to the new c8 corvette.
anyways, the C63 AMG is a $70,000 car. for that price you should be able to get a v8 or at least a v6, even if it makes no sense. lots of cars that are way cheaper still have more than four cylinders.
As a toy, an ICE has value. They shouldn't work at all! it's a ridiculous idea. It's quite cool that they do anyway.
People buy cars like that because they like the V8 rumble. I have an older 3.0l N/A I6 BMW (N52), and not because I couldn't have gotten a more feature-loaded Honda for the same price.
what worries me is that app integration may be a fee based service for some cars.
As for BMW, I owned one and enjoyed it very much but the running commentary on BMW is that you own them only while they are under warranty.
The BMW Ms are actually developed by a different company (the BMW M company, which is different from the BMW company).
For some reason people think of them as being extremely similar, but anybody that has driven a BMW 3xx and a BMW M3 knows that there is a world between them.
Well that's a scam if there ever was one. Who wants a subscription for basic functionality in a car? Might as well buy an iPad and solder it over BMW's control panel.
In Japan, electronics seem to be more evolutionary and software reuse is practiced more, so while the rotating-car-animation-bling-factor might be lower, bugs are also ironed out over time.
I don't get this fundamental objection.
It's just a different way to pay. Either you pay up-front or you pay a subscription. Work out the total cost of ownership (you'll need to estimate how long you likely keep the car either way.) Now take that final figure and either it's worth it to you or it isn't. How that final figure gets paid doesn't seem like a big deal?
If you pay £2k up front for CarPlay as an option and then Apple changes the protocol and you can't use it you're stuck with a lemon you already paid for. As a subscription you can stop paying.
Well, you're just left with a 30-50k car with reduced functionality. And, to be honest, CarPlay functionality (or similar) is pretty much fundamental - music, maps - and there's a clear upside of having it integrated with the car (vs. the driver looking down at the phone while driving) and trivial cost (cheaper that developing own software & OS).
The reason I want CarPlay in the first place is because I don't trust carmakers to make good software (borne out of experience!). I'm buying a car to be a car, I want to BYOS (Bring Your Own Software).
So what is the upside to paying up front?
First, it's obviously a scam. I'm not getting extra value in exchange for money, the product is done. It's even worse than various software subscriptions - at least there your code is continuously being improved and updated to the latest version. Therefore, literally the only reason the company is doing that, is to scam me out of more money.
Second is the trust issue - and I'm not just talking about legal scams - e.g. changing terms and conditions in the future - which could in theory be solved via courts / customer protection laws (but in practice, won't be) but more about the fact that the car company has the ability to disable (parts of) my car! So I wouldn't be buying such a car (asterisk) even if they gave me a "special offer" of $0-forever subscription! They can still change the terms at any point in the future, and it would require massive effort on my part to fix that.
Edit: Having said that, paying $2k up front for CarPlay is also a scam - but at least it makes it easier to estimate the total cost/value of the feature, hence reducing the risk (and mental drag) of owning it...
Edit2: Btw, I have this objection with any "subscription" service... e.g. buying leasehold (subscription) house (although even buying freehold (ownership) house isn't without risk in the UK, you never know who has a preexisting claim on the property...)
(asterisk): assuming other options are available... which is the whole reason we must fight against this, sooner or later... in M$ Office and non-smart TVs, this train has already left the station!
Wait, if you're not getting extra value from the product every extra month you use it, then stop paying the subscription! That's the beauty of it!
Just, no. By "extra" value I mean "extra extra" value - in case of software, new features & updates (which, of course, could also bring no extra value to you, but they do at least in theory).
Btw, I'm not objecting to choice. You want to avoid paying up-front cost for your knives, buy subscription instead? Be my guest! But if the company is forcing you to do this, then it's obviously a good (profitable) deal for them, and a bad deal (scam) for you.
I'm really not sure anyone is forced to drive a BMW, are they.
> But if the company is forcing you to do this, then it's obviously a good (profitable) deal for them, and a bad deal (scam) for you.
I think this is unnecessarily cynical.
CarPlay is offered in perfectly functional forms in the market right now for a reasonable upfront price that people will pay for a known feature set.
A subscription arguably can make the product less valuable, because of uncertainty about continuing support, changes to the subscription model or software, and an unknown price that will likely end up being higher than the flat fee offered by competitors.
This isn't cognitive dissonance, it's worry that BMW might pull a bait and switch.
And anyway, confidence in Apple is justifiably higher.
A ceiling on the price? Now granted this is a BMW, so I wouldn’t dare own it outside of the warranty period, but I usually keep a car 10-15 years. So the longer I keep the car, the more this feature with a low, fixed cost, costs? Screw that.
So just factor that into your equation. Some people would prefer a ceiling, some flexibility. The point is it isn't obviously and inherently a 'scam.' It's just a different way to price and pay for things.
For myself, and it seems like pretty much everyone except for yourself, it definitely is. ;)
But, point taken. Only ~95% of people seem to consider it a scam, and an obvious one. ;)
Consumers would be more willing to accept that from a budget brand, not a luxury brand.
It is not like BMW sold the item and only then decided to start charging. When you buy it is up to you to understand all the up front and delayed cost. Most people prefer delayed costs.
I think software, cars, etc, as a service is somewhat liberating and I'm in favour of it.
Land Rover already do leasing - their subscription is a different product.
I don't think Land Rover can get it done. However Apple and/or Tesla might have the fandom to pull something like this off.
Makes no sense and really transparently benefits the company over the actual "owner" of the car. Why would I ever buy something like that.
The same generally applies for Carplay but it makes less sense given carplay is easy to integrate, only needs to be done once, and is then-on maintained by Apple/Google (for Android Auto), and the measly subscription cost for Carplay most certainly wasn't considered when determining MSRP. The same probably applies for the heated seats argument (did BMW really take into account the subscription costs when determining MSRP), with Tesla probably being the only manufacturer actually doing this since they already take into account things like FSD being unavailable on SR+ Model 3's and no EAP on SR Model 3's, even though all models have the same sensors and cameras and HW3 (although non-plus SR models are no longer being produced, so I'm not sure if they ever got hw2.5 or hw3 included).
Better for driving on snow, if you're at a place where that matters.
If you live somewhere that snow matters, get good tires.
My reality disagrees. I live in a place with a lot of snow, and pretty much see cars that have sliden off the highway every week. All of them are BMWs. And they are all required by law to have winter tires at least.
Winter tires do help, but there is a huge difference between RWD with good tires and 4 wheel drive (notice also that 4WD and AWD is not the same thing, and there are also different qualities).
(it just so happen that here, BMWs are the most popular rear wheel drive cars)
Until you have to go up a hill, or steer and drive in several inches of slush. I guess it's marginally more stupid proof if you floor it at a dumb time but that seems like needless optimization of the worst case while totally tanking the average case. With the weight distribution and electronic controls available in modern vehicles FWD has no meaningful benefit other than cost.
... and lower weight, and no tunnel, and more boot space. If anything, it's RWD which struggles to maintain its significance and show its benefits outside of sports. Modern platforms can make the front wheels turn and spin at the same time without much fuss, with driving characteristics determined by other factors.
>Modern platforms can make the front wheels turn and spin at the same time without much fuss
Yeah they can prevent you from losing traction but you're fundamentally at a disadvantage to RWD because no matter how you cut it you're trying to spread the front traction budget thinner. Everything that makes RWD desirable for the track also makes it desirable for consumer A to B duty.
Don't get me wrong, FWD is great for bringing 0% no money down economy cars to the masses and creating bottom dollar van chassis for employees to abuse but even at its best it's still never going to make varsity in any context where performance actually matters
anyways, most commuters are probably not approaching the limits of grip while accelerating through corners. most people I know have trouble remembering not to brake through turns. the implications of weight transfer during acceleration for a FWD vehicle are much more noticeable during daily driving. it's especially sad to see with all these 200+ hp hot hatches. they have pretty good power to weight ratios on paper but they just can't put it down. a moderately quick start at an intersection in anything other than ideal conditions results in wheel spin every time.
Also I'm pretty sure most of the rwd drivers I see on the side of the road up the local mountain thought they are not poor drivers until the last 2s.
It's exaggerated. At least 90% of car drivers aren't "performance actually matters".
https://www.motoringresearch.com/car-news/bmw-targeted-warra...
BMW has told Motoring Research its targeted billboard warranty adverts – which are claimed to use number plate registration technology to tailor public adverts to BMW drivers – do not actually draw upon vehicle warranty status.
Rather, only publically available information is used. “There is no personalisation visible on the advert and no vehicle or customer data is stored or retained.”
“No personal identifiable information applicable to GDPR is used in the [Vehicle Detection Technology] process nor does VDT ever have access to any personal data.”
Using that info it would be trivial to detect a BMW car that was older than X years old. Where X is number of years the normal non-extended warranty is. You then just assume that any car older than the non-extended warranty doesn't have an extended warranty and display the advert.
Then the only thing the advert would be giving away is that there is a BMW nearby that older than X years. Which anyone with a pair of eyes could figure out because the numbers of UK numberplates encode the issue year (thus the age of the car), and well, BMW's are pretty easy to identify just by looking at them.
Can the manufacturer of an object use their privately-held data about the object to target marketing to the bearer/operator/etc. of that object?
Probably, yes, at least until a law is passed or a ruling is issued that states otherwise. The best short-term route of attack here would be on the plate->VIN conversion database, assuming that's what they're using anyways. But long-term, they'll figure out how to use a telephoto lens or LIDAR or paint-embedded QR codes to get VIN numbers somehow, so best to tackle the bigger problem too.
But in all seriousness, it would be easy to profile the driver. Is it close to dinner time? "Try out the hot new vegan restaurant, het 10% discount when you show your BMW key. 2 miles away, navigate there, Y/N?". Replace vegan with steak, etc, depending on the profile.
Driving to a residential address in an expensive part of town around dinner time? "Last minute dinner party gift idea: blah blah wines. Shop is en-route, navigate there, Y/N?".
My name is in the phone book, therefore public.
It is also personally identifiable information and protected by European law.
That said, processing this data is legal, but you are missing an important distinction in your logic as it relates to data protection laws.
Whether courts agree that broadcasting this information is legal.. we shall see.
CCTV cameras that record public areas need to be registered with ICO.
[1] Assuming that they are not outright lying here when they say "only publically available information is used."
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-at-the-...
That said, apparently they've just reached a deal, and the transition period ends in 7 days, so lets see what they decided about with data protection.
GDPR rights will most likely get eroded in the UK.
Not sure which ad agency they use now, but this live billboard thing is just damaging to the brand. Creepy, too.
I don't buy stuff from companies run by idiots.
Tangentially related to the comment, but seeing more evidence of companies positioning themselves for such a transition.
Oddly, the same adjective is frequently used.
In general, sentences of the form "(I heard from (?P<authority figure>.* ) that )?(?P<bogeyman of the year>.* ) is (?P<influencing us in unseen ways>.* )" should be treated with a great deal of suspicion.
(Extra whitespace insertion to bypass HN formatting)
Without a source, this comes across as racist. So far I haven't been able to find such a source. The closest I've found is a quote from the lead designer saying that in Europe people want to blend in, but in the rest of the world they want to stand out, and the design follows that. The China connection seems to be extrapolation by journalists and bloggers (because cars with big grilles are popular in China), and the bit about intimidation seems to be fabricated entirely.
Their US market share peaked in 2014 and their total sales peaked in 2015. I am not going to say their a declining brand, but their 2019 market share is only up to 2010 levels.
Ram me off of the road? Crash into the back of me? Try and eat me?
I don't know what things are like in China, but there is a saying in the UK: "all mouth and no trousers".
I swapped a front clip on an old shitbox because the meaner looking newer front clip was cheaper than shipping a replacement bumper cover and it reduced the number of people who camp in the left lane in front of me by a solid 10% (pulling that number out of my ass but whatever it is it's a noticeable amount).
I can't imagine this will be anything positive. Give it a decade and other advertisers will open the gate. File for divorce and dating ads will spam you at an intersection.
Even more alarming , this appeared to target a specific demographic. I dislike online dating for an array of reasons, not being able to control my personal data is the top one.
The only thing you can do is be mindful of how much data you give out.
> The only thing you can do is be mindful of how much data you give out.
This is important, but I don't think it's all we can do.
(I'm still getting "Your warranty will expire soon!" calls for a 16 year old SUV...)
(They charge an annual fee for access to car play, for instance)
Their argument is that in US, something like 90% of all new BMWs are leased - so it's "great" for customers and for businesses, since you can now lease a BMW for your employee very cheaply in the most "basic" spec, and if they want some extra features they can pay for them themselves.
Obviously, it's horseshit. But that's the argument they are using.
Feed me gas, air, electricity, and 0.05 parts and labor, and off u go.
Tesla is the brand that people aspire to own, that people snap their eyes towards on the street. In small towns, all of the owners of Teslas are known and prestigious individuals.
Functionally though - Teslas are too big and too fast for old European cities. The Renault Zoe seems to sell well but is still very expensive for mass adoption.
Tesla isn't that popular in Europe simply because most are not insane enough to spend 80kEUR for Model S - for that price one can easily have a Porsche or some other real luxury or sports car.
And Model 3 is very overpriced for what it is. 55k EUR? For a compact car with mediocre range? Seriously? You can have a Porsche Cayenne for that price. Or two compacts like Renault Clio or even VW Golf.
That is really only for die hard fans of the brand. Nobody else buys it here. Also, the network of charging stations is much less developed in Europe than in the US and most are paid (and pretty expensive at that!).
Status symbols are cool but most people don't have Silicon Valley salaries here.
E.g. Norway has exempted electric cars from 25% VAT. That's some 20k EUR "discount" on a Model S right there. Plus it has excepted EVs from other taxes levied on gasoline and diesel cars. So no wonder that people are buying these vehicles there, they would be stupid not to.
The issue is not people buying electric cars but Tesla's claimed status as some sort of status symbol.
Heck, I would go electric myself if there was a car on the market I could actually justify buying - i.e. with about double the range of the current offerings, reasonable battery replacement costs (not costing more than the value of the car after 5-7 years - see Nissan Leaf ...) and reasonable price at the dealers (i.e. about half of what they cost today). People aren't stupid, they see the advantages of driving electric - but also can buy only as much as their wallets allow.
Cayenne prices start around 78k EUR in France, VAT and government ecology maluses included. So I doubt that 100k figure from Switzerland which has much lower VAT taxes, unless they have slapped some sort of "gas-guzzler" tax on it there (which wouldn't surprise me).
Now, if you meant to say that the Model S is exclusive, you'd be right. Buying one of those puts a person in the exclusive club of people who were too stupid to spend the money on an A8 or a 760 instead.
Edit: An S class would also be a good option. But Heaven help the person who thinks a Model S is in the same league as any of the other $100k cars. Its ride quality is trash. The interior is trash. I've heard plenty of people get defensive about the Model S, but I've never heard anyone mount a real defense of it.
I didn't even buy (one-off A$395, LCI became subscription and later scraped) CarPlay for my original F87, because I bought F87 for driving pleasure, the engagement / communication with the car while driving it, don't have a spare hand to deal with the buttons or screen to be honest, not even music when doing spirited driving (50% of the time).
I like the classic FR models with straight 6, missed a used 1M coupe (colleague's, gone while hesitating spending 65k buying a used car), ended up with a compromise, OG F87 (not bad, probably the best that money can buy at that time with everything standard except heated steering wheel). It's like 3.0 CSL, 2002 Turbo, E30 M3(straight four), E46 M3, 1M Coupe with the right size, proportion, front kidney grills (not like the new M4's), what timeless design should be like.
Nowadays when looking at the modern BMWs on road, hope I can have a HUD to filter those :shrug.
I badly wanted a 1M when new but it seemed like a horrible financial decision (even though it wouldn't have been!) and I'd have had to have let go of my Z3M Coupe that I still have today.
Agree, especially the standard 3 year warranty, useless. Combined with the basic service package (around 1500~2000 AUD covering 5 years with tricky T&Cs), the car would certainly start to have all sort of problems once reaching the 5 year old mark.
1M Coupe is hell of a car, I admit that I regret not buying one when I had the change (for A$65k - today it still worth that much, even more...). However, 1M Coupe in its stock form is way too firm for Sydney road condition (the manual will also be a pain getting stuck on traffic - if it's a weekend fun car, no prob at all), I felt a bit neck / back discomfort after 30 mins driving my ex-colleagues car, let alone the ride quality (passenger PoV), interior does not live up to its hype either (manual seat adjustment sucks). I am happy that I got the OG F87 M2 with all options as standard that I care (prefer OG M2's look in LLB and its interior - still poor for an entry ///M car at that price).
Z3 M is a classic (unfortunately not available in AUDM), worth keeping. E86 Z4 M coupe was on my list when hunting for my next toy car (still A$52k+ now), love the S54B32 engine.
Then on the other side, they have a database of cars that they sold and which are still under warranty - again, nothing about owners, none of the silo'ed personal information needs to be accessed at all. If the car is not on the "warranty==true" list, then they show the ad. I assume the ad doesn't display anything like "hey john smith, your warranty is expired!".
I mean, they probably don't even have that information for half the cars they scan because the warranty belongs to the car, not the person who bought the car. The warranty is transferred to the new owner if someone sells the car. They will not know the owner of all private used sales and used sales through 3rd party dealers.
Can the car license be tracked back to you? If yes, then anything attached to it is still personal. For example subscriptions or maintenance status.
Can they use this information to deny you access to their services if the subscription expires? Yes! Can they call you that it's about to expire? Probably yes. Can they call you about this other service? No way! Can they publicly shame you? I'd sue them.
Like I said, in the UK private companies are explicitly allowed to use AMPR machines to read licence plates(every supermarket in this country will have AMPR machines that record when you come and go). BMW just cross-references that with their own record to see if the car is under warranty or not - but like I said, they probably don't actually identify you in any way on the bilboard.
But surely, BMW also simply knows when they sold that specific car thanks to their own records, no?
Like, imagine you were selling cameras, you sold someone a camera and then they come in to your store 5 years later with the same device - is it ok for you to ask "hey, this device has an expired warranty, would you like to extend it?" - you know this because as a seller, you have to keep a record of every device sold. You don't even need to know the owner or any personal information about them - you just know that the camera in front of you has an expired warranty.
>> And the fact that you (the driver) have an expired warranty is private data.
Well I think that's where the problem lies. It's not the driver who has an expired warranty - it's the car that does, and there's nothing you can do, EU or not, to prevent BMW from simply knowing that a car they sold at point X only had a warranty for 3 years. They don't need to know anything about the owner at all.
__ Action Painting __
Paintball is war, pal, and it demands decisive action, like firing 62-mm paint bombs that turn a 75-foot area into a Jackson Pollock death zone. This bipod-mounted mortar can shoot up to four rounds per minute from its 4-foot aluminum barrel, with consistent aim controlled by traverse and elevation-adjustment screws. The M1A's cardboard-jacket shells contain 20 ounces of nonlethal, water-soluble ordnance in a thin urethane casing that explodes harmlessly on impact. Back in the urban jungle, the 46-pound, CO2-powered cannon doubles as an effective billboard-liberation device.
[1] https://www.wired.com/2000/03/fetish-127/
Edited to add the words "that cited a use-case tailor-made for this".
You own a particular vehicle registration mark as much as you own a particular phone number, and both can reasonably be used to identify an individual (motor database verus telephone database).
> The Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA 2018), which currently supplements and tailors the GDPR within the UK, will continue to apply.
> The provisions of the GDPR will be incorporated directly into UK law from the end of the transition period, to sit alongside the DPA 2018.
https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/data-protection-at-the-...
You should only be allowed to control your own PII if you can afford a $1000 Apple product. Everyone else is fair game.
Of course everything regarding the EU exist is a total mess, now, with just 7 days, 9 hours left - including Christmas Day and Boxing Day - so just 2 working days left - we've been told that there is a new trade deal with the EU, which may or may not be passed into law this year on both the EU and the UK side.
I believe that the appropiate laws and instruments are already in place to roll over GDPR into next year
I think PII according to GDPR is something you can go back to identify a person.
This exists and it’s a very profitable business:
https://www.engadget.com/2019-09-17-repo-drivers-scan-licens...
I think it’s about $20 per query to track a known plate.
The issue is them broadcasting in a Billboard that a BMW nearby doesn't have warranty.
Here's what the UK DVL say: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/286454/response/69598...
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/286454/response/69598...
They probably would if you write them.
Charlie Miller demoed remote hacking on a jeep while on the highway, and being hacked is now a lesser fear to me than being shamed:
https://www.wired.com/2015/07/hackers-remotely-kill-jeep-hig...
What happens when phones are constantly broadcasting your unique advertising identifier and everyone knows what you’re looking for before they even lay eyes on you?
In my Mercedes they charge thousands more for "hands free calling package" when my basic toyota comes with that out of the box. This upselling of basic tech functionality needs to end and I'm glad Tesla and hopefully Apple car disrupt the mired incumbents.
Now they’re just clueless assholes. I’ve seen it in their IT systems, their design teams are either on crack or got outsourced to 4 year olds and their product/sales gurus are a mix of bean counters incapable of producing an original idea and a bunch of lifers running on nepotism.
It’s starting to happen and will get even worse, BMW will have a tough decade at least.
Can confirm. BMW used to be quite innovative, at least on the scale of German automakers, with their connect services. We have a fairly well equipped and fairly new BMW which includes those services. Not only can they get quite expensive (especially their incredibly pretentious concierge service), but their smartphone integration is awful at least (CarPlay is a subscription). The only connected drive services that could be remotely useful are so bad, they're basically unusable.
> It’s starting to happen and will get even worse, BMW will have a tough decade at least.
The only innovation BMW was able to come up with in the last few years is increasing the size of the front grill. I am not sure if BMW is incompetent, ignorant, uncreative or if they're just aholes (looking at managements behavior during the pandemic, that's certainly the case).
I doubt that BMW will be able to maintain its independence as a car manufacturer in the long run, unless there are some dramatic changes in line. My guess is that they'll be acquired by some other car manufacturer, maybe Daimler (although they face similar challenges), but more likely some huge Chinese company.
I'm still too poor to buy one new, but it didn't seem completely without innovation.
Those aren't innovations, those are almost standard in lots of vehicles.
I spent a long time sceptical about that other car company. But I've realised I can never overestimate how much the traditional companies will screw up.
Just look at their model range nowadays, it's vast, confusing and insipid. Very little of it is inspiring unless you think 650bhp in an SUV is interesting.
Depends on where you live. I drive a really small but acceptably fast car, but I'm frequently surrounded by giant lifted trucks that block all visibility. I want a taller vehicle just so I don't die, but don't want to give up the 6 second 0-60.
Unless you are sub 3s, mostly what you need is a bit of torque lower in the range, and a suspension & tires that can deliver it to the road. This, along with transmission ratios, trades off against other things people often want in their cars.
hp above 300ish is mostly about what happens (or doesn't happen) at triple digit speeds, at least for regular passenger vehicles not towing large loads. The latter is all about torque available at what range but that can push you into higher hp territory.
Compare that with the M2 which is a looker and a badass car.
I'm also pretty annoyed with the current direction, and if I get another car (performance or otherwise) it's very unlikely to be a BMW.
I've been looking at BMWs this year and IIRC they backed out of this after the backlash: https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/technology/bmw-u-turns-ap... - agree with your other points though.
Thanks BMW! Get your shit together! Anyway, this anecdote is just a taste of what is coming for the car industry. Carplay is only a small preview of the level of integration consumers are going to expect over the next 5-10 years. If they can't sort out a digital key across their lineup, they are kind of fucked.
Think that digital key is going to work in 20 years when you're on iOS 44 or whatever? I'd be genuinely shocked.
Oh absolutely. The infotainment system of the German premium automakers is utter trash. It's slow, overwhelming and incredibly tedious to use. My family owns five cars, a BMW, an Audi, a Seat and 2 VW, except for one VW they are all fairly new. The BMW and the Audi infotainment system are equally bad, by far the best ones are integrated in the Volkswagen vehicles. But when comparing them with competitors like Tesla, they still suck.
I don't like Tesla, but credit where credit is due. They software concept for their vehicles is innovative, thought out and incredibly feature rich. If this is what VW, Daimler and BMW aim for, they still have an incredibly long way to go.
It's hard to believe that nobody came up with a good/open AV integration for mobile/smart phones a decade ago. Gotta love proprietary interfaces that stop getting updates 2 years in for a car that should last 10+ years at least.
They launched their MBUX platform a few years ago and hat huge goals, since I don't own a mercedes, I don't know if they managed to keep up with those. However, from what I read online, it doesn't look like it
Fortunately they cut that shit out a year ago: https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/4/20995630/bmw-apple-carpla...
The thing with a big knob behind the gear stick was really hard to use (i-Drive from years ago)
"The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs"
The grandchildren are too far removed from what it took to raise the golden cow. So they just milk it.
BMW has always first and foremost been a logo marketing company. They exist so moderately rich people can show off how moderately rich they are by driving a car with a BMW logo on it.
They definitely were a car enthusiast company, at some point. My next car will be Japanese.
But BMW has been rewarded for producing over-styled cars that are more known as a status symbol by the general public than as a benchmark for fun, practical, rwd cars. They have been plagued with absolutely shameful longevity issues, caused by mind boggling engineering decisions, and catering primarily to people that love cars will never be the most profitable option.
They aren't alone, Mercedes has made many of the same choices, although Porsche remains relatively true to form, with the people who choose to buy them being no fault of theirs.
This seems like a vast understatement. The article is about a BMW campaign in which BMW will pay a lot of money to shame BMW customers and send a very very strong message to anyone who sees these billboards: DON'T BUY BMW.
Somebody inside BMW has an axe to grind and has decided their coworkers are a bunch of idiots. Rather than quit, they've decided to use their coworkers' stupidity against the company. In a too impossible to be be true storyline, they keep pitching obviously self-destructive strategies to their coworkers who lap them up and implement them.
I'm not in the automotive circle... what do you mean by this? Do they outsource everything now?
From "mobility" to a "services" company, the worst part is they see "making cars people want to buy" as an embarrassment and the whole transition period of "We now make cars the chinese tell us they want, because they are the ones buying them until we reach our Nirvana" it's just corporate sleazeball speak to "let's keep the wheel spinning because we made a terrible mistake but i don't want to lose my job".
For people that look at cars as status symbols, sure. Also maybe for people that think straightline performance is all that matters.
All mainstream Tesla's are dogs around turns compared to even baseline luxury German cars.
The biggest problem a Tesla would have vs a competitive ICE sport sedan would be mass, which can hurt all vehicle dynamics; likely on the order of 300-400lbs or so (Model 3 LR: ~4k lbs, 330i ~3600lbs, Model S P75 ~4500lbs, 530i ~4000lbs). Of course it's worth noting that none of these vehicles are featherweights, and the extremely low center of gravity of skateboard battery pack vehicles helps them roll vastly less than one would expect, which helps a lot in transitions and steady state cornering.
Regardless, both the Model S and the Model 3 are extremely well-balanced and the 3 is surprisingly nimble and adjustable. The 3 has a ton of grip, turns in sharply and gets out of corners FAST. I haven't driven a Model X so I can't say.
Source: I instruct, I drive on the track, I own 2 BMWs and 1 Tesla, I've driven numerous BMWs and Teslas including the original roadster on the street and on closed courses. And I've been on car forums for decades and seen endless comments like this.
Also, a Roadster is definitely not a "mainstream Tesla." I used that word to specifically exclude the Roadster, as it's $250k and a completely different discussion.
I agree that using the term "dog" was an exaggeration.
Why should I spend a lot of money to improve the 1% of use cases I don't care about?
My 2 biggest worries when I'm driving a BMW are hitting somebody who is walking through the red light in the rain and looking at his mobile phone, and going into a pothole. I want the car with the best automatic emergency system and the room to improve, and Tesla is far the best in this category.
And the roadster I was referring to was the original one, not the one that, as far as I know, doesn't exist (though, I can't say I pay a lot of attention to Tesla news because the fanboyism is an absolutely toxic combination of .. well, fanboyism, and automotive ignorance).
I don't think the Model 3 is quite as fun as a manual transmission non-turbo 6cyl BMW 3 series. I get a lot of tactile enjoyment from shifting, I enjoy the sounds of a nice engine, and I enjoy the power delivery of an internal combustion engine. Of course, all of these things that I enjoy are actually things that make the vehicle slower compared to a dual clutch or modern automatic, or a boosted engine of a similar size, or an electric motor with no gearbox required to keep the engine near its powerband; they're all anachronisms.
The extra mass of the Tesla is less of a drawback to me over (say) a turbo BMW 3 series automatic, vice comparing that turbo automatic 3er to a manual BMW 3 series without a turbo. None of these cars can really truly be called "nimble", but I'm quite pleased with the balance, cornering ability and especially outright grip of our RWD Model 3 (with Michelin P4s tires replacing the eco crap of course). It's all a sliding scale, but yes, my primary objection is putting the Teslas in a class entirely below all German sedans. On a mountain road I'd happily take the Model 3 over an A4, even if not the "right" BMW 3 series for the road.
I drive a tiny little french thing with a chainsaw engine so probably not my market anyway.
But that's pretty much exactly what they're doing. They probably feel the need to claim this in order to not break laws, but saying "We didn't put information about you on a billboard" doesn't mean they didn't do it.
This feels so much like fake news, I hope they actually do it.
Besides the shitty anti-consumer practices, besides the lack of turn signal usage from average BMW drivers, these cars are still trash unless you're leasing because they are absolute money pits.
Even the Germans in germany who own BMWs and religiously take care of them will have to deal with ultra expensive repairs and problems that one wouldn't find on a Toyota or Lexus.
Germans over-engineer their cars. There are 10 bolts on an engine in a place where a competitor would use two Kinda cool though in a schadenfreude way, because BMW drivers are insufferable about "the ultimate driving machine" right up until the first repair bill comes and then they're suddenly much more interested in japanese naturally aspirated engine vehicles...
coming soon, near the traffic lights.
"a smart bill board showing your debt and dues pending to the entire fckng world"
"hello there, yes, you on the red honda civic with number plate xxxx, how are things going on in your bed? last night you searched for it and we are here to help"
how the heck did we end up here, this makes targeted ads look like god send, and here I was thinking targeted ads were the worst to happen in tech :( ..
The "showing debt" thing I think already happens in China, too lazy to search for the exact reference right now but I remember reading something of the sorts not too long ago. Creepy as hell.
Later edit: Found a quick reference (among many others, I guess): "Chinese debtors shamed with broadcast of names and faces on giant screens on May 1 holiday" [1]
[1] https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2144690/chin...
A person's warrantee is PII, so making it public will land them with a huge GDPR fine.
http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1825
From Lies, Inc also released with quite a bit of variation as The Unteleported Man
Jerk as a service rarely ends well.
Do they do any market research on how their products are used?
This shows a bug in capitalism: The scammers work less hard to make more money and will go out of business still in denial.
This claim is disputed.
You may find the full article on some Russian mirror website. I don't know whether HN allows us to name it.
https://www.petrolprices.com/news/bmw-drivers-the-most-disli...
Measuring aggressiveness is going to be a measurement of outliers. For everyone weaving through traffic in their BMW without turn signals there's a gray hair putting along. For every Tacoma clogging up the left lane there's a Prius taxi hauling ass to the next fare. I don't think it's a very informative thing to try to measure.
But the new design of the iX and 4er models are very beautiful. I must say the new grills really appeal to me.
It seems that the new design causes a similar reaction as Mercedes SUV design of GLE and GLC (Coupe). Mercedes took a new approach and got a lot of negative comments. But ultimately they set a new trend and their SUV's were a huge success.
Edit: edited for clarity