Fat chance. It’s time to get the pitchforks out. Literally no other carmaker requires you to get the upgraded infotainment option AND pay a monthly fee. In fact, no other carmakers forces you to pay a monthly fee at all. And CarPlay and Android Auto are fast becoming standard equipment on $20k cars.

BMW is not a smaller car company. It’s one of the top 5 manufacturers in valuation. Their volume obviously doesn’t reach that of companies like VW, but they manage to make a ton of money on their cars and have a lot of money for R&D. High priced cars are the ones that will get EV drivetrains first, which BMW happens…

It’s possible to have a FWD longitudinal setup. Look at any Audi (A4 and up). I highly doubt BMW would start mounting engines transversely for their higher end models because of weight distribution. If they’re going to use the same platforms for all types of cars, they’ll want to have a longitudinal platform that can…

40-50 mile range PHEVs (which can go 300+ miles with gasoline) would actually be very useful to most of the population of the U.S. Why pay so much money for heavy expensive batteries when the average American only commutes 16 miles each way (32 miles round trip). So 90% of the time you’re in your car, you’re pure EV.…

Bad analogy. Back then, Lambo was only selling hundreds of cars at the most and definitely would liked to have sell more. They were basically making bonkers kit cars.

Why do you care what other people buy? I care more about carmakers abandoning the manual transmission and sports cars. 

There has to be a balance between exclusivity and sales volume. There are a lot of luxury goods that can easily be scaled up to mass production but aren’t. SUVs are just another lucrative market. I think the reasoning is that they are not in the same class as their sports cars, so they use the SUV as a way to sell…

I’ve definitely seen women wear clothes like this on airplanes. I’m a bit confused why they made such a big deal about it. I’m a fairly conservative person when it comes to clothes, but I don’t see how anyone could complain about those clothes. We walk around basically naked around the pool or on the beach and no one…

Yearly tech updates are expected at Apple though. Most of their most popular products are basically on an annual update cycle. So not quite the same thing.

Except Porsche doesn’t keep the same car on the road for 50 years. The styling changes are “conservative” sure, but the chassis is updated. Interiors are updated. Engines are updated. Transmissions are updated. New technology is added. And we’re not talking minor revisions here. The car is heavily updated with each…

I’m not one to judge a car’s appearance before seeing it in person, but this has me a bit worried.

For that to be relevant, you’d also have to find out how much he donated to Republican candidates and PACs. All rich people donate to candidates from all parties, pretty much, as long as it gives them some sway with them. It’s the ratio that often tells us their political affiliation.

Nah. $50k is about the practical limit. Very few people will pay more than that. 

I fully read what you wrote. I just have two problems with it:

Oh, well the German auto industry is obviously older than the Japanese auto industry. The Germans pretty much invented production automobiles. I was speaking from a technical perspective.

I’m asking you, what is pedigree. What benefit does pedigree have when I buy a car? Is that a tangible benefit to someone who just enjoys driving?

I don’t think so. I’m no Audi fan, but that’s a decent price for a midsized (really it’s large now) luxury sedan. I’d prefer a 5 series myself, but the Audi is cheaper and has its benefits.

Hah, true. They are also the third luxury automaker in their respective country. They also focus on FWD platform cars with a concentration on their performance oriented AWD system (Quattro & SH-AWD). Their lower-end brand (VW/Honda) are also known for making cheap and fun performance cars (GTI/Si & Golf R/Type R).…

What is pedigree? It’s like bragging about being old money vs new money. Old money didn’t work for it, new money did. IMO.

Badge whores. Which is funny because before the R8 came out, Audi was basically the German Acura. I’m being a bit harsh, but it’s kinda true.