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  • Hacker News
  • Whilst we are having a dig at BMW owners it turns out that most of them don't know whether their car is front or rear wheel drive.

    https://www.motortrend.com/news/bmw-80-of-1series-owners-don...

    by tonyedgecombe
  • 1-series owners, who don’t represent typical BMW owners.
    by bouke
  • Wouldn't it be fair if BMW at least shared the advertisement revenue with the car owners?

    It's so ugly that they first sell cars, and profit from that. And then they utilize the fleet of cars to squeeze out more revenue, even though that was never part of the contract to begin with. What right does BMW have to do that?

    If they found a new revenue source, it would be nice if they at least shared that with their customers. Now it's just abuse of their customers. Where BMW is one-sided profiting while the customers are suffering.

    by DanOpcode
  • > Wouldn't it be fair if BMW at least shared the advertisement revenue with the car owners?

    No.

    by wvenable
  • 27 Jul 2026 18:42:31 UTC

    BMWs shows in-car ads for Spiderman

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49073924

    [ok]

    28 Jul 2026 19:53:02 UTC

    BMW showing video ads in car for Spider-Man new Day

    https://old.reddit.com/r/BMW/comments/1v802of/got_this_comme...

    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49089027

    [ok]

    by 1vuio0pswjnm7
  • At this point, the current BMW has to die and reinvent themselves in a fundamentally better way. Breaks my heart as longtime BMW fan and previous owner of some older models. What have they done to the DNA of that company...
    by sebiw
  • If please drink a verification can was applied to automobiles.
    by walrus01
  • It wasn’t. It’s an icon on desktop that most owners probably didn’t even noticed. Same with Tesla’s tron (which arguably was kinda cool for my 3yo).
    by dzhiurgis
  • mountain dew is for me and you
    by HaZeust
  • The car will remain in park until you roll down the windows and yell "I love McDonalds!"
    by powerpcmac
  • Great to see the Consumer Rights wiki has been picking up steam. Lots of passionate people behind the project
    by OsrsNeedsf2P
  • The main story in the wiki page comes from the Autopian [0], specifically from Jason Torchinsky, ex Jalopnik. It's an awesome publication, check them out, and Jason is an incredible writer (Onion alumni)

    [0] https://www.theautopian.com/bmw-is-showing-commercials-on-th...

    by inasio
  • It sounds awful, but it might not even make the top-5 of the most annoying/concering things you'll get in a new car (bought in the EU at least), many of which are now mandatory by regulation. What you'll also get is a camera that tracks your eye movements to play an alert when they're not on the road, an alarm when you drive over the allowed speed limit as determined by a camera, an alarm plus a mechanical yanking of your driving wheel when you're approaching the side of your lane without a turn signal on. As a cherry on top it's unclear what happens with all the data generated by these systems. And I'm probably forgetting a few.

    I'm wondering what a good cutoff date is when considering buying a used car.

    by c7b
  • Texting and driving is a real problem.
    by cuu508
  • My 2015 has none of these things. It has a rear camera, no telemetry, physical buttons, no internal nav, and no giant tough screen.
    by dylan604
  • What you'll also get is a camera that tracks your eye movements to play an alert when they're not on the road

    Coming to you thanks to the assholes who fiddle on their phone while driving. As a cyclist, I still see this happening regularly where car drivers are fiddling on their phone while driving for just a few seconds, leading to almost-collisions (well, probably I've been lucky to only witness almost-collisions, including almost getting hit myself), etc.

    Same problem on bikes and electric bikes. People are so attached to their screens that they are fiddling on their phone while cycling. This was already bad when people cycled 15 km/h on a regular bike, but now we have kids who cycle on a fat bike with the 25 km/h speed limit removed, tinkering on their phone while cycling 35 km/h in small city streets. Not surprisingly, accidents have gone up a lot.

    I hate in-car cameras as much as you. But I also hate the totally irresponsible use of phones while driving/cycling.

    by microtonal
  • I get all of these with more or less recent (2023) Mazda here in Japan, but all of them can be turned off in settings. Are they always-on in EU?
    by maxgashkov
  • These systems are such a pain in the butt. These can’t be saving lives. My brain completely filters away the speed limit beep. The auto-steering mostly tries to drive me into other vehicles (in the countryside it steers you towards the middle of the road ). And I am pretty sure the eye tracking thing wont prevent me from selecting a spotify song.

    cutoff is officially mid 2024. I don’t know if some older cars have been firmware-updated to have these features turned on by default.

    by d--b
  • Those things are at least well intentioned, and honestly the lane keeping has once or twice saved me from accidentally leaving my lane when distracted, which might have saved my life.

    An ad for a spiderman movie has no upside and is another small step towards a Minority Report vision of the future.

    by padjo
  • > BMW's own PressClub release described the advertisement as a special surprise for drivers...

    That one got a chuckle out of me

    by fumeux_fume
  • Same energy as when airlines make a gate announcement that they’ve got too many bags and they’re offering free baggage check for anyone willing…
    by Esophagus4
  • Reminds me of EA calling lootboxes "surprise mechanics, quite ethical"...
    by NekkoDroid
  • Like coming back to your car getting broken into, a surprise doesn't necessarily have to be a positive one.
    by userbinator
  • I wonder if they say: "A new life awaits you in the Off-world colonies. The chance to begin again in a golden land of opportunity and adventure."
    by DrewADesign
  • Start…the…reactor
    by kridsdale1
  • Samsung the same with their display on fridge, I'm not sure how is this legal and why someone thinks this is ok.

    These decision makers are meant to be educated people with may be at least a tiny bit of values in their lives...

    by narmiouh
  • No coincidence, BMW and Samsung did product placement in the movie too. Very conspicuously.
    by tootie
  • On my Samsung TV recently on the start page some ad has started to show up, years after I bought it. No idea if I can get rid of it. I barely watch TV though, so I don't really care about wasting time trying to get rid of it. But I will for sure avoid Samsung in future TV purchases.
    by DanOpcode
  • I agree that it’s abhorrent. However the doomer in me can’t help but think they do these things because consumers still buy them. You’d expect GE to go “Oh yeah well we don’t put ads on OUR fridges.” but it seems like in every industry they all just follow suit.
    by cautiouscat
  • Great way to tank a brand. Part of BMW's value is/was the expectation of an upper middle class snob driving it, but having your car force ads on you is something people wouldn't even expect from a Kia Soul leased off a used lot.
    by helterskelter