can you clarify where "real america" is? are places like Spartanburg, SC or Tuscaloosa, AL "real america" because you can commonly find BMWs and Mercedes in these areas.
>> can you clarify where "real america" is? are places like Spartanburg, SC or Tuscaloosa, AL "real america" because you can commonly find BMWs and Mercedes in these areas.
Sure, and for all of us driving around and near Atherton or any other wealth enclave even in a normal city, all these cars will seem common. And especially common to engineers with multi-million dollar RSU portfolios who hang around the homes of other engineers with multi-million dollar RSU portfolios. It might even make us think everything is OK.
Half the country earns below the median wage. (yes, its a joke but true)
Tons of people live on fixed incomes like social security. One big medical co-pay destroys your entire budget for the year. My mom got a $2000 balance bill under her medicare provider for cataract removal. If I wasnt her backstop, this would have wiped out a year of savings.
Not everyone is a SWE, in fact most people have normal jobs with normal incomes. Yes, incomes are going up, but only median incomes. Not everyone's income is going up.
Seeing BMWs should not be a handwave that everyone is doing well. We really should have empathy for the troubles a fraction of our neighbors are going thru. In a country with a large enough population, fractions are a huge number of people.
It's not about location, but socioeconomic class. Most people live in bubbles. How many people do you know who earn less than $51k per year? Because it turns out that's the majority of Americans. [1]
Similarly, how many households do you know with combined income of less than $62k? Because that is also the majority.
You're not going to find these people in BMWs or big houses, well not without life destroying debt at least. People being completely aloof of these data (or headlines like this one) are how you get November 5th.
BMWs aren't that common anywhere in the US - if they were, they'd stop being a status symbol.
That said, they're also not uncommon - a quick look at registration data suggests ~8% of cars "on the road" are BMWs, though of course just because a car legally could be on the road doesn't mean it's being driven with any regularity (I had a co-worker years back whose pastime was buying old BMWs and fixing them up; apparently they could be had relatively inexpensively at the time, as servicing was pricey).
Which is why all this pedantry misses the point: there's nothing terribly special about BMW; total cost of ownership is probably higher than domestic brands, but you could just as well pad out your ordinary expenses with a Ford or GM payment; a new Suburban or nicer pickup can soak up just as much excess cash as that X3.
Then again, Real Americans drive increasingly old used cars.
They explicitly don’t import or make entry level BMW and Mercedes in the American market to keep it a status symbol, but you’ll see lots of 1 and 2 series BMWs in Europe and even Asia. In the USA, 3 series is entry level.
I see tons of X1s, A classes, and GLAs in the Bay Area. I think the main reason certain models don’t get imported is because of size preferences. The Yaris (aka the Mazda 2) is no longer sold here but the Mazda 3 still sells.
Relatedly, MB didn’t import the EQC into the US. Yet the GLC is the best-selling Mercedes in America. I just learned that they cancelled the EQC due to disappointing sales and will be introducing an electric GLC to the US.
can you clarify where "real america" is? are places like Spartanburg, SC or Tuscaloosa, AL "real america" because you can commonly find BMWs and Mercedes in these areas.