[oneginee]

The problem with today's auto industry visible in the US more than elsewhere but other are quickly falling in the same pitfall including BMW is a company politics one. How these companies are run today versus how they were run when the first M generation came out. The bean counters, executive, marketing are now in total control of these companies more than they have ever been and are making poor decisions while the engineers have been pushed down more and more and are basically seen as a commodity resource that no longer make the big calls. All these flashy video spots saying enginners at BMW decided, found this, discovered that is marketing driven bullshit. Engineers now have little say in what new technology will be developed or not. BMW AG M director even betrayed that when he said in his interview about the M3 GTR quote : "today's cars are no longer developed as they used to". They do marketing search, find what kind of car profile is in short term demand, decide everything about the car, then try to fit a technology that would work. Which means the engineers are at the end of that decision making process and are asked to execute some stupid product imagined by a bunch of marketing boneheads on a deadline decided by the executive. That is how you get X5M, X6M, mixing the M concept with SUV and other stupid marketing ideas instead of letting engineers make the calls and revolutionize the product. Bait and switch has become BMW new strategy. Engineers are as good as they used to be but their potential has been crushed by the idiots who have over the years taken control of companies. This story should not sound too unfamiliar, the whole world is following that trend and if you think product developed nowadays lack the innovation and quality that they used to that is the reason why. Fire a bunch of useless executive and marketing " strategists " who got an MBA is how you are going to get yourself back on the path of revolutionary products success stories and concepts like the first generation M out of the pipeline again. Only Porsche seems to have not sold itself to the executive useless crowd and is still run by engineers. BMW on the other hand as shown in the last few years it has totally let that crowd take over control. What is driving this is the same thing that drove the bankfinancial crisis, a misdirected way i would call it corruption in the way a company's wealth is being distributed compensating the executive and marketing too much. Letting that crowd who never understood nothing about engineering and science make decisions result in decisions that increase their personal compensation in the short term while at the same time causing a company to go down (or in the financial crisis the whole economy). This american corrupted company model has unfortunately expanded around the world over the last two decades. When the current Porsche CEO joined Porsche at a time when the company was doing very badly he saw straight through all of this and " let go " many of these well paid but useless executives. BMW is now being run to the ground by them. The M3 GTR is another proof of it. Fire all that crowd !