Order Update
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BMW i4 Reservation Tracker: Add Yours Here!
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Yeah, the delay is what it is. I don’t see myself cancelling for any other available electric car at the moment. Luckily I will also be paying for the car in full so interest isn’t a worry. The extra $1400 is a bit sad though.
Actually, I laughed hardest at 'your car has been selected', like you're winning some kind lottery to get your car delayed and the price raised.
Yeah, I looked at that too.
That some bull excrement...
My overall price went up by $1700 on a car promised by spring 2022. I'm not happy. A delay that's not my fault then trying to penalize me on pricing. WTF...
Waiting for my M50......
Enough?😝I hope all is well, because I'm about to drop bad news on top of bad news for you. I just have an update for your i4 M50.
BMW got waaaay more orders than they could even imagine making, and they chose to make enough of those other cars before yours, that there's no way it would be a 2022. They've also increased prices on your car, even though some stuff is missing, just because they can. The new price of your car is $80,670, plus any extra fees and unwanted 'upgrades' we feel like adding, even if you don't want them. Oh, plus tax, tags, and a bunch of other fees we won't explain or even pretend to justify to you. If you're lucky, maybe you'll get a car next Spring. Maybe not? Who knows? We sure don't! Please let me know if you'd like to give up your spot, so we can upcharge it to some sucker for even more, and you can start all over with something else. We don't care, we'll sell it to someone, no trouble for us at all.
Maybe you are getting a fancy new model variant - the i4 M50i 😋
my CA always states i4 M50i as well in his correspondence to me, I thought it was just an error on his end
They’re subverting this “stupid electrical nonsense” by making the M50 sound more like an M-sport. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re snickering to shoppers of ICE cars and saying “oh that’s not a REAL M like the M3”
Well, they’re not wrong. The M50 is to the i4 what the m340i is to the 3-series.
If BMW wanted to call it M-sport, they would have, but they didn’t.
Putting aside semantic nuances, from a technical standpoint it has beyond-M power for a majority of use-cases in real life, but below M handling. Those factors can net out depending on what you value more and how much highway driving you do relative to curvy roads. So I think it’s accurate to call it an electrical M, or the M version of the i4. Its handling limitation is innate to the chassis (because the Taycan handles due to better weight distribution and EV-first design). Even a RWD version of the M50 would not satisfy some people’s arbitrary criteria for “real M” because of the heavy battery. So we can just as easily create our own arbitrary criteria for “electrical M” and elevate the importance of sheer muscle and power, which the M50 has in buckets. It is very intimidating in a way that an M-sport isn’t.
Ultimately, the debate over what we call it is a cultural and sociological debate more than anything, and people’s opinions on the matter will tend to reveal more about themselves than any underlying objective reality. If someone has a special place on their heart for angry sound engines with “real noise,” I can predict their opinion on this without knowing anything else.
Putting aside semantic nuances, from a technical standpoint it has beyond-M power for a majority of use-cases in real life, but below M handling. Those factors can net out depending on what you value more and how much highway driving you do relative to curvy roads. So I think it’s accurate to call it an electrical M, or the M version of the i4. Its handling limitation is innate to the chassis (because the Taycan handles due to better weight distribution and EV-first design). Even a RWD version of the M50 would not satisfy some people’s arbitrary criteria for “real M” because of the heavy battery. So we can just as easily create our own arbitrary criteria for “electrical M” and elevate the importance of sheer muscle and power, which the M50 has in buckets. It is very intimidating in a way that an M-sport isn’t.
Ultimately, the debate over what we call it is a cultural and sociological debate more than anything, and people’s opinions on the matter will tend to reveal more about themselves than any underlying objective reality. If someone has a special place on their heart for angry sound engines with “real noise,” I can predict their opinion on this without knowing anything else.
Great. Then here’s BMW saying it:
www.roadandtrack.com
"The first step was to electrify the first M model of the BMW Group as an M performance automobile," [i4 Project Director] Camacho said. "That is the label: M Performance automobile. Of course, all the doors are open for the future, the goal and the next step is going to high-performance cars. It means we are starting and we're going one step after other until the right time."
Debate settled.
The First Electric BMW With an M Badge Isn't Built for the Track
It'll survive a quick lap or so, but it's not built for the abuse an M3 or M4 is engineered to take.
www.roadandtrack.com
"The first step was to electrify the first M model of the BMW Group as an M performance automobile," [i4 Project Director] Camacho said. "That is the label: M Performance automobile. Of course, all the doors are open for the future, the goal and the next step is going to high-performance cars. It means we are starting and we're going one step after other until the right time."
Debate settled.
Sure, my broader point is that the M50 doesn’t fit neatly into any existing bucket, so “M Performance” is less meaningful when describing it vs. an M Performance ICE car. M is usually used in a hierarchical sense, and it is useful insofar as it denotes the place of a vehicle in the ICE hierarchy, not the BMW EV hierarchy where the M50 is currently king and, for what it’s worth, smokes the M4 in 0-60. The M4 isn’t exactly renown for its handling vs. Porsche 911 (for example) anyway if we’re going to talk about track performance characteristics.
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Yeah, this is getting beyond irritating...
That’s the M4 Competition. It does smoke the M4, so my point stands that in one aspect of performance it is “beyond M” - in this case, between standard M and M Competition. I’ll take beyond M acceleration over beyond M handling any day, as long as the handling is still “good.” All with beyond M comfort 😀
Yes. You're describing the essence of the M performance models. It's what most customers want: Straight line speed, an optional bumpy ride, and handling that they'll never use, without the massive brakes, extra cooling, extra rigidity, and so forth that an M car brings and that most folks will also literally never use or appreciate. BMW found a fair number of folks were buying //M cars just for the badge (not to mention the number of badges being glued on to non-M [even non-BMW] cars), so they made the badge more accessible by taking the higher power trims, making the M-sport package standard, and sticking a badge on there. Thus the M performance models were born.
This is what the M50 is. It's an i4 with another motor, and the M-Sport package. And there's nothing wrong with that. Enjoy the hell out of it!
And the minute there's a legitimate electric M3, I'll be there, cash in hand.
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