[mkoesel]

Originally Posted by ScottAndrew

But that's my point - Tesla is huge and dominant in the US. BMW needs to battle it - where it dominates. Tesla sales are flat in Europe where they represent less than 0.2% of new car sales volume; BMW represents nearly 7%. Tesla sold like 200 cars in Japan in 2017. It doesn't even have 1% of the EV market over there.

Yet brand equity is quite clearly not BMW’s problem. It is obviously product. Can there be any doubt that, if Tesla’s products had been rebranded as BMWs, and vice versa, that BMW would be the one making headlines and dominating US premium sedan sales charts?

BMW should indeed protect market share from Tesla, and Chevy, and all the others I listed above - in the market where it's being taken, which was my original point. It needs an offshoot of product development that is right for that target. It's not weird.

But that is different from a new vehicle brand.

And that aside, a truly US specific premium vehicle - one not at all intended for other markets - is a tough sell to shareholders by any name. Surely a company with global sales success knows how to develop global products.

They're doing it in China right now with cars that make most of you chuckle. Long-wheelbase 318s, mini-MPVs, 1 series sedans with three-cylinder engines... you name it. Why not do the same in NA with cars that make most of you reach for your wallet, rather than your stomach?

Those vehicles you list are still BMW branded vehicles, though. So it doesn’t support the notion of a separate brand. I should also point out that the vehicles you refer to are derivatives of global BMW vehicles, and other than LWB models, are all sold in markets outside China, including the 1er sedan now. It is extremely unlikely in my opinion that any product plan consisting of derivatives along the lines of form factors specific to the US will have a major impact on BMW sales here. Instead, what they really need are EVs that can challenge Tesla’s products, and those, if they were built, would then have market value globally anyway.

Now, there is also platform sharing and in some cases what is essentially rebadging of BMW models going on in China too. But that is a largely the biproduct of China’s requirements that foreign automakers partner with local automakers in order to sell vehicles there, not the result of a designed, free economy marketing plan.