Item — HN Reader

> 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...

7 comments

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.

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.

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.

The ads in Apple Wallet for their credit card drive me insane. So invasive.

Mercedes is famously a company with the widest range of models, from entry-level budget cars to high-end luxury ones. It's basically their MO.

That describes almost every major auto company though. Some companies sell their luxury lines through different badging or different branding but it's the same line up. Even Nissan has a luxury line. If you want a 500k BMW you can do that too.

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

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/

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.

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…

What stops your navigation app on phone collecting all the data anyways and sharing it with insurance corps?

The phone app misses lots of data the car can collent and send. When, how frequently, and how long turn indicators are used. How aggressively the throttle and brake are applied, how frequently pre-tensioners and other safety features activate, how closely the radar or lidar-equipped cruise control sees you following others, and I'm sure lots I haven't thought of

Been asked that before—don’t always use one. Insurers will have to buy that data from the telecom if my phone’s on.

Not sure how common it is for Verizon, AT&T, Google (Maps), Apple (Maps) to sell to insurers (or brokers who insurers use). Perhaps pretty common? I’m sure they often can deanonymize it if they do.

Electronic injection sounds like too complex system to maintain, now if it had an actual carburetor that might be a peak "ICE", true and pure mechanical experience. Jokes aside, I hope that car at least have airbags, otherwise it's just death trap

Not having a screen is great, but I don't think you're going to convince many people that lack of power steering is a feature.

Mercedes used to be that. The S class used to be the best car you could buy.

The S class sales are tanking as well as E class and the rest of their cars are just toyota corolla class with extra "luxury" features.

AMG used to actually mean something, now AMG badging is a feature that means nothing (Like M cars).

Sedan sales are tanking as a general concept. It’s not just the S class or E class. The sedan is a decreasingly popular form factor. I personally think this is quite logical: what’s the advantage of a sedan over a vehicle with a hatchback, whether it be SUV or car? It’s pretty much worse in every way. It’s just a smaller cargo opening.

The popularity of SUVs is incredibly logical given the fact that their downsides have been largely eliminated. They don’t chug gas anymore, they don’t ride like a truck anymore, again, where’s the downside? A sedan gives you a worse cargo space and more difficult entry/exit, lower view of the road, more annoying for car seats and kids, etc.

Mercedes is doing just fine selling SUVs.

This is a similar story to the death of the coupe and the manual transmission. There was a time when having two doors or manual transition cut down on labor and manufacturing costs significantly and they were sensible compromises for customers. It’s just not true anymore, and what you’re left with is a typical non-enthusiast buyer that says “why would I want a car with less functionality/is harder to drive?”

It’s easy to criticize about M or AMG being watered down but they have a pretty distinctive product separation between the true performance models and sport trims.

And to be honest, the sport trims are much more sensible purchases for most buyers than a full blown M/AMG vehicle with all the sticker price, fuel economy and maintenance baggage they entail.

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

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

And here you thought they were just incompetent. Turns out, they've been looking out for you this whole time

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

Toyota is the least objectionable car manufacturer and used vehicle deprecation curves don’t lie, I trust money decisions more than words.

As long as they keep annoying ads and subscriptions out of their vehicles, I’ll keep driving them.

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.

Many NA produced lexus models have seen deteriorating quality issues past 5 or so years. Maybe yours is produced in Japan?

>> Zero enshitification.

Lexus should put that on the cover of their product brochure.

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.