[smaccona]

This sort of thing is not limited to Chevy/GM. The new 2023 BMW i7 (starting price ~$120K, fully loaded ~$160K) comes with options for a massive fold-down widescreen cinema in the back seat, and the back seat can turn into a recliner for the ultimate movie experience (I am paraphrasing)[1][2]. My daughter looked at a couple of reviews and said something along the lines of "it's like they thought of every amazing thing they could put in a car, and then went and did all of them". And indeed, the video reviews look very impressive. Then I saw the one from Car Guide[3] in which he mentions that not only when the cinema screen is down in the back, the driver can't see out of the rear view mirror (obvious when you think about it), but also when the back seat is in recliner mode, it folds the front passenger seat forward, and then the passenger headrest completely obscures the passenger wing mirror, so that the driver then has no idea what's going on around the car.

It's clear how superficially impressive the car is looking at the video and from my daughter's reaction (she's a teenager, but I don't think being impressed by this stuff is limited to teenagers, and I confess to a "wow!" moment myself when watching the same video). But the car is failing at its basic functionality: being a car that's safe to drive. Like BMW or not, I don't think this sort of stuff would have happened in the past. It feels like they have lost their way.

From my own perspective, I really dislike the touch-sensitive user interfaces in new cars. Anything that distracts me from looking at the road is bad, and there is really no tactile element to these interfaces (when I rented a Jeep recently, I found myself having to examine the touchscreen when stopped at red lights to learn where the various controls were - granted this can happen in any car, where you have to learn where things are, but at least there aren't usually multiple nested levels of menus - but still having to at least glance at the screen to see where to put my finger, whereas in older cars once you learn where things are you can locate controls by touch and activate them without having to take your eyes off the road).

[1] Review from The Verge with pics of the screen https://www.theverge.com/23686915/bmw-i7-xdrive60-review-pho...

[2] Video review showing all the crazy features: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwQvZaqpwDk

[3] Car Guide video review, link to discussion of screen and mirror issues: https://youtu.be/VsvrQSpl-5U?t=497

[switch007]

BMW lost its way when it made an SUV, at the turn of the last century.

Then horrible things like front wheel drive happened in 2004!

Then more odd numbers! 2, 4, 6…!

And then they put a turbo on the M3.

Absolute carnage after 1999 lol

[JPws_Prntr_Fngr]

I’d say they kept it together a little longer. My 2006 e46 still had most of that BMW DNA from my friends’ e36 & e30s… Even my 2010 e83 is essentially a lifted e46 (with a really bad suspension tune). IMHO it was really the f chassis where they told their enthusiast fans to fuck off so they could sell to suburban women instead