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BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

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301–310 of 351 posts

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#301

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…

> 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?

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#303

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…

> 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?

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".

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#305
post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the product is changed with an update you don't like Well, you're just left with a 30-50k car with reduced functionality. And, to be honest, CarPlay functionality (or similar) is pretty much fundamental - music, maps - and there's a clear upside of having it integrated with the car (vs. the driver looking down at the phone while driving) and trivial cost ( cheaper that developing own software & OS). The reason I wa…

But this is the case whether you pay up front or as a subscription. So what is the upside to paying up front?

A subscription is only worthwhile if it reduces the up front purchase price. This being BMW, you know that won’t be the case; you’ll be stuck paying full price for the car and paying a monthly fee for a feature that comes standard on much cheaper cars.

Consumers would be more willing to accept that from a budget brand, not a luxury brand.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#306
post #80
post #57

I used to really like BMWs but they have lost their way in my opinion. Front wheel drive models, charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay, that 4-series grill, increasingly horrific customer service at dealers and foregoing their position as the market leader in handling and dynamics really rub me up the wrong way.

> charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay Well that's a scam if there ever was one. Who wants a subscription for basic functionality in a car? Might as well buy an iPad and solder it over BMW's control panel.

I believe they are planning to sell heated seats as a subscription service as well.

Makes no sense and really transparently benefits the company over the actual "owner" of the car. Why would I ever buy something like that.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#307
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you're crossing public data with data you own does not mean you are not breaking the law.

Ok, but then I'm genuienly curious - which laws are being broken? Licence plates in the UK can be scanned by automated machines owned by private companies, that's been established many times before. To request the owner data from the DVLA you need their permission - but that's not necessary here, BMW doesn't need to know anything about the owner, so no such request would be made to the DVLA. Then on the other side, t…

Here is a simple, troubling scenario with this product. You're going to a professional event with your boss. Each of you is driving their own car and your boss is following you. Now your boss knows you have an expired warranty, which, whether you like it or not, will reflect badly on your professional image. You may think this scenario is far-fetched, but it will happen regularly because people who know each other sometimes drive with each other. The same kind of stuff happens with highly personalized advertising on your laptop. All these things seem inoffensive but seriously violate user privacy and will (for sure) get people in trouble in the end.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#308
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because you're crossing public data with data you own does not mean you are not breaking the law.

Ok, but then I'm genuienly curious - which laws are being broken? Licence plates in the UK can be scanned by automated machines owned by private companies, that's been established many times before. To request the owner data from the DVLA you need their permission - but that's not necessary here, BMW doesn't need to know anything about the owner, so no such request would be made to the DVLA. Then on the other side, t…

The EU Charter of Fundamental Rights stipulates that EU citizens have the right to protection of their personal data. And the fact that you (the driver) have an expired warranty is private data. Period. https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data...

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#309
Apple car couldn't come sooner, good riddance iDrive and ye olde car manufacturers who can't work together to create a seamless consistently good experience when connecting your smartphone to a car and trying to use the damn car controls with your car being handed off your existing smartphone apps and data connection so they are ready to go immediately. Let me drive the damn car and not fidget with my phone or your distracted driving inducing touchscreen buttonless usability nightmare that is in fashion in cars today (see Tesla).

In my Mercedes they charge thousands more for "hands free calling package" when my basic toyota comes with that out of the box. This upselling of basic tech functionality needs to end and I'm glad Tesla and hopefully Apple car disrupt the mired incumbents.

Re: BMW to shame out-of-warranty UK drivers with smart billboards

#310
post #306
post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> charging a subscription for Apple CarPlay Well that's a scam if there ever was one. Who wants a subscription for basic functionality in a car? Might as well buy an iPad and solder it over BMW's control panel.

I believe they are planning to sell heated seats as a subscription service as well. Makes no sense and really transparently benefits the company over the actual "owner" of the car. Why would I ever buy something like that.

A heated seat subscription makes sense when they sell the car to you as if it didn't have heated seats and are allowing you to purchase them at a later date, much like how Tesla's rear heated seats can be bought long after the purchase of the vehicle. It allows the manufacturer to decrease MSRP $x amount (for Tesla, $300) while also saving money on the back-end by not having to handle more part choices being involved in the manufacturing processes.

The same generally applies for Carplay but it makes less sense given carplay is easy to integrate, only needs to be done once, and is then-on maintained by Apple/Google (for Android Auto), and the measly subscription cost for Carplay most certainly wasn't considered when determining MSRP. The same probably applies for the heated seats argument (did BMW really take into account the subscription costs when determining MSRP), with Tesla probably being the only manufacturer actually doing this since they already take into account things like FSD being unavailable on SR+ Model 3's and no EAP on SR Model 3's, even though all models have the same sensors and cameras and HW3 (although non-plus SR models are no longer being produced, so I'm not sure if they ever got hw2.5 or hw3 included).

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