Quote:
Originally Posted by FrankL
There is massive turbulence in the auto industry. All the German brands are having a hard time. The energy prices since NordStream 1 and 2 were bombed and Merkel closed nuke power plants really hurt German car companies. The mindless push to EV, almost banning of diesels in the USA. Plus you have China with their EVs (many are junk) and the German car companies getting suckered by China.
Everybody goes there with big money dreams and the Chinese copy everything. BMW is probably in the best position of any European auto/SUV maker. BMW and Toyota said we are going to make ICE, EV, PHEV. The Porsche/VW/Audi management of Piechs, Winterkorn and others is terrible. They blew it on EV and the diesel disaster. It is really sad. The Porsche family needs to try to extricate themselves but the Piechs and Porsches are related to each other. The reliability is bad too. Porsche is the best but their EVs are bad and the parts are astronomical plus USA Porsche dealers are crooks like Ferrari dealers. Audi's reliability is terrible.
Mercedes interiors are the worst. Reliability is not as good as BMW. Stellantis is being run into the ground by John Elkann. He and his familiy got control of Agnelli holdings with a dubious will being contested by the Agnelli family. Elkann is even running Ferrari into the ground.
Jaguar killed themself. Range Rover and Land Rover are still there but have poor reliability. Hopefully, Ineos with their Grenadier using a B58 and B57 in Europe will get more business, The French car industry is probably sick.
So BMW is far from perfect but their strategy is the best of the bunch. BMW also does really well in their X products (SUVs) and M Sport cars. But for the love of God, BMW, please make aluminum valve covers and oil pans.
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Agree here. Somehow China always seems to be a problem. The relentless EV push is hopefully calming down now which ought to help. Consumers have decided that a mix of vehicle types is best and what the people want.
It does feel like BMW is still in a solid spot. M car sales keep going up. The enthusiast market is there and alive. BMW SUVs seem to sell well too.
Porsche royally screwed up and has to recover but I think they can. Mercedes feels like a shell of themselves. The old, reliable tanks they used to build are long gone. Chintzy, unexciting cars is all they got now. Stellantris? Please, LOL. I’d ride a unicycle before I’d touch any of their products.
Audi isn’t doing so well either. They dumped coupes entirely and seemed to have abandoned any actual performance cars. Or, their coolest models aren’t available here. Dunno what they’re doing.
Jaguar? Sigh. Classic company that’s just lost. Their goofball ad campaign a little while back was a joke of epic proportions.
So yeah, BMW is fine but do make better oil pans and valve covers.
