Why do you think this is indicative of a failing business? Judging by the sheer number of almost-new German cars I see in all areas of town, those of us who won't touch them are a small minority.
They have a bit of innovation aside from switching to electric. For example you can also buy a function to play motor sounds on the inside for around 135€/$... Hey, at least it is a one time purchase. Yay!
The name recognition will go a long way on international markets. Will probably take years until people notice that they buy average crap. As far as I know they introduced this in Korea. Perhaps people have other expectations there.
Don't be silly, no-one actually buys their shiny box stuffed full of unmaintainable toys any more!
Saying that, I am very curious to see how this affects the car financing and second hand market over the next few years. At some point, these baubles have to be offloaded from the lease market and bought by somebody.
This. Have plastics coming off of my bmw and porsche. Both premium german carmakes. Friends bmw has electronics going hay wire, faulty control boards, bluetooth needs resetting by turning the car on and off and so on. Also the amount of times there are recalls made in the us while in europe you have to pay for solving the same issue is ridiculous. BMWs are infamous for a timing chain issue where it can loosen and snap damaging the engine. Porsche had an axle carrier issue that was recalled in europe years after the us. Oh and dont get me started on their customer service quality.
All in all not buying german brands again. Used to be ok but not anymore. They turbine them to death and “improve” dashboards here and there but thats it. Boring old tech.
In all honesty i did replace my porsche’s window switch myself by following enthusiast youtube tutorials. Buttons were falling off, naturally. Plenty of videos about the issue on 911s and 981s. Connector was like a regular pc connector and the panel came off easily. The bmw has issues with the rear controller. Will fix that myself as well since the “professional” didn't “detect” an issue.