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Great way to tank a brand. Part of BMW's value is/was the expectation of an upper middle class snob driving it, but having your car force ads on you is somethin
by helterskelter 2mo ago
Great way to tank a brand. Part of BMW's value is/was the expectation of an upper middle class snob driving it, but having your car force ads on you is something people wouldn't even expect from a Kia Soul leased off a used lot.
- rvz 2mo ago> Part of BMW's value is/was the expectation of an upper middle class snob driving it BMWs are no where near for that "class". A Mercedes-Benz is for that and even they also put ads in their own dashboard screens. [0] So on HN-land, time to rule out BMWs, Chevrolets, Mercedes-Benz, Teslas, Volkswagens, Kias. What else? [0] https://www.motor1.com/news/797846/mercedes-screen-plays-ads/ https://www.motor1.com/news/797846/mercedes-screen-plays-ads...
- jchw 2mo agoI don't think I'll be buying recent model years any time soon.
- femto 2mo agoI'm beginning to think that my '96 Toyota Starlet is "peak ICE". It has EFI, no infotainment, no power windows, no power steering, no automatic transmission. It is basically an engine, gearbox and wheels. An electric Starlet would be Nirvana. Edit: Just read that Toyota is toying with the idea of an electric Starlet. It'll probably have an infotainment system and power "everything" though. https://www.drive.com.au/news/2026-toyota-starlet-rumours/ https://www.drive.com.au/news/2026-toyota-starlet-rumours/
- fy20 2mo agoI'm not a mechanic but I have rebuilt an engine (common rail diesel with electronic injection) with a friend and do some work on my own cars. I don't really get the "everything needs to be mechanical" push. My previous car was mid 2000s, automatic, electronic basically everything. The reason why I scrapped it was because it had too must rust. The engine, transmission, and electronics were still fine after 200k and 20 years of harsh winters. My current car had an electrical issue last year... but it turned out it was a mechanical issue. Something had chewed through the wires to the MAF sensor. Fixed them, and all good. It's no different from something chewing through a fuel line, except OBD was able to tell me what subsystem was not working correctly. The problem I see with current cars is that the infotainment system is tied into everything - and usually the software sucks. If they just went back to seperate dashboard, AC controls and radio I'd have no issues with them. My current car is from 2016, and I specifically looked for something that was like that. It is hybrid and has modern tech (e.g. radar cruise control), but everything is compartmentalised. First upgrade I did was replacing the headunit with a Chinese one that supports Android Auto/CarPlay. No functionality was lost, as the old head unit was literally just a radio and screen for backup camera.
- Barbing 2mo agoThe infotainment thing is regrettable but nowhere near as bad as the cellular modems phoning home, constantly spying, possibly raising your insurance rates… Lucky for Big Brother they’ve blanketed this country (USA) in Flock cameras. New car, old car, they’re ready to pull over journalists in dealer loaners, people in the wrong place at the wrong time…
- merpkz 2mo agoWhat stops your navigation app on phone collecting all the data anyways and sharing it with insurance corps?
- Barbing 2mo agoBeen asked that before—don’t always use one. Insurers will have to buy that data from the telecom if my phone’s on. Not sure how common it is for Verizon, AT&T, Google (Maps), Apple (Maps) to sell to insurers (or brokers who insurers use). Perhaps pretty common? I’m sure they often can deanonymize it if they do.
- xethos 2mo agoThe phone app misses lots of data the car can collent and send. When, how frequently, and how long turn indicators are used. How aggressively the throttle and brake are applied, how frequently pre-tensioners and other safety features activate, how closely the radar or lidar-equipped cruise control sees you following others, and I'm sure lots I haven't thought of
- merpkz 2mo agoElectronic injection sounds like too complex system to maintain, now if it had an actual carburetor that might be a peak "ICE", true and pure mechanical experience. Jokes aside, I hope that car at least have airbags, otherwise it's just death trap
- Dylan16807 2mo agoNot having a screen is great, but I don't think you're going to convince many people that lack of power steering is a feature.
- kridsdale1 2mo agoMy Lexus 2025 remains perfect and user friendly. I have all the online connected stuff enabled. Zero enshitification.
- ludicrousdispla 2mo ago>> Zero enshitification. Lexus should put that on the cover of their product brochure.
- roundwego 2mo ago[flagged]
- mentalfist 2mo agoMany NA produced lexus models have seen deteriorating quality issues past 5 or so years. Maybe yours is produced in Japan?
- maxnevermind 2mo agoWhy 2025 though? It didn't yet pass the test of time and there is not enough failure rate data on it. Toyotas(Lexus) do have serious quality issues too, rarely but that happens for certain models from time to time.
- quickthrowman 2mo agoToyota is the least objectionable car manufacturer and used vehicle deprecation curves don’t lie, I trust money decisions more than words. As long as they keep annoying ads and subscriptions out of their vehicles, I’ll keep driving them.
- yegle 2mo agoVolvo, with their terrible infortainment system's performance, I'm not sure if it's capable of displaying ads.
- dylan604 2mo agoAnd here you thought they were just incompetent. Turns out, they've been looking out for you this whole time
- chaostheory 2mo agoYou make it sound like there's no choice. Toyota/Lexus and Honda/Acura don't do it to my knowledge. Am I wrong? EDIT Add Volvo and Genesis to the list of no ads
- ehnto 2mo agoMercs and BMWs occupy the same market space. They are direct competitors. Mercedes may have a car or two that reaches just out of upper middle class but they are largely a middle to upper middle class brand, just like BMW. The fact that Merc would do it too just means they are both happy cheapening their brand to align with practices of cheap off-brand android TVs.
- dash2 2mo agoActually Apple will also put advertising on your phone if you have one of the dynamic carousel things and you walk into the wrong area.
- microtonal 2mo agoThey put advertising in: - The Settings: Apple Intelligence and Apple Fitness+ (including the red dot as if you missed something important). - The app store. Typically 1/2 or 2/3 of the search page is covered by ads. - Apple Wallet. They rolled out an F1 advertisement to Apple Wallet in some region. - iWork apps now have advertisements for updating to an Apple Creator Studio subscription. - Apple Maps will soon have ads. Most restraint is gone now to grow the Services category. It just feels gross for flagship devices. It seems that AOSP ROMs like GrapheneOS are the only road to sanity.
- Esophagus4 2mo agoThe ads in Apple Wallet for their credit card drive me insane. So invasive.
- eps 2mo agoMercedes is famously a company with the widest range of models, from entry-level budget cars to high-end luxury ones. It's basically their MO.
- ehnto 2mo agoThat describes almost every major auto company though. Some companies sell their luxury lines through different badging or different branding but it's the same line up. Even Nissan has a luxury line. If you want a 500k BMW you can do that too.
- larusso 2mo agoJust saying that these brands have different offerings in different countries. Here in Germany all big brands: Audi, BMW, Mercedes and VW etc have offerings from low lever to luxury car.
- mlrtime 2mo agoMercedes used to be that. The S class used to be the best car you could buy. The S class sales are tanking as well as E class and the rest of their cars are just toyota corolla class with extra "luxury" features. AMG used to actually mean something, now AMG badging is a feature that means nothing (Like M cars).
- Grombobulous 2mo agoSedan sales are tanking as a general concept. It’s not just the S class or E class. The sedan is a decreasingly popular form factor. I personally think this is quite logical: what’s the advantage of a sedan over a vehicle with a hatchback, whether it be SUV or car? It’s pretty much worse in every way. It’s just a smaller cargo opening. The popularity of SUVs is incredibly logical given the fact that their downsides have been largely eliminated. They don’t chug gas anymore, they don’t ride like a truck anymore, again, where’s the downside? A sedan gives you a worse cargo space and more difficult entry/exit, lower view of the road, more annoying for car seats and kids, etc. Mercedes is doing just fine selling SUVs. This is a similar story to the death of the coupe and the manual transmission. There was a time when having two doors or manual transition cut down on labor and manufacturing costs significantly and they were sensible compromises for customers. It’s just not true anymore, and what you’re left with is a typical non-enthusiast buyer that says “why would I want a car with less functionality/is harder to drive?” It’s easy to criticize about M or AMG being watered down but they have a pretty distinctive product separation between the true performance models and sport trims. And to be honest, the sport trims are much more sensible purchases for most buyers than a full blown M/AMG vehicle with all the sticker price, fuel economy and maintenance baggage they entail.
- dehrmann 2mo agoIt's like a basic Kindle. Or Ryanair. Between this, the proprietary nut patent, and the heated seat subscription, I'm probably not going to look at BMW for my next car. They've been going back on things, but all of this adds up to they don't get it.
- mplewis 2mo agoNo, it's obviously not like that.
- riffraff 2mo agoRyanair is the epitome of "cheap with compromise" which is the opposite of the BMW brand. And kindle basic gets advertising as a known feature at buying time. Pushing advertisment after sale on a premium product is absolutely not similar.
- Barbing 2mo agoI had to edit my comment saying it might not have been a fair comparison because I realized they might’ve just been dissing BMW pretty hard. ‘Enjoy your “luxury“ car’, the kind of “luxury“ that appeals to subsidized e-reader buyers and discount airline customers. And I like that. If BMW can’t resist monetizing their customers’ attention, they don’t deserve the higher-end customers their marketing suggests they desire.
- dylan604 2mo agoWhich was the straw that broke the camel's back to cancel Prime
- riffraff 2mo agoI'm heading the same direction, for the same reason. Fuck amazon and their bait&switch.
- 2muchcoffeeman 2mo agoA BMW is like a flagship smart phone. It looks like luxury, but everyone has them.
- calmbonsai 2mo agoYup. I'd say ICE cars peaked in UX, performance, and safety in the early 2000s.
- kQq9oHeAz6wLLS 2mo agoThis has nothing to do with the method used to propel the vehicle. There's nothing stopping this from happening in an EV.
- edoceo 2mo agoThe electric motor is better for torque and speed than ICE.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2mo agoAnd this effects how ads are displayed on the main console how?
- sandworm101 2mo agoCorrect. This is about the people who buy new cars. The manufacturers are addressing a well-studied market. Those with money, those who can afford to be "early adopters' of new tech are the sort of people who actually want these features. They want computer screens. They want car-phone synchronization. They want a car that can be "repaired" over an internet connection because that saves interacting with a tradesperson with skills they do not understand or appreciate. Cars are scary for such people. Phones are not. So making the car as phone-like as possible sells more cars.
- vardump 2mo agoThe current crop of cars are significantly safer than in early 2000s.
- calmbonsai 2mo agoGood point especially wrt side airbags. I forgot about that.
- dzhiurgis 2mo agoIt’s not forced. You have to click icon. Not the smartest move, but not exactly ominous. Plenty of other bad software decisions in bmw.
- Barbing 2mo agoSounds like it is forced and it’s an entire banner. Imagine the click-through rate on something your car shows you compared to your average ad.
- jtokoph 2mo agoThe most evil part of this is that drivers have been conditioned to click on these “surprise waiting for you” notifications. BMW usually had fairly cute holiday animations that were a fun surprise. I actually looked forward to them until I got bamboozled by this one…
- anigbrowl 2mo agoAnything that relies on manipulating your emotions is a dark pattern.
- Jamesbeam 2mo ago[flagged]
- ThomasServo 2mo agoI own a 2009 BMW twin turbo 3-series, purchased slightly used in early 2010 for $36k. The new price was $52k, so 10 months of depreciation really hits hard on new BMW buyers I guess. The machine is a work of engineering art. It was made back in the days when BMW engineers were still given free rein to create The Ultimate Driving Machine. Remember that slogan? Back then, owning and driving a BMW was intentional. A driver's car. Design details down to things imperceptible were created with this intentional driver's desire to operate the vehicle. Sigh... Now, it's apparently...The Ultimate Consumer Advertising Content Delivery System. I feel sorry for the engineers that are still there from their glory days. Imagine being told from some power-suited punk to design that ad delivery mechanism.
- quickthrowman 2mo agoStellantis shows ads on their screens in-car. It’s expected behavior from an awful manufacturer like Stellantis, but I wouldn’t have expected this from BMW. It’s tacky and would turn me off from buying a BMW if I was looking at one.