You can get a BMW for $40k or $120k. Big spectrum. As another datapoint, I have one of those higher tier BMWs and even the top trim Lucid's interior feels like a downgrade compared to my car. The $50-80k BMWs also feel cheap and crappy to drive when I've tested them. Tesla can't compete on anything except their ADAS which is superior.

If you're transitioning from a barebones 330i then yeah the Tesla is probably better. But it's not even close when you compare to the top end German vehicles.

People who have purchased Hyundai/Kia products w/ the GDI Theta II engine would, perhaps, take issue with "used to be".

Yeah maybe I'll get a Chinese car in 50yrs

After the Israeli attack using pagers I think this is no longer paranoid at all.

The same goes for Chinese built cloud connected hardware, especially if it is grid connected, contains heater elements or batteries. Inverters, solar panels, vehicles, 3D printers, the list is endless and all of these are either potential fire starters or ways to destabilize the grid. Used maliciously the potential for misery is pretty large. All this crap that wants to connect to the cloud from a country where your average citizen has very limited access to the internet should give you pause: if the Chinese government thinks these connections are A-ok then they must see some advantage, especially if all the services are supposedly free of charge.

I do not think it is paranoia. But we can have this from anywhere. American devices, EU devices; if I cannot analyse the firmware, ICs etc, what is going to guarantee these are not remotely exploitable. Even if Porsche never built such a thing on purpose, the car is connected so someone can break in, hack it and do stuff including possible overhead the battery so it ignites.

It does not have to be on purpose quality wise either: I had 2 spicy pillows in my life (and I have a lot of gadgets, including fully Chinese ones); a Samsung flagship phone and a macbook air. Both just unannounced got very hot and broke open: no fire but still... So I would say it is possible for a state actor to remotely hack, take over and ignite your Samsung and Macbook as apparently it can already almost happen without hackers.

What to do about it? Without just fully open sourcing hardware and software, I do not know. I mean that would not help a lot if no one reads it and finds the issues/vulnerabilities, but at least we stand a chance, vs now. Unplugging from internet is not really a thing, although, when it comes to cars and airplanes i would rather see it mandatory non connected.

it's not paranoia

chips with backdoors which would allow exactly something like that (or many other things) have been found more then once in recent years AFIK

through a fancy personal car stopping working is the least relevant target. Network backbone, smart phones, and other core infrastructure is a much more relevant target. And even for cars all the non-personal vehicles (e.g. ambulance, trucks, police ...) are much more relevant targets.

Certainly anything that downloads over the air updates. I'm not mad that our government turned down import of EVs from a country that became an adversary

Disabling them is one thing. Having them auto-drive to select locations and self-immolate is another entirely.

The reverse is clear for Chinese people. Do you remember when, in the early 2000s, the US sold a Boeing 767 intended for Chinese presidential use, and Chinese authorities later reported finding numerous hidden listening devices on board? There is a Chinese Wikipedia article about the incident [1], but no dedicated English one. More information in English can be found here [2].

[1] https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-cn/%E6%B1%9F%E6%BE%A4%E6%B0%91%E...

[2] https://www.flightglobal.com/chinese-vip-jet-was-bugged/4121...

Sadly, the US is more likely to at war with Europe than China

We all know that. Doesn't mean we need to be OK with that forever should any other company attempt that?

I always loved BMWs from the 80s and 90s, but settled on Volkswagens because I was just a poor teen or early 20 year old. Finally got the means to buy a top of the line X7, and have regretted the purchase for may of the reasons you listed.

The software is garbage, the car is too fancy (electric folding seats) but poorly implemented so it’s just frustrating. Total nanny car, can’t turn off backup beeping alerts. Rear row of seats randomly go to full hot on the climate system.

New battery is $700. Can only use a BMW battery installed by a BMW technician with computer access (they are coded and only a tech with the keys can pair the new battery to your car).

Should have just bought a damned minivan, but the wife likes it and doesn’t want to get rid of it.

The enthusiasts car company is no more.

I haven't bought German ever, but everything I hear seems pretty negative.

Some of the recent models have plastic timing chain guides and have turned the engine around so that the timing chains are in the back. The only innocent explanation is that the car is only meant to last 10 years at most, so saving the money on plastic instead of metal and screwing whoever owns the car when the timing chains need to be redone (or ruining the engine when the chain fails) is out of scope for their quality team.

There were many older models of BMW that had an electric water pump. If that sounds silly, well, it is. And it failed frequently and was again, very difficult to replace.

I just don't have any respect for German automotive engineering. Reliability is job #1. And the company's themselves, well, "collusive" is a pretty good term. I saw an estimate that German auto industry collusion resulted in about $10k of additional cost per vehicle to U.S. buyers. The cases have somehow been kept quiet, but they've at least been caught holding back innovations until the other automakers have a competitive response, and gaslighting regulators into allowing higher emissions from diesels in the name of reducing the size and filling frequency of the AdBlue tank. I've also heard that there's another layer of this in the parts suppliers. Explains how a wiper motor or wiper body module is somehow hundreds of dollars.