I am a great example of how true this is. I wanted an electric car, I wanted a BMW for a long time, I tried to convince myself to buy one for months but couldn't get over how ugly they were. Why do companies destroy their iconic designs when they go electric? So sick of "space car" designs for electric.

The screen cut ins, typographic headlights, and crystal scroller wheels scream "teenager escaped room due to Bitcoin". BMW has many timeless designs to pull from in the last 30-40 years, but chose to pass the mature confident adult torch to the likes of Volvo and Rivian...

For me the last generation, F-series, was pretty much e46 3.0. You can only iterate so many times.

Neue Klasse is a bit odd but I thought the same thing about the F and G model runs. I’ll need to see it in person.

BMW is dethroning Mercedes and continually beating Audi sales in the US. I’m surprised so many people would buy a car if they thought it was ugly. Benz reliability has tanked and Audi is lackluster as usual.

It's also just a ginormous hunk of metal. Which also makes the long range kinda moot, strapping a bigger battery will of course result in a bigger range. I'm guessing the car doesn't make any improvements on the efficiency?

My impression of new car design aesthetics is they're mostly ugly to me because they're optimizing for selling to a different market than mine (USA).

New automobiles starting looking Alien after China started buying more of them than the US, and it's continued ever since.

TBH even ICE BMWs from recent years all look like fugly tanks