BMW has big plans for the future, with many new vehicles coming, including a mix of hybrids and electric cars. They’re not entirely electric cars, though, as even BMW recognizes the transition will perhaps be a little slower. In order to make room for all these new vehicles, some old vehicles will have to go away.
Lucid isn’t going away anytime soon as the company has increased revenue and, perhaps more importantly, as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund and an affiliate have increased their investment.
If you work at Nissan and you’re a certain age, you might be getting a buyout offer as the company tries to adjust its workforce for its mixed financial results. If you work at General Motors, you could be getting a bigger bonus or thinned out depending on your performance.
But before we start with all of that, I half-joked in yesterday’s TMD about the downturn in global stock markets being so temporary that it could turn around before the end of the day. That didn’t quite happen, but Japan’s Nikkei exchange jumped a record amount today and markets here in the U.S. are also up so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.
BMW Is Gonna Get Rid Of These Cars So It Can Build This
Of all the German brands, I think BMW has done the best job of rolling out electric vehicles that are both market-competitive and also fit within the ethos of modern BMW. That doesn’t mean that BMW is going full EV tomorrow as the company, like everyone else, is recognizing the transition won’t be immediate.
Automotive News has a report with some intel from AutoForecast Solutions that details the company’s plans. Here’s what’s likely getting killed or, at least, not replaced in order to make room for vehicles like the new X3, which will reportedly look a lot like the concept above.
The BMW XM
I don’t know a single person who likes the BMW XM performance hybrid. It’s big, expensive, and kind of ugly. There’s no final word on this, but for now, it seems iffy if the big SUV will come back after 2028.
The BMW iX
It turns out, in spite of an initial dislike of the aesthetic, the BMW iX is good. I’ve driven one. I like it! This was a big reveal for the brand and it’s done well, but it’s also X5-sized and it might make more sense to just build a version of the next X5 that’s an EV.
The BMW 8-Series
There was an 8-Series on the road in front of me the other day in a dark purple color and I thought it looked great. However…
AutoForecast Solutions said 8 Series output could end in mid-2026 and a successor is not expected. The large sedan received a mild freshening for the 2023 model year, which included an illuminated grille and a new 12.3-inch center display.
The flagship model has struggled to find market traction. According to the Automotive News Research & Data Center, U.S. sales of the 8 Series have dropped 26 percent since peaking in 2021.
That’s kind of a bummer.
The BMW Z4
The BMW Z cars never truly go away, they just hibernate. There’s no plan to keep building the Toyota Surpa/BMW Z4 past 2026. Go buy those manual Z4s while you can.
The BMW 2-Series
While Automotive News reports that a majorly updated 2 Series Gran Coupe is coming next year, the delightful coupe is likely to see production end late in 2028 with no plan to replace it. Yet…
Overall, BMW seems to be downsizing its portfolio of sporty sedans and sports cars/coupes in favor of more crossovers. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.
Lucid Gets More Money From Saudi Arabia
David and I had a great chat with Lucid CEO Peter Rawlinson at Goodwood, and we’ll start sharing some of the interview today. He seemed in good spirits at the time, perhaps because he knew he was going to get another cash injection from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund worth about $1.5 billion.
“The $1.5 billion helps to solidify the relationship between PIF and Lucid further. There was some investor concern out there that should the PIF become frustrated with the company that they wouldn’t provide any additional commitments,” said Andres Sheppard, senior equity analyst at Cantor Fitzgerald.
The PIF’s investment has grown to a total of about $8 billion, he added. The sovereign wealth fund has a stake of about 60% in the company.
The money will be used to help tool up a factory in Saudi Arabia and to keep the company going as it readies its Gravity SUV.
Nissan/Infiniti Offers More Buyouts In The United States
Nissan is the one major Japanese automaker in the United States that hasn’t quite found its thing. While there are some good Nissan vehicles out there and, with the Rogue, some decent deals, I’m not sure any single Nissan product is the best in its category.
With mediocre results comes, inevitably, some buyouts. Here’s what Automotive News had to say:
The automaker said buyout packages were offered to white-collar Nissan and Infiniti employees at least 52 years old in certain nonmanufacturing business units and to those 55 years and over in the manufacturing organization. Hourly production workers are not affected.
In the U.S., Nissan employs about 21,000 people, including about 9,000 hourly workers at three Southeast factories.
Spokesperson Kyle Bazemore declined to say how many salaried jobs Nissan intends to cut or how many employees the company expects to take the severance package. He said a “small percentage” of the salaried workforce is eligible.
Nissan seeks to “optimize business operations and remain competitive for the future,” Bazemore said. “We continue to evolve to meet the needs of the global automotive industry.”
I gotta say, 52 seems pretty young! I will definitely have to work until at least my 60s and will probably want to work until later than that. I hope employees get unsold Murano CrossCabriolets as part of the deal.
GM Has A New Plan For Its Workforce
If you work at GM and you’re doing a great job, good news: you can double your bonus if you do exceptional work. If you can’t do better, bad news: you’re fired.
From the Detroit Free Press comes word that GM has a new rating system for its white-collar workers:
In the email to the salaried workforce, GM said it is moving from a three-point to a five-point performance rating scale effective for the year-end performance review cycle, which typically starts in November. GM has used the three-point rating for at least the past decade, two people at GM told the Free Press. They asked to not be identified because they are not authorized to speak publicly about this subject.
This means that GM’s old performance rating of needs improvement, meets expectations or high-performing, will now change to the following:
- Significantly exceeds expectations
- Exceeds expectations
- Achieves expectations
- Partially meets expectations
- Does not meet expectations
Get it! Five points instead of two points. GM also says that it wants managers to rank the workforce in the following way:
- 5% Significantly Exceeds
- 10% Exceeds
- 70% achieves
- 10% Partially meets expectations
- 5% Do not meet
I would suggest not being in that lower 5%.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
In light of today’s news, here’s some Hold Steady for you Midwesterners.
The Big Question
What BMW product would you be sad to see go?
…how is this not age discrimination? Everyone I know who’s further up in years has always has a tough time finding a new job. Too few places value (and want to pay for) experience anymore, and then you hit the wall of hiring managers going “well, this person’s just going to retire in a few years anyway.”
I assume because it’s an optional buyout. Which is probably why they did that instead of just laying them off.
Still, that’s a highly specific group to target that doesn’t have the best time landing a new job.
GM’s ranking lines up with Jack Welch’s logic. He said the trick is keeping the top 20% from getting to comfortable while keeping the middle 70% striving to become the top 20, and not being afraid to dump bottom 10. Something like that. It was his approach to the different businesses GE owned as well.
…and this all sounds like a great idea until you’ve used it for a few years. You keep cutting the bottom 5 or 10% because they’re “not meeting expectations “, and the next thing you know:
1- Your organization is smaller, and can’t get the same work done
2- The “bottom 10%” is where the middle used to be, and
3- Your original “top 10%” has left to go somewhere else less “uncomfortable”.
Add in the endless job postings to try and find suckers to fill in that bottom 10% so you don’t have to get rid of your actual experienced work base. No one wins.
Yep. The solution should simply to encourage high performance of each department, and encouraging managers to fix poor performers and if they aren’t fixable, letting them go. If a department happens to be filled with unicorns, then there should be zero turn over. If a department is filled with turds, there should be loads of PIPs and likely a clearing house (starting with whoever let it get filled with turds).
It also means that everyone’s focused on making sure some of their team members are clearly the ones in the bottom 10%. Either by not helping them, or by actively setting them up for failure or sabotaging them.
At my dad’s old job they would rotate who was in the bottom tier. This meant that unless you were really bad, you never ended up fired. Regardless on whether you did anything wrong there always had to be someone in last place.
While incentivizing people to do better by tying a portion of their pay to performance is understandable, dictating that 15% of the workforce must be underperforming is not. That will create the wrong dynamic in the company, reinforcing an “executives and the “capital class” can do no wrong while the rest of you are lazy” feeling, especially when the company is outperforming financial expectations, buying back a ton of stock, issuing dividends again, the CEO makes a disgusting 300 to 400 times the median salary and has fumbled the ball to the tune of billions on autonomous driving and “all-ev, no hybrids” bets.
It’s also worth noting that the payment scheme allows GM to save money since the amount withheld from under performers amounts to a larger percentage than the extra given to over performers, and the rankings are normalized based on pay grade.
Full disclosure, I am a salaried GM employee, so this directly affects me.
Jack Welch ruined a great company; zero long-term thinking. Everything was reduced to next quarter’s earnings results and stock performance.
BMW could get rid of everything they currently offer at this point and it would not be missed.
I’m pretty much at that point with Mercedes-Benz and Audi too – except for the A5/S5 coupe/cabriolet.
Maybe the 2 series, but it is a bit of a cartoon to look at.
I had to look it up to remind myself what it looks like.
All I see is Pontiac GrandAm.
I’m still salty they discontinued the i3
“Overall, BMW seems to be downsizing its portfolio of sporty sedans and sports cars/coupes”.
Too bad that doesn’t mean making their vehicles smaller, the way downsizing used to. Bummer Motor Werks…
Remember when the 7 Series was the size of today’s 3 Series?
Back in the day, I could name every car in the BMW lineup. I mostly don’t care about BMW now, but I hope they save the 3 series. Maybe the 4 series (which should be a 3 series anyway) if they can make it less ugly.
The M240i or M2 are pretty much all that interests me at this point. The bucktooth cars are out. The 3 series is pretty bloated at this point. I briefly considered a X5 PHEV for our household’s “big” car, but that was back when the tax credit applied to them. I guess if I had $70k for a two seat roadster, the Z4 would interested me, but that isn’t in the cards.
IMO, the iX is the worst looking thing in their lineup. I actually saw a XM the other day and while it is somewhat “cartoonish” looking, it isn’t as bad the iX.
I had an iX loaner while my 3 series was in the shop. It was an absolute blast to drive, the interior was great and it had a ton of passenger space. Cargo space in the back was a little weird, but I said to myself, “this is my next car.”
BUT!!! I stood outside and stared and stared and stared from every freaking angle and just couldn’t do it. It is the perfect EV SUV and it’s not even a close call except for the fact that it is also the ugliest car on the road today, with the only possible exceptions the current Chevy and Ford pickup truck monstrosities.
I had one as a rental. Base spec 50. What a great car.
It’s not as sporty as I would like for my choice of daily driver but it ticked a lot of boxes that made me think hard.
But yeah… the looks. I’m starting to think the rear 3/4 kind of works but beyond that it’s not for me.
It’s gotten me very excited about the Neue Klasse range of cars because they actually look good (and very “BMW”). The iX was BMW’s first real clean sheet EV (the i3 always had the REX in mind) and it’s an excellent car.
Also carbon fiber tub is just cool.
I agree on the Neue Klasses 100%! If you look at the iX and the “Neu X” in side by side pictures, they are astoundingly not *that* different, but good lord the differences absolutely take the design from hideous to great. The stupid giant no grill nose and bizarre sloping rear really ruin what otherwise is not a bad design.
I don’t know if I can hold out for a Neu Klasse but if it were out now it would be on my short list.
“That doesn’t mean that BMW is going full EV tomorrow as the company, like everyone else, is recognizing the transition won’t be immediate.”
Yes, agreed. But what if a major auto manufacturer that has a significant recurring customer base, like BMW, was to actually just make the switch to an all EV lineup? Some of the customer base would switch to another manufacturer to stay with an ICE, but what percentage would stay with the brand and make the switch to EV? How many new customers would it win? Would it offset the losses? Would it accelerate the transition and make it easier to accept change?
I think about this a lot when I see statements about the transition, and I believe there is some merit to fully switching. I would not make this decision as a leader of a manufacturer because I know how capitalism works, but it’s an interesting thought experiment of the societal impact.
We are going to find this out in short order, because it appears that Porsche is 100% committing to a full electric lineup going forward with no next generation gas alternatives for each new model that they release.
The Hold Steady was a band I eventually heard mentioned enough that I became curious to see them play and when I finally did a few months ago, they didn’t disappoint; they (especially Lead Spectacle Craig Finn) were obviously enjoying themselves and the crowd ate it up, with most folks singing along at full blast (including all the spoken asides). The whole thing was just jubilant. If you like this song, it’s a pretty solid representation of their sound, and if you can handle two hours of it, definitely see them play next time they come around.
They leave it all on stage.
They are on my list to see! Just hasn’t worked out yet.
Something tells me they’ll be doing it forever. I don’t have a single record (wiki says there are nine!) but I was moved to buy a shirt. Good luck!
“What BMW product would you be sad to see go?”
The Mini Cooper.
I’m sort of with you, but it also feels like it’s devolved into sort of a sad parody of its former self, so it might be seen as a mercy killing
My friend has a Mini Copper from a few years back. He would love to see it go, but alas it’s just putting a mechanic’s kids through school.
GM employee performance rating system? This sounds like job for AI.
Yeah… makes me wonder if “AI” (which is more like “AS”/Artificial Stupidity) would actually be any worse than a lot of these arbitrary employee ratings systems.
“Ummm, I’m going to have to let you go for not filing enough TPS reports on time.”
“As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Anyone wanna see second prize? Second prize is a set of steak knives. Third prize is you’re fired.”
Fantastic scene in a fantastic movie. For some reason, people shit on Balwdin’s character as the bad guy. These are the same people who don’t realize that is an entirely accurate and honest portrayal of how the world works.
Still in shock at a sales manager at a national company, played that movie to a room of about twelve of us in sales about thirty years ago.
Coffee is for closers!
Always great to see that GM wants an artificially pre-defined spread of ratings. If everyone meets expectations, are you just supposed to pick 5% of them to throw under the bus? I imagine the best team’s leads will be basically punished for this, if more than 5% of members “significantly exceed” expectations, they’ll probably get an earful for failing to stick to the grading guidelines. Individual ratings can’t be forced to stick to a bell curve, and I suspect General Motors will soon see what comes of trying to turn employees against each other with ratings that define their bonuses.
if 99% of a company the size of GM “meets expectations”, then their management team is in the bottom 5% for doing a garbage job of setting expectations.
I agree, but this is a guideline for each and every manager. Rewarding a department’s high performance with higher expectations is pretty evil. I do think that, in most cases and with a large enough sample, a bell curve would probably form, but if that’s the case, then requiring one is pointless. If in any given case there isn’t a naturally-occurring bell curve, then it’s straight-up counterproductive.
“Rewarding a department’s high performance with higher expectations is pretty evil.”
Can I quote you? Management at my place of employment don’t seem to understand this. What? Your team has made your goals 10 of the last 12 months? We are going to raise your goals, every year for four years while lower poor performing teams.
Absolutely, it’s such a short-sighted way to run a company and just drives away talent.
Expecting continuous improvement is short-sighted and evil? This is like the UAW effectively arguing that they raised manual productivity back in the 70’s and shouldn’t have to deal with any new automation since then.
Came to say this; you did it much more eloquently than I would have.
This is why GM always pack new intake with at least 20% of underperforming dunderheads. That way come firing time you don’t lose anyone effective.
Just make sure you hire a couple sacrificial idiots,that way your useful reports are protected
The BMW XM
When a vacuum fills the space previously filled by apathy, does it make a sound?
I’m stealing this phrase shamelessly and without attribution.
Hello, Mr. Regular?
When it comes to Lucid-I can’t be the only one that wouldn’t consider one for ethical concerns, right? Like I’m not going to support a company that’s being propped up by the oil/slush fund an oppressive, totalitarian, religiously fanatical, murderous regime is using to try to make everyone forget that they’re evil and masterminded 9/11. It’s not even a difficult choice.
Anyway, the BMW news is devastating. The 8 series is the best looking vehicle in their current lineup and offers a delightful assortment of 6 and 8 cylinder powertrains. I found the 8 series to be ridiculously appealing when it launched and I still love them today. They’re really the only car in the current BMW lineup that I still stare at whenever I encounter one in the wild.
The 2 Series news sucks too. The M2 has always been an aspirational car for me and many others and the 2 series is one of the last remnants of the old BMW that we all love. I think the current one is quite attractive (and Uncle Adrian agrees so don’t @ me!) and offers a great, rear wheel drive experience. I’ll be very sad to see it go and I’d rather have one over a new 2 Series GC.
The 2 Series GC is an abomination in the eyes of god. It’s absolutely hideous and is essentially a front wheel drive crossover underneath. Gross. Absolutely NOT a real BMW. You couldn’t pay me to drive one, even in the M lite guise. I hate that car with a passion and I have 0 faith in BMW to make the next generation appealing…and even if they do paying $50,000ish for a front wheel drive Mini with a BMW badge is just never going to appeal to any enthusiasts, nor should it.
But alas, as much as I love the roundel this is what BMW wants. Making shouty luxury cars crammed full of needless tech is what’s making them money. They have no financial reason to keep catering to enthusiasts since we don’t buy anything…whereas people will continue line up to lease buck toothed abominations that will get them attention.
I can’t blame them for making these choices financially. There’s no money in continuing to cater to us, even though their reputation is more or less built off of brilliant drivers cars of yore. I guess I’m back to wanting an M2 as my next car, especially since its days are numbered. Hell, I may even get it in manual.
I strongly recommend the F22, all accounts I’ve seen call it the better driver. You’ll get a better deal, too. I’d get the base with the upgraded N55, not the Comp with the down-tuned S55. The N55 sounds a lot better and the power level matches the chassis perfectly. I didn’t have an M2, but my M235i had a surprisingly good back seat that could carry adults in relative comfort, while I hear the newer model can’t, despite the added 400lb. And of course, the F22 looks WAY better and is less crammed with useless tech.
I agree with you that Lucid is problematic due to the Saudi connection (although, I think the 9/11 commission concluded the Saudi government was not involved in planning the attacks; they still do a lot of other bad things I don’t want to support). I find it odd that Lucid gets a pass while any news about Tesla is met with numerous comments about how terrible Elon is and that Tesla drivers are supporting nazis. I’m not an Elon Musk fan by any means, but I would rather give my money to him than the Saudi government. I will not consider a Lucid product as long as the Saudi government is one of their backers.
It is easy to avoid giving money to the things they are backing at this time (LIV Golf sucks, I couldn’t care less about Newcastle United, and I’m not interested in any of Lucid’s current products), but they have enough money they will inevitably buy something I like at some point.
“But but but Elon tweets mean things! And even bought the company to let other meanies be more mean! That makes him eleventy billion times worse than than the theocratic murderous bastards!” – the thought process of the average American journalist, who sleeps securely at night knowing no matter how much they poke the bear, Musk isn’t going to lure them into a consulate, have them strangled to death, and then chopped up into small pieces for easy disposal.
“. I find it odd that Lucid gets a pass while any news about Tesla is met with numerous comments about how terrible Elon is and that Tesla drivers are supporting nazis. “
” I’m not an Elon Musk fan by any means, but I would rather give my money to him than the Saudi government.”
+1
You and I both.
This is not a zero-sum game.
Don’t buy either.
I think in regards to Lucid there is a difference between financial investment and actual day to day control. That’s for example why I’m so opposed to any Chinese cars ever being sold in the US, while I don’t have anything like the same reaction to Lucid.
There are certainly no shortage of unsavory people and funds who invest in all kinds of companies we know and use regularly. Trying to judge who is unsavory enough and who owns or directs enough of a company to justify a boycott seems like a fool’s errand to me.
I’m curious why you draw a distinction between financial investment and day to day control?
It seems like financial gain (i.e. by investing in or running a successful company) is the ultimate issue. I am more concerned about who benefits than who is pulling the strings, although they often go together.
Mostly because apart from very high profile cases like this, we don’t always know who invests in what and why.
I assume the Saudi fund has investments in all sorts of companies; maybe not 60% worth but enough that they profit by them. The same is true of billionaires, hedge funds, venture capitalists, and other unpopular targets. Trying to avoid all of them seems impossible, even if one was so inclined. So why draw the line at Lucid?
When one is blatant and basically advertises where the money is going, yes, please decide based on principal.
I wish everyone was transparent, but they are not. This is akin to the dude down the street that sells snowblowers that he finds and repairs. I want to support him, but he has a 4’x8′ sheet of plywood on his front lawn with Trump 2024 painted on it. Sorry dude, no thanks.
It is fair that we don’t always know who the investors are. I’m sure the Saudis are investing in things I am unaware of. Still, if I know the Saudi Public Investment Fund is investing a non-trivial amount, I avoid it.
I will acknowledge my boycott is a bit arbitrary, but I’m okay with that.
Although, as I said above, the projects the PIF has invested in so far aren’t things I care about (I can’t stress how much LIV Golf sucks). I don’t know what will happen when they eventually invest in something I care about. I might arbitrarily unboycott the PIF at that point.
Everyone has to draw their line somewhere and I respect that.
“When it comes to Lucid-I can’t be the only one that wouldn’t consider one for ethical concerns, right”
Nope… you’re not the only one. And honestly, anyone who has done any real research on the matter would know that the shit that goes in in Saudi Arabia is a lot worse than even the worst things Elon Musk has done.
And yet people will go on about Musk/Tesla. They’re really just outing their own ignorance about every company that isn’t Tesla.
And actually it’s all the corrupt regimes enabled by oil and the wars that are or have been fought over oil that makes me buy the most fuel efficient car that meets my size and budget needs… with my dream car still being a Tesla Model S… regardless of the comparatively minor BS that Elon Musk has done.
“Anyway, the BMW news is devastating”
I don’t view it that way. BMW has waaay too many model lines. They have 12 model lines on the CUV/SUV side and another 13 model lines on the car side. And if you include all the models within the model lines, the level of variation is just ridiculous.
And it gets even more ridiculous when you consider that of the 25 model lines they have, none include vans, pickup trucks or any commercial vehicles.
In my view, they need to chop half of the models they have as there is just way too much product overlap.
Hell… they have the complete opposite problem that the Dodge/Chrysler brands have.
I wish I could wave a wand and send some of that model excess BMW has over to Dodge and Chrysler. There is enough excess at BMW to cover both brands.
I wouldn’t buy one because of ethical reasons either. It sucks because I find their cars really amazing but nah, I’m good. I can’t afford one either so that makes the decision for me anyway.
As a five time BMW owner the only current BMW I’d even consider is a 2-series Coupe. I like the look of the M2, but I don’t need the performance, so something middle of the range maybe?
The Z4 Coupe (E86 for you chassis code nerds) was arguably the best car I’ve ever owned, and that argument goes away if it was an M Coupe as they had actual steering feel and a LSD. Sadly BMW let Toyota style the coupe version of the current Z4, so it’s already dead to me.
I think that cuts my new car want list down to just a GR86, Cayman and Emira. All of which I’ll have to wait for sweet Madam Depreciation to deliver to me in 5-15 years time.
Wait, I just worked out how old I’m going to be in 15 years time. Bugger.
Um, basically nothing at this point
Their (presumably) distinctive turn signals. I still hope to see one in use before they’re all gone. (It’s possible I’ve already missed my chance.)
The E85/86 Z4 had two, yes two, turn signal bulbs per front corner. Biggest, brightest turn signals I can recall seeing on any car.
Of course I only got to see mine flash when I locked it. No point using them to turn when the poors keep a respectful distance all the time.
GM going full Jack Welch? That always ends up great…
Well, it will all appear to be fine from the outside until Mary Barra retires, and can then maybe coast until about halfway through her successor’s tenure before the shit really hits the fan. That’s that Jack Welch way
They could bring back Rick Wagner.