BMW Overtakes Tesla in Electric Car Sales in Europe

wazoobonkerbrain@lemmy.world to World News@lemmy.world – 418 points – BMW overtakes Tesla. BMW has taken the lead in the European battery electric vehicle market for the first time, overtaking US automaker Tesla • World News
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The German concern BMW AG has, for the first time, outpaced the American company Tesla in the sale of electric cars in the European Union.

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As much as I would love to invest in a BMW, are they still selling subscriptions to access features like dashboard camera recordings and heated seats? I don't remember if they walked that back, but I don't trust them enough to not implement it in the future again if they did.

Yup! Just last week it was revealed that they would be doing their adaptive suspension that way: https://www.motortrend.com/news/bmw-adaptive-suspension-connected-drive-subscription/

And, like many automakers (but not all) they have ties to forced labor:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/20/business/economy/senate-bmw-volkswagen-jaguar-land-rover-xinjiang.html

It appears German and Chinese automakers are the biggest offenders, where companies like Subaru are actively trying to remove it from their supply chains: https://m.subaru.ca/forced-and-child-labour-report

On January 11, Lear sent letters to BMW, Jaguar Land Rover, Volvo and VW AG informing them of the banned components. Despite that notification, in April 2024, after the committee explicitly asked both companies whether they ever “directly or indirectly sourced parts from JWD,” Jaguar Land Rover claimed to be unaware of its links to the manufacturer listed on the UFLPA Entity List, and BMW informed the committee that JWD was not on their “supplier list.” However, after repeated questions from the committee, BMW disclosed that at least 8,000 Mini Cooper cars containing JWD components had been shipped to the United States.

https://www.finance.senate.gov/chairmans-news/automakers-shipped-cars-and-parts-made-by-chinese-company-banned-for-forced-labor-to-the-united-states-car-companies-are-failing-to-police-their-supply-chains-for-chinese-components-made-with-forced-labor-finance-committee-majority-staff-investigation-finds

I'm not at all suprised at BMW being shady in that way but VW... well yes none of your links actually support lumping them into that category.

VW does happen to have a plant in Xinyang unconnected to human right abuses but seems to be mulling getting rid of it. Long story short the Chinese are going to actively avoid dragging VW into any shady stuff, VW's whole presence in China is already very unpopular with the shop floor council because China is even more hostile to unions than the US. If VW catches the CCP working against VW guaranteeing its own labour standards in China then they're just plainly going to leave, and with them all that technology transfer.

...and in case anyone is wondering yes the shop floor council absolutely does have the power to pull VW out of China.