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!”
It’s one-time in the sense that it’s this movie. Next one-time will be for the next movie
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.
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.
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.
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.”
For people who had forgotten the seat heating subscription
Why do they keep trying to pull this bullshit?, they’re a luxury brand, there margins should be pretty good without trying to nickel and dime everything
Have you ever heard of next quarter?
No amount of money can satisfy their empty fucking hearts and minds
There are no brakes on capitalism. It’s always more, more and more.
Capitalism doesn’t understand “good enough”, only MOAR
Line must go up.
I think it has something to do with the markets infatuation with recurring revenue streams. Everything is a subscription model now.
Cos there are enough dumb people who are ready to pay for this shit.
Same with lootboxes in gaming, everyone hates them but there are enough people purchasing them so that the companies can keep pulling shit like this off.
No matter what BMW tries to tell you in their press releases, they were never considered a luxury brand in Europe. As for German cars it goes more or less like this: Maybach >>>>>>> Porsche >>> Audi > Mercedes >>>>>>>>>>>> BMW > Volkswagen > Opel.
I’d argue that Mercedes > Audi
Same. Merc is top to me. BMW close second. I have a lot of respect for Audi, but only had experience with A3 and A4 Wagon. Both had very aggressive and stiff ride feel. Fun, but not what I want from a daily commuter.
Because income sources like subscriptions and ads are stable, predictable, and that makes shareholders happy.
they are doing this for two reasons:
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Dropping sales from angry BMW owners fed up with poor reliability.
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Dropping sales to Tesla.
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Dropping sales because of poor EV designs
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Dropping sales because they fail to establish value.
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“we are a premium brand”
my ass.
The premium is unfortunately not in the interior and infotainment experience, at least not these days. And I guess to non car people, the infotainment is what sells cars now.
The Germans still build the best* ICE drivetrains, the best chassis and suspension setups, to give you an excellent ride quality AND sporty handling in the same 2 ton family station wagon. Nobody compares, not even Volvo. But interior layouts have been going downhill steadily for like a decade now. And when it comes to EVs, you can’t really compete without being Chinese anyway. Other countries don’t have access to the same battery pricing, nor the same labor costs (to be fair the latter applies to both ICE and EV alike).
They’ll all die slow deaths. As EVs become mandated, Chinese companies will take over because nobody else can afford to sell cars for so cheap. The Chinese cars will of course have all the same infotainment issues like unwanted ads and they’ll be similar privacy nightmares, plus the prices will go up once you can only buy Chinese cars. It’ll be fun and we’ll all love it.
* Toyota Supra A90 used BMW’s B58 engine. That should tell you everything you need to know. TOYOTA didn’t bother coming up with their own engine for the chassis they also got from BMW. It’s been heralded as the modern 2JZ.
The Germans still build the best* ICE drivetrains, the best chassis and suspension setups, to give you an excellent ride quality
Dad has a BMW. It has a too smooth dampening and steering adjustment to speed, so you’ll vastly underestimate how fast you’re driving. I won’t drive his car anymore; too dangerous.
That tends to be adjustable in cars now. Oftentimes the comfort setting is vague on purpose on a lot of cars. My Audi in comfort is fine if not a bit too soft for spirited driving on back roads, on Dynamic it’s perfect for that. It’s a 2007 Allroad though. Still has hydraulic (but variable) power steering and such.
When I had my 2019 C-Class, it felt just right for this type of driving, even though that one had steel springs and no adjustable dampers, but did have adjustable steering since it was fully electric power steering. It also felt completely at home cruising at 150-160 km/h (no autobahn here so I wouldn’t go faster than that usually).
Only BMW I ever owned was an E61 and that one also had superb road feel, though I hear the newer ones aren’t as good, since they do optimize for the highway rather than the curvy roads I personally prefer driving on.
In comparison, I test drove a Hyundai Ioniq 5, a small electric hatchback I thought would be sporty-ish, and that had zero road feel. Outright dangerous going fast into a corner with it, and with the electric torque it was certainly tempting to do so before I realized how little I know about its grip limits.
Agree about China overtaking market. Electric BYD is a huge ass SUV and costs 24k here. The next best option is a Dacia Bigster which is not exactly as good. Even so, dacias are populating my region due to low cost
Nothing says luxury car like trashy ads on your dash
I’m willing to bet that these cars do not get software updates wirelessly though. You gotta take your car into the stealership for those. But ads? Instant wireless transmission.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Walk like an Egyptian…
This sounds like something that should be illegal.
the seat heater sub kept me away from buying a new one anyway
also the buck teeth grills
I’m guessing the long term plan is to significantly increase the price of maintenance and updates then offer a cheaper plan with dashboard adds.
if your car has internet access, it’s not yours
I mean, that’s really true of products in general.
I think that there are some real consumer law issues to answer where someone buys a product and then a manufacturer can control the product subsequent to the purchase. Like, say I buy a BMW with the expectation that I am not going to be seeing ads, based on the way it acts at the time that I bought it. At that point, I’m locked into owning that BMW. Then the manufacturer degrades my experience, maybe to the point where I no longer consider the vehicle to be the one I wanted.
Like, what is my remedy here? If the vehicle has OTA updates, I can never know what it’s going to be doing down the line, so I can’t make an informed decision. Having informed consumers is one of the basic requirements for markets to be efficient.
Maybe I could say “Well, that’s just a case of let the buyer beware. We’ll rely on reputation…some auto manufacturers will piss off consumers and those will be avoided”. But…if someone doesn’t buy cars that frequently, that’s a long iteration cycle.
I’m actually more concerned about video games. Like, if I’m a publisher, once I sell a video game, I don’t normally have more revenue coming in from it. But if I do have the ability to update that video game down the line. And I can update it to go harvesting user data, which turns it into a revenue stream. A lot of video game publishers go defunct on a regular basis or sell IP or whatnot, so there, even the “rely on reputation” route is more questionable.
I too have been getting concerned about video games. There is a lot of trust about installing software with no review, frequent updates, and runs at a system level, particularly for windows users.
Honestly, GNU/Linux isn’t better today from a user standpoint. I mean, Linux has the technical subsystems to sandbox software, yes — like, the move to Wayland makes isolating graphical software possible, where X11 imposed major limitations on one’s ability to do that. Various containerizing systems exist. But the typical software package distributed via Steam, say, in 2026, can see the filesystem as a whole.
Like, I can hack something up with something like
firejailusing that functionality that may-or-may-not work for a given game on a given system, but that’s not a real, universal solution for users. My mother is not going to do that.Mobile OSes at least isolate most apps from most of the filesystem and some sensors, and provide some level of reasonably-accessible transparency into what apps can do. They still have their own issues that annoy me, like software normally being able to phone home with what information it does get. But that’s still way more isolation than a user who is playing a video game on GNU/Linux is getting.
Global, always-generally-available connectivity brought us a lot of nice things, but it’s also come with a lot of not-so-great things, and some of the not-so-great things is a loss of privacy and a loss of control over the things that we own. :-(
Yeah when I mentioned windows I was think specifically of the anti cheat running at ring 0.
Also, there are a few more hoops to jump through on Linux if the software is expecting a windows environment and you are running it via proton.
But yeah, I considered running all my games in a distrobox session, but quickly realized it’s so tied to the host that I would have to try a jail and like you said, the game may not work at all.
On supported vehicles, starting the car brings up a banner on the Control Display, and tapping it launches a full-screen Spider-Man animation with music and ambient lighting effects. 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.
Ah, I see. It’s a _feature.! I’m surprised they’re not trying to charge a subscription fee to get ads on your dashboard.
It was not a paid placement or advertisement. We are continually looking for more ways to say thanks for using Firefox.”
LOOOOOLOLOL
But companies always hold their promises…
To their shareholders…
Curious, what IS the best new car brand for privacy? Especially in the EV sector?
I’m waiting to see regular reviews of those slate trucks and maybe a second model year/iteration. And maybe waiting to see if they eventually get better range. Sure not having a radio or infotainment is overkill, and only hand crank windows is overkill, but for $25k-30k and no big screen, it seems quite reasonable if all I want is a reliable box that moves around.
That’s the allure for me. I can choose to buy what I can afford and then at a later date add other options myself as I want them or need them. But the range is an issue for me as a rural person where a trip to a clinic is 100 mile round trip. And if I need more, then it becomes a 200+ mile trip.
Fuck all. Especially in Europe now if mandates you have A camera watching your face in all new cars
You’re not going to want to hear this but… Tesla. It’s always been Tesla. No ads, no subscriptions for seat heaters, no selling your driving data.
You’re talking about the brand that is paywalling the auto drive after saying they never would ?
Are people seriously this ignorant.
Nazis lie.
Users see the word “Tesla” and hit the down arrow without considering context or data. Tesla is a terrible company, and Musk is an egotistical, racist manbaby; those aren’t the only reasons why I won’t buy a Tesla, but they are a big part. The truth is that every big automobile manufacturer is bad when it comes to infotainment user experience and data privacy.
I won’t buy a Tesla, and most people I know won’t either. But when it comes to the US auto market, Tesla is consistently rated as one of the best user infotainment experiences, specifically because of the things you mentioned. I know someone who bought the 2026 Nissan Leaf, and they love it. I’ve ridden in it a lot and I think it’s a great car… except for the user experience. Every time the car is turned on a pop up covers most of the console advertising satellite radio subscriptions. There’s no way to disable it. Nissan is widely known to be the worst when it comes to user privacy, too.
Slate has my attention and I want them to disrupt the market. I’m considering buying one for my next vehicle, with the range being the only thing that hasn’t locked in my decision yet. I take several long (500+ miles) trips each year, and I would prefer to avoid having to use Tesla superchargers as there aren’t any other fast DC chargers along the route.
Yeah 100%. Ever since Elon went Republican everybody wants to hate him. I don’t blame them. It’s sad and IMHO short-sighted, but these days nuance doesn’t seem to be a big part of popular decision making. So something like ‘he’s a weird guy who works his people to the bone and he has shitty politics, but he’s overall doing things that are good for our society’ is too much to ask from most popular discourse.
It’s pretty clear that the other automakers really do not understand vehicle computing on a fundamental level. Even the supposedly connected modern cars are still using old infrastructure with tons of little can bus modules everywhere each doing one thing. And they are all supplied by the usual handful of companies like Delphi and Bosch.
If any of the automakers took a page out of Tesla’s playbook, namely design your own hardware and software, and focus on flat out building a better vehicle rather than figuring out how to nickel and dime every user, they would make a killing.This could also be solved with regulation. And probably should be solved with regulation. Basically say that automakers are prohibited from extracting any personal data from a vehicle including driving data or location data, unless a. The user explicitly opts in (and an opt-in may not be required for any other functionality), and b. Extracted data may not be sold or shared or used for any purpose other than providing services to the user (such as navigation). And that in-car screens may not be used for any sort of advertising or promotion, unless a. The user opts in (and an opt-in may not be required for any other functionality), and b. Any advertisement on the display must include a clear way to permanently disable advertisements in two clicks or button presses.
The fact is nobody wants advertisements on their car and they know that
