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Originally Posted by impulsE89
I understand how you see it this way. There no doubt the car did not sell very well. The picture here in the USA as I see it here is that the Market is small and Corvette dominates with some very nice cars. More corvettes are sold than all the Sporty BMWs and Porches combined. They are considered a performance bargain. |
For sure the corvette is a firm competitor to the z4 in the us.
But in the past, the Z4 (and z3) outsold the boxster, even in the us.
When the e89 came, that didnt happen, especially in the 2nd half of its lifecycle. So I'm sure its a sales thing.
However the e89 did relatively well in europe compared to the US. But the US remains the target market because US models are usually better equipped so bmw on average earns more on every US car being sold than a european car (on average bigger engines, more luxury, and on those things a car maker makes the most money)
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As for legislation, when I see Porsche risk replacing their iconic sixes with 4 cylinder turbos, I have to think that every ounce that can be taken out of a low production car and put into a hot selling Suv is vital to the survival of the company.
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Sure the 4 cyl boxster is there to compensate co2 emissions for 911, panamera and cayenne. Its the fleet average that a car maker is legislated (and taxed/fined) on. A european car maker can still make high co2 emitting cars, but they are either fined per gramme co2 (which is very very expenisve, even for top manufacturers like aston martin or ferrari), or they can compensate with small models. They are even allowed to compensate with other brands (as ferrari does with fiat, or porsche does with vw/seat/skoda whatever). And I have no doubt that peugeot/citroen sells co2 emission rights to other companies. The selling of emission rights is btw a normal thing, and has been since the 60's (in both europe and the US) It happens within other industries too.
As for porsche using 4 cyl engines, they did that very often in the past in the cheaper models:
914, 912, 924, 944, 968.
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Bmw makes about 1500 SUVs each day here in South Carolina. Look at the figures above. BMW is an SUV company and doing very well in that segment. Just my opinion but i believe legislation drives this kind of strategic weight reduction and fuel consumption whether here or in Euro.
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Yes bmw does very well in the SUV segment, but globally they sell way way more 3 and 1or2 series etc. There's a reason why the SUV's are made in the states
But as far as the metal roof goes: it is not a legislation thing. The only legislation there is, is that a certain fleet average has to be met. You can have certain models emitting more as long as you compensate that somehow (either by having correspondent fuel efficient models, or buying emission right from other companies, or paying the extra fine)
It's also not said that a metal roof even increases gas mileage. Maybe heavier, but sometimes also better CW value. Its a fact that the e89 has a slightly lower drag coefficient than the e85.