BMW look so boring imo and wish they would follow renaults stylish lead The brand will need more than its badge as competion hots up Predict some bargain 2024 APs coming up
I’m not a fan of BMWs latest styling direction, particularly with its BEVs, but the last thing I’d describe them as is boring!
I don’t know how many BMWs you’ve owned or driven, but those who dismiss them as being just a ‘badge’ have often had very few or even none of them and are often making a judgement based on little or no first hand experience. Out of the few hundred cars that I’ve driven over the last 40 plus years, I’d guess that at least 40 have been BMWs (of all shapes and sizes) and I’ve owned or leased around 10 of them. Out of the other 150 plus cars I’ve driven, which covers almost all mainstream manufacturers, I can honestly say that I can count on the fingers of one hand the cars that have even come close to BMWs (in terms of what I look for in a car), a Porsche Macan being one of them.
We all want different things from our cars. Some judge a car based purely on standard equipment count and, in that case, BMW will never win. If, however, like me you place more importance on a balance of refinement, build quality, handling, performance, economy, infotainment system and how well the driver operated systems actually work (I find that they vary enormously by manufacturer) then, for me, I’ve yet to find another manufacturer that ticks every one of those boxes for me. I appreciate that we are all different and most people have far less requirements from a car than I do. There’s no right or wrong choice. If there was, we’d all drive the same car!
I agree with you about the APs. Our current BMW was over £40k retail and the AP I paid, after negotiation, was £2,250. Pro rata, that would make a £50k BMW around £2,800 yet the AP for the iX1 starts at £4.5k. To be fair, it’s a similar story with most manufacturers on Motability now, but with the widely reported drop in demand of EVs from private buyers, Motability is an obvious route to help meet their targets. As with the wider fleet market, the early adopters within the Motability customer base have already switched to EVs, or are in the process of doing so, and the remaining (vast majority) of customers who have yet to do so will need more incentivisation to make the switch and, as you say, the most obvious way is to make APs more affordable. I should imagine that a fairly high percentage of benefit recipients couldn’t afford the current APs even if they wanted to.