Wow, maybe bring it back to the dealership and tell them the car is broken, and insist on them fixing it or ask for a full refund.
I hope they don’t act surprised when cheap Chinese cars without all that crap devour their market share.
When my car dies, I’m just going to build a go cart. Fuck this shit.
with how some stereotypical bmw drivers are, ads will make it worst.
Imagine if Obama’s administration did this. The Republican would collectively and simultaneously cream themselves (ew).
I imagined it. Was pretty cool
Oh great. Most BMW drivers are already distracted and incompetent enough. This bullshit will just make them an even bigger hazard.
Just replace the ads with instructions on proper turn signal usage.
All those electric car owners missing out on the gas station pump ads can finally feel included.
Imagine paying the kind of prices that car manufactures demand, and then they shove ads in your face on your own property. I would drive it back to the dealership & demand a refund.
You can probably have an ad-free system for a monthly subscription.
Wankers.
Ad free*
That’s Bayerische Motoren Wankers AG to you.
It’s crazy that few days ago I learned what BMW stands for and now I see it everywhere.
I thought it was Bavarian Motor Works or something? Logo was a propeller? No? This is what I’ve always known it to be.
Correct. It’s Bayrische Motoren Werke which translates to Bavarian Motor Factories or maybe Bavarian Motor Workshops.
The German
Werkhas several meanings:- The process of work/the work itself needed to finish a specific task.
- A specific action. E.g. used to imply someone did $thing
- A specific thing that was produced by someone (e.g. a piece of art) or even someone’s lifeworks as a whole.
- A factory or industrial complex BUT ALSO depending on context the workers on said factory/complex.
Remember when they tried to make you rent the heated seats you already have?
Oh no! How will me and my soldiering iron cope?
Maybe they will offer a commercial-free subscription service.
Maybethey will offer a commercial-free subscription service.Ftfy
If have to watch ads it’s not a luxury car, it’s a Kia in a suit.
This is brilliant. Single sentence deathblow to BMW marketing.
I don’t watch ads in my Hyundai. That makes it worse than Kia/Hyundai.
The only cars I see ads in are borrowed from Europcar and are basic pieces of shit. So I guess BMW is around there now.
You have to watch the commercial before you can access the turn signals, right?
That would explain some things.
It’s kinda weird how this slogan got so much cultural traction. Years later and it’s still a meme. I guess because it’s irrelevant to the issue - IIRC it was about piracy - and also because it’s completely wrong. I would absolutely download a car if I could. So would pretty much everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Wouldn’t_Steal_a_Car?wprov=sfti1
Copyright concerns
It was reported that the music in the announcement was itself used without permission.However, one source disputes this, saying the reporting is the result of conflation regarding a different anti-piracy ad that used stolen music composed in 2006.
The “ransom note” typeface used in the campaign was FF Confidential, designed by the Dutch typographer Just van Rossum. Reports arose in 2025 that the copy of the font used to design the commercial may not have been properly licensed. In April 2025, Sky News reported via extraction from old campaign PDFs that the actual font used was Xband-Rough, a widely-distributed pirated version of FF Confidential. Van Rossum was aware of the font Xband-Rough, but was unaware that the advert has used the pirated font and described its use as “hilarious”. According to a different investigation by journalists, the pirated font was only in a domestic campaign by the British Federation Against Copyright Theft, who had no involvement in the making of the original PSA. The Federation responded by saying that everyone involved in the creation of the announcement was no longer at the organization.
Imagine this: when you start your car, you’re forced to watch a 30 second commercial. Your car already has eye tracking, which actually is a good safety feature, but we’ll be using this to make sure you’re watching the entire time.
If you stop watching, it will change to a 1 minute long commercial instead. If you still don’t watch the entire time, we might just start an even longer commercial.
Or better yet: your inattention is enough reason for us to turn off your car. Lawmakers can’t ban this now, because it’s a secondary safety feature: you don’t have enough attention to mindlessly watch a 30 second commercial, so you’re obviously not alert enough to operate a motor vehicle. Think of the kids.
Damn, I need to be like Sony and get a patent on this, just to stop anyone else from doing it.
Even Black Mirror wouldn’t go this far because it’s too banal, but Sony would
I’ve had Yanks tell me that my BYD is evil because I don’t really own it, that I have to pay a subscription, that it has ads
None of which is true
You know who’s pulling that sort of shit?
Other manufacturers.
NOT BYD
Same here. My car always works, I don’t need an account for it, all the features supported by the hardware are available for my use whenever I want. Here’s the kicker, WITHOUT an internet connection. We have 2 BYDs, a 2023 HAN and a 2023 TANG.
Maybe a dumb question but can these cars be reprogrammed with some other software or whatever? Or could the car be manipulated to not show an ad or unlock your seat warmers or something?
No. The software is deeply embedded and locked down tight. There is no reliable means of interfacing with it beyond what is exposed in the touchscreen interface. Only BMW dealers using their proprietary software can do anything and even they are limited to what is exposed to them. This is the same with all modern cars. Sorry.
It’s even more infuriating when you get to Volkswagen and the same tools are locked down for certain cars based on the branding alone.
A Volkswagen dealer cannot program a Skoda or Audi or Porsche - even though all of them have the same hardware and software.
Also, can the ad connection be hacked to show, for example, regular reminders that the president is a rapist. . ?
