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It makes sense, BMW quit being a car company in the past few years. Now they’re just clueless assholes. I’ve seen it in their IT systems, their design teams ar

It makes sense, BMW quit being a car company in the past few years. 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.

chokeartist 6y ago
For what it is worth, the 2021 models finally seem to have CarPlay as a standard feature, along with a digital dash. Basically parity to what Audi has had for years.
moooo99 6y ago
> 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. 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.
- whydoineedthis 6y ago
  Idk, I was in a new bmw recently and thought it was cool. Driver assist to stay in lanes. Full touch dash across the entire dashboard. Verbal assistant worked well and was able to adjust settings intuitively. I'm still too poor to buy one new, but it didn't seem completely without innovation.
  - rwc 6y ago
    These things are common in similarly-classed vehicles and have been for many years.
    - astura 6y ago
      They are even common on mid and higher-trimed economy cars now (I have all those features on mine)
  - moooo99 6y ago
    My 2017 Seat Leon costs significantly less than a comparable BMW 1. I have a decent navigation system, voice controls, Android Auto and CarPlay, touch infotainment (not a fan), and lane assist, emergency break assist and several others. A friend of mine bought a BMW 1 which cost 12k more than my car (MSRP) and, excluding the gps navigation, has none of those features. Those aren't innovations, those are almost standard in lots of vehicles.
    - whydoineedthis 6y ago
      Lol. I just looked at that car online. Comparing it to a bmw is laughable in every sense. Performance, not comparable. Safety rating, not comparable. Exterior and interior styling, laughably non existent in the Leon. Give me a break.
- gifnamething 6y ago
  BMW operate like a company that have given up on expanding their addressable market and now seek to extract as much value from it as possible. In a vacuum, this is common and makes sense, but not at the cusp of a revolution in that industry. 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.
mhh__ 6y ago
BMW seem to have always had fairly nutty UIs in their cars. It was consistently brought up in loads of car reviews going back to the early 2000s (both Top Gear through to the more serious articles). The thing with a big knob behind the gear stick was really hard to use (i-Drive from years ago)
Reedx 6y ago
> mix of bean counters incapable of producing an original idea and a bunch of lifers running on nepotism. "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.
threwawaysoff 6y ago
The car driver doesn't fall far from the factory.
grawprog 6y ago
>It makes sense, BMW quit being a car company in the past few years. 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.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  They have marketed well. But BMW also knows a little bit about making really nice, quiet, powerful, fun to drive cars.
  - snark42 6y ago
    And motorcycles.
- jariel 6y ago
  The cars are good though. I owned one once, and it drove like magic.
- ImprovedSilence 6y ago
  At least they used to try to be look a very precise, very german, drivers car. They stuck with rear wheel drive, and used fantastic inline 6 engines until CAFE regulations pretty much made them unfeasible. They lost me and become a marketing company when the model names started being what i would call “un-german”. With the model, you used to know what you got. 325t? 3 series, 2.5l displacement, has a turbo. 540ci? 5 series, 4.0l, coupe. Sometimes in 2007-2011 timeframe, the number no longer corresponded to what the vehicle was. 330 was a 2.0l turbo, 335 was a 3.0l turbo... they just couldn't put smaller numbers on the model. Thats marketing, thats not what I want in my very precise driving machine. Its been a downhill slide ever since. But thats what the masses want and buy... so whatever. Also they dont make a manual M5 anymore, ultimate driving machine my ass. Their maintenance has always been a gate-kept rip off though.
- radu_floricica 6y ago
  I currently own a 23 yo and a 10 yo BMW. The first is a fun fun fun car to drive, and the reason I haven't sold it yet. The second is an awesome car... and cost me an ungodly amount of money to get and keep in shape. They definitely were a car enthusiast company, at some point. My next car will be Japanese.
fhood 6y ago
There was a time when BMW was an enthusiast's brand, and to a degree that DNA is still there. The M3 remains a benchmark, and by most accounts even the base 3 series is one of the better driver's cars in it's class. 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.
freeopinion 6y ago
> BMW will have a tough decade at least 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.
_Understated_ 6y ago
> It makes sense, BMW quit being a car company in the past few years. I'm not in the automotive circle... what do you mean by this? Do they outsource everything now?
- PedroBatista 6y ago
  The cool higher-ups see themselves as a [ insert buzzword] company. 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".

chokeartist 6y ago

For what it is worth, the 2021 models finally seem to have CarPlay as a standard feature, along with a digital dash. Basically parity to what Audi has had for years.

moooo99 6y ago

> 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. 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.

whydoineedthis 6y ago
Idk, I was in a new bmw recently and thought it was cool. Driver assist to stay in lanes. Full touch dash across the entire dashboard. Verbal assistant worked well and was able to adjust settings intuitively. I'm still too poor to buy one new, but it didn't seem completely without innovation.
- rwc 6y ago
  These things are common in similarly-classed vehicles and have been for many years.
  - astura 6y ago
    They are even common on mid and higher-trimed economy cars now (I have all those features on mine)
- moooo99 6y ago
  My 2017 Seat Leon costs significantly less than a comparable BMW 1. I have a decent navigation system, voice controls, Android Auto and CarPlay, touch infotainment (not a fan), and lane assist, emergency break assist and several others. A friend of mine bought a BMW 1 which cost 12k more than my car (MSRP) and, excluding the gps navigation, has none of those features. Those aren't innovations, those are almost standard in lots of vehicles.
  - whydoineedthis 6y ago
    Lol. I just looked at that car online. Comparing it to a bmw is laughable in every sense. Performance, not comparable. Safety rating, not comparable. Exterior and interior styling, laughably non existent in the Leon. Give me a break.
gifnamething 6y ago
BMW operate like a company that have given up on expanding their addressable market and now seek to extract as much value from it as possible. In a vacuum, this is common and makes sense, but not at the cusp of a revolution in that industry. 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.

mhh__ 6y ago

BMW seem to have always had fairly nutty UIs in their cars. It was consistently brought up in loads of car reviews going back to the early 2000s (both Top Gear through to the more serious articles). The thing with a big knob behind the gear stick was really hard to use (i-Drive from years ago)

Reedx 6y ago

> mix of bean counters incapable of producing an original idea and a bunch of lifers running on nepotism. "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.

threwawaysoff 6y ago

The car driver doesn't fall far from the factory.

grawprog 6y ago

>It makes sense, BMW quit being a car company in the past few years. 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.

jjeaff 6y ago
They have marketed well. But BMW also knows a little bit about making really nice, quiet, powerful, fun to drive cars.
- snark42 6y ago
  And motorcycles.
jariel 6y ago
The cars are good though. I owned one once, and it drove like magic.
ImprovedSilence 6y ago
At least they used to try to be look a very precise, very german, drivers car. They stuck with rear wheel drive, and used fantastic inline 6 engines until CAFE regulations pretty much made them unfeasible. They lost me and become a marketing company when the model names started being what i would call “un-german”. With the model, you used to know what you got. 325t? 3 series, 2.5l displacement, has a turbo. 540ci? 5 series, 4.0l, coupe. Sometimes in 2007-2011 timeframe, the number no longer corresponded to what the vehicle was. 330 was a 2.0l turbo, 335 was a 3.0l turbo... they just couldn't put smaller numbers on the model. Thats marketing, thats not what I want in my very precise driving machine. Its been a downhill slide ever since. But thats what the masses want and buy... so whatever. Also they dont make a manual M5 anymore, ultimate driving machine my ass. Their maintenance has always been a gate-kept rip off though.
radu_floricica 6y ago
I currently own a 23 yo and a 10 yo BMW. The first is a fun fun fun car to drive, and the reason I haven't sold it yet. The second is an awesome car... and cost me an ungodly amount of money to get and keep in shape. They definitely were a car enthusiast company, at some point. My next car will be Japanese.

fhood 6y ago

There was a time when BMW was an enthusiast's brand, and to a degree that DNA is still there. The M3 remains a benchmark, and by most accounts even the base 3 series is one of the better driver's cars in it's class. 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.

freeopinion 6y ago

> BMW will have a tough decade at least 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.

_Understated_ 6y ago

> It makes sense, BMW quit being a car company in the past few years. I'm not in the automotive circle... what do you mean by this? Do they outsource everything now?

PedroBatista 6y ago
The cool higher-ups see themselves as a [ insert buzzword] company. 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".