I think it’s more of a price insensitivity thing. I’m loosely basing this on luxury car owners I’ve known and what I’ve heard about BMWs specifically. Basically

I think it’s more of a price insensitivity thing. I’m loosely basing this on luxury car owners I’ve known and what I’ve heard about BMWs specifically. Basically BMWs tend to be designed to be great for the first 16k miles or so then fall apart. They use parts that are in hard places to service and that break around that point. It sounds like they are meant for people who will be onto the next car at that point. Probably sounds like a ridiculous market segment, but there really are people who have enough money to not care about dropping 100k on a car once or twice per year. Mercedes have a similar viewpoint on their customers - they “can afford more expensive maintenance.” Something not dissimilar from smartphones being replaced because their batteries being at end of use.