What is in your opinion the premium you pay only for the brand? How much a bmw should cost if was a car with the same characteristics but from a generalist brand?
What is in your opinion the premium you pay only for the brand? How much a bmw should cost if was a car with the same characteristics but from a generalist brand?
In my experience, most “generalist” brands in the US (Honda and Toyota for example) use FWD. BMW uses RWD or RWD-based AWD, except for its least expensive (yet still good) models. All else being equal, FWD is less expensive to manufacture than RWD.
Second, we have to take into account the economy of scale that comes with generalist brands’ platform sharing. For 21 years, every car I bought was an Acura. But every Acura shares a platform with a mainstream Honda. That helps keep the cost down. Granted, the lower-cost BMW models share platforms with the Mini brand (which probably helps keep costs down), but most BMW models share platforms with each other, as opposed to a more generalist brand. So the the economy of scale isn’t is great with those models, which reduces cost savings.
But are those aspects worth it? That’s up to the customer. I got my first BMW 4 years ago this week, and I think they are worth the money.