BMW went that way very recently. It wasn't that long ago that their model numbers were very much explicit. A 328i was a 3-series chassis with a 2.8 liter. The i and d stood for fuel-injected and diesel respectively.

Well it still makes sense to some extent. i and d still mean petrol and diesel, with e for hybrid joining the ranks lately. But in general x1x(say 116d or 114i) are entry level engines, x2x(320d) are mid-tier and x3x(430d) x4x(240i) are higher end, more powerful engines.

That was fine back in the day when there was a correlation between engine size and performance.

Since they started strapping turbochargers to everything down to 1.0l, the engine size comparison has become less important. If anything my 3.0l car is seen as a negative because of the higher fuel consumption.

The manufacturers are just trying to walk a fine line.