Was looking for a new electric car and had BMW in the rotation. That’s not happening now. Was already on shaky ground after the heated seat thing and now I’m not touching em.
Ah ha, my clever plan has been poor and not being able to afford to buy a brand new BMW, has paid off.
A plan that is old as time. Wait til the pre own vehicle deals are in the newspaper
That is going to take a long time… newspaper…
No one buys BMWs, they rent them. I worked in this industry, BMW buyers were always broke ass.
Same company that made front-wheel-drives after promising it never would.
oh no, a car that doesn’t get stuck in 2 inches of snow, how terrible.
That is an ugly car. Why can’t EVs look like normal cars?
What’s a “normal” car?
Fair point.
1990s styling
The Canyonero
one of these days I’m going to spend a weekend going from dealership to dealership looking for a new car, and just wasting their time when I come across nonsense features like this
that Prius feature that beeps and distracts you from the road whenever you pull up to an intersection? that’s fucked up
those features that remind you to pay attention to the road because you have sunglasses on, and pull your attention away from the road to tell you that? that’s fucked up
the features that aggressively keep you in your lane when you drift to give room to an obstacle? that’s fucked up
That’s a suspiciously specific promise to make.
One-time as in there won’t be another Spider-Man ad. I’m sure the next ad will also be a “one-time” deal as well.
In case you are considering purchasing a BMW here are the models mentioned in the article:
BMW says the feature is available on suitably equipped cars built after July 2020 and running BMW Operating System 7, 8, 8.5, 9, or X
Feature?
It’s working as designed
“Your” dashboard?
Our! Comrade.
What can I do about it? No point complaining
When my wife bought a new Mazda, the dealer made her sign a form that said the remote start app would only be free for one year. He told her it was just boiler plate; the remote start app would be free forever. I knew when she bought the vehicle the remote start app would be a monthly charge starting in precisely one year. lol!
My parents have a car with remote start, and I’ve never been able to understand what the advantages are supposed to be. The only time that they’ve ever used it was when they first got it, and were playing with it.
I’m going to take a wild guess that you live somewhere that doesn’t freeze. lol!
Kudos to you. Where we live, it’s cold AF.
The advantages are starting your car remotely in the hot or cold months to pre-cool/preheat the cabin, defrost the windows, etc. and let the engine warm up for a couple of minutes.
I use it everyday in the summer and winter months. Cools/heats the car for 10min before turning off again. Also can be used to keep my dog cool if I have to pop into a place real quick.
We’re heading straight towards a cyberpunk future.
And not even a shiny, pretty, exciting one, ours is still half boring for some reason. I can’t even pin down what’s missing. It still feels like ours has wood paneling or something, but even that would be too '70s, which would still be a little cool. Maybe ours is too '90s? Our cyberpunk somehow still feels too analogue and not enough.
Its not a time period or quality issue but an ownership one. You can buy a new car but you don’t ever really own it fully.
And software, and movies, and books, and…
We live in a boring, ugly, stupid universe.
BMW is framing this as a “one-time movie partnership”
What kind of people do you think are eating that up?
“Guys, it’s just this one-time ad, we had no intention of ever doing this again! Just forget about it for a year or so!”
I hope people take that as a contract and when they inevitably do it again, sue the hell out of them.
Not that it’ll stop this phenomenon.
Get organised folks, join your local socialist orgs (provided they are sane and not Stalinists and don’t think China is socialist).
I want off this ride, and that’s only gonna happen if we get involved, all over the world.
It’s one-time in the sense that it’s this movie. Next one-time will be for the next movie
“It is a one time fee that you pay annually.” One of the best Portlandia skits.
Just the tip
One reason this type of promotion may be becoming more common is that connected cars give automakers a direct path to the driver’s screen.
Once a person purchases a vehicle it should be theirs, not shared access with Automakers and their partners.
One reason this type of promotion may be becoming more common is that connected cars give automakers a direct path to the driver’s screen.
“Wo ein Trog ist, da kommen die Schweine.”
A lot of manufacturers sell vehicles at cost price in the hopes of making it up in after sales (parts and servicing). Most EVs require very little regular expense (cabin filters, brakes and tyres), so they try to make up the difference in subscriptions and “value added” services.
Sometimes those “value added” services aren’t adding value to their customers; they are “adding value” for business partners.
You would think that a car that is sold at a premium price would be exempt from these nasty little scams.
It hasn’t been that way for a long time. Every car since 2018 has some sort of black box in it that it records your driving behaviors, and that data gets sent to or sold to insurance companies who then use it to raise your premiums.
How are these black boxes reporting back though? Do all these cars just have a free SIM card built in?
I’m not sure about this black box, but in the EU, the e-call system is mandatory, so all new cars do indeed have a sim. Though it’s most likely not a card, but either a chip (iSIM) or just in software (eSIM).
They do in fact. It’s also how the app connectivity works in modern cars.
They do. They hide it as an SOS system. “Only used in case of emergency.” It’s connected to GPS, sim like a cellphone that has at least 4g cell service to “call emergency.” I think Chevy used their Onstar connection. That’s always on, and the data text files can be sent without interrupting that service.
OnStar is the worst for selling data. They even record your body weight.
Typically a soldered on sim chip, or esim software. You can disable it on some cars, for example I was able to bypass it on my 4runner pretty easily. I lost the feature to find my car, lock doors or see its status using the Toyota app though but I am 100% ok with that.
I think cunts who drive like cunts should pay more.
However, the real reason why cars have black boxes is repeated fraudulent claims by US law firms on “sudden acceleration”.The last lawsuit ended because Toyota had black box data proving US drivers are shit and commonly hit the wrong pedal. Before that, they had to settle $1B to law firms.
Oh, I agree with that. People who drive like complete assholes should definitely have to pay higher insurance premiums, but the way that they get the data to determine who these people are is just a huge privacy concern for me.
It was not a paid placement or advertisement. We are continually looking for more ways to say thanks for using Firefox.”
LOOOOOLOLOL
I was actually going the but the new i3, but now that’s not happening. Guess I’ll have to wait for the new Polestar 2 insread.
Yeah… I was considering a Audi etron or the I4. Well choice is mutch simpler now. Same for my dad. He is considering the I7 but might hold off on that idea.
Well the e-tron, assuming you meant the SUV not the sportscar, sucks in terms of ride comfort. You’re better off with any old Audi non-Electric vehicle with air springs. For the other Audi e-tron (the GT), you’re better off simply getting the Porsche Taycan which is almost the same car, but from their sister brand that actually has a reputation to uphold, unlike Audi. BMW i4 is a significantly newer vehicle than either though, the Taycan and E-Tron are pretty outdated. This is all from when EVs were changing rapidly and 2 years made a massive difference.
There’s also unfortunately no direct replacement for the i7 if your dad wants to go electric 100%. The EQS is a weird shaped thing and reported to be plagued with quality issues that an S-Class or 7 series equivalent should NOT have (loose or creaky plastics, wtf Mercedes, you had that figured out decades ago and now you can’t do it anymore?) and Audi doesn’t even have an electric flagship sedan. But the current A8 is well due for a replacement being a decade old and the S-Class is due for a replacement in a few years, so they may well come up with new EV models in parallel to their new ICE models. For the recent GLC launch they also did a “GLC with EQ technology” which is not really the exact same car but electrified, but rather still a dedicated EV platform, just with familiar branding brought back. Hoping for an “S-Class EQ” personally, not that I’ll be buying one, I don’t buy new cars.
There are also the Chinese cars, but they’re not going to be any better than BMW. Some new Chinese EV, think it was either a BYD or Xiaomi, was being shown by a YouTuber who showcased how you can now stand in front of the frunk and tell the car to open the frunk (because apparently THAT needs to be a voice action now). That’s microphones on the EXTERIOR of your car now. Do we really think that’s not going to be used for targeted advertisements and other forms of tracking? Like you have a conversation next to your car and see ads about that?
My dad currently owns a etron 55. Wonderful car if you ask me just not my riding style. But the service from Audi is absolutely horrific over here. Big part due to the official importer for the vehicles. Services is non existent and surprise bills of 10K+ are common.
That would be a reason for me to steer away from Audi as well. However the car I got in mind is indeed the etron GT. In my opinion a much more premium car then the Porsche taycan. I have driven in both and the etron clearly wins drive comfort to me. Just Audi service is so bad…
The I4 would be a more nice middle ground for me but then BMW does this type of shit. In regards of driving electric. Yes that is a requirement. We have all been driving for 12+ years fully electric at this point.
The car manufactures that IMO becomes more and more interesting is KIA and Opel. Service is great cars are more serviceable hen other brands. And pricing is not half bad. Unfortunately they don’t make nice sporty electric vehicles yet.
Interesting, I tried the etron 55 and it even had air springs, but it still just didn’t feel right to me. Didn’t absorb bumps well enough, but also didn’t have the kind of road feel you’d want for sporty driving. In comparison, my current 2007 A6 Allroad manages both better despite 400k km on the clock, possibly because it weighs significantly less. The interior it had also soured me on any and all new Audi products, though I guess the new Porsches aren’t any better when it comes to that. Fuck forcing a touchscreen for everything.
I’ll also admit I haven’t driven the Taycan or etron GT, but was more making an assumption based on the fact that in other shared platform cars I’ve driven, the Porsche equivalent was much nicer than the Audi one. Specifically, I owned a first gen Cayenne and it was so much better than its sibling, the Q7 that it’s not even funny. It was both more comfortable AND had better driving dynamics, you could just tell that a lot more thought went into engineering the Cayenne, whereas the Q7 feels like a big clumsy A6, even has the A6 C6’s interior. Similarly the old Panamera feels much nicer inside than anything Audi made at the time. I guess this trend has reversed then.
Idk, honestly I just feel like anything made in at least the last 6 or 7 years that has the four rings, is a downgrade from Audi’s past quality. I’ve been looking at BMW myself, mostly the G30/31 5 series in 540d guise since it’s an excellent engine and they’ve depreciated enough for me that I could get one this year, or wait a few more years and get the i4 since I don’t need a wagon these days, no longer need to take a stroller everywhere… And BMW was nice enough to still offer rotary dials for infotainment control in those vehicles, but now they pull this bullshit and I feel like continuing to drive old cars remains the right choice even if I don’t like the pollution or fuel economy. I don’t know how long I’ll stay loyal to my Audi, but at least I own the piece of shit, there’s no connectivity unless I buy a CarPlay module from mr12volt and even then it’s my phone that gives it the smarts, not the car itself.
