> Part of BMW's value is/was the expectation of an upper middle class snob driving it

BMWs are no where near for that "class". A Mercedes-Benz is for that and even they also put ads in their own dashboard screens. [0]

So on HN-land, time to rule out BMWs, Chevrolets, Mercedes-Benz, Teslas, Volkswagens, Kias. What else?

[0] https://www.motor1.com/news/797846/mercedes-screen-plays-ads...

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ehnto 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Mercs and BMWs occupy the same market space. They are direct competitors.

Mercedes may have a car or two that reaches just out of upper middle class but they are largely a middle to upper middle class brand, just like BMW.

The fact that Merc would do it too just means they are both happy cheapening their brand to align with practices of cheap off-brand android TVs.

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dash2 an hour ago | parent [-]

Actually Apple will also put advertising on your phone if you have one of the dynamic carousel things and you walk into the wrong area.

	▲	microtonal 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		They put advertising in: - The Settings: Apple Intelligence and Apple Fitness+ (including the red dot as if you missed something important). - The app store. Typically 1/2 or 2/3 of the search page is covered by ads. - Apple Wallet. They rolled out an F1 advertisement to Apple Wallet in some region. - iWork apps now have advertisements for updating to an Apple Creator Studio subscription. - Apple Maps will soon have ads. Most restraint is gone now to grow the Services category. It just feels gross for flagship devices. It seems that AOSP ROMs like GrapheneOS are the only road to sanity.

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jchw 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I don't think I'll be buying recent model years any time soon.

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femto 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm beginning to think that my '96 Toyota Starlet is "peak ICE". It has EFI, no infotainment, no power windows, no power steering, no automatic transmission. It is basically an engine, gearbox and wheels. An electric Starlet would be Nirvana.

Edit: Just read that Toyota is toying with the idea of an electric Starlet. It'll probably have an infotainment system and power "everything" though.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/2026-toyota-starlet-rumours/

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fy20 2 hours ago | parent [-]

I'm not a mechanic but I have rebuilt an engine (common rail diesel with electronic injection) with a friend and do some work on my own cars. I don't really get the "everything needs to be mechanical" push. My previous car was mid 2000s, automatic, electronic basically everything. The reason why I scrapped it was because it had too must rust. The engine, transmission, and electronics were still fine after 200k and 20 years of harsh winters.

My current car had an electrical issue last year... but it turned out it was a mechanical issue. Something had chewed through the wires to the MAF sensor. Fixed them, and all good. It's no different from something chewing through a fuel line, except OBD was able to tell me what subsystem was not working correctly.

The problem I see with current cars is that the infotainment system is tied into everything - and usually the software sucks. If they just went back to seperate dashboard, AC controls and radio I'd have no issues with them.

My current car is from 2016, and I specifically looked for something that was like that. It is hybrid and has modern tech (e.g. radar cruise control), but everything is compartmentalised. First upgrade I did was replacing the headunit with a Chinese one that supports Android Auto/CarPlay. No functionality was lost, as the old head unit was literally just a radio and screen for backup camera.

	▲	Barbing 27 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		The infotainment thing is regrettable but nowhere near as bad as the cellular modems phoning home, constantly spying, possibly raising your insurance rates… Lucky for Big Brother they’ve blanketed this country (USA) in Flock cameras. New car, old car, they’re ready to pull over journalists in dealer loaners, people in the wrong place at the wrong time…

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yegle 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Volvo, with their terrible infortainment system's performance, I'm not sure if it's capable of displaying ads.

	▲	dylan604 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		And here you thought they were just incompetent. Turns out, they've been looking out for you this whole time

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larusso an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Just saying that these brands have different offerings in different countries. Here in Germany all big brands: Audi, BMW, Mercedes and VW etc have offerings from low lever to luxury car.

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kridsdale1 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

My Lexus 2025 remains perfect and user friendly. I have all the online connected stuff enabled. Zero enshitification.

	▲	maxnevermind an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Why 2025 though? It didn't yet pass the test of time and there is not enough failure rate data on it. Toyotas(Lexus) do have serious quality issues too, rarely but that happens for certain models from time to time.
	▲	mentalfist 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Many NA produced lexus models have seen deteriorating quality issues past 5 or so years. Maybe yours is produced in Japan?
	▲	ludicrousdispla 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		>> Zero enshitification. Lexus should put that on the cover of their product brochure.
	▲	roundwego 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Lexus is a kino sleeper.

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chaostheory 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You make it sound like there's no choice. Toyota/Lexus and Honda/Acura don't do it to my knowledge. Am I wrong?

EDIT Add Volvo and Genesis to the list of no ads