2002 Bmw 530i Base Sedan 4-door 3.0l on 2040-cars

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Dealers mobilize to protect their margins from automaker subscription services

Six individual auto brands — Lincoln, Cadillac, Porsche, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo — have established or are trialing a vehicle subscription service in the U.S. Three third-party companies — Flexdrive, Clutch and Carma — run brand-agnostic subscription services. And three automakers — Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and General Motors — have also launched short-term rental services. Dealers, afraid of how these trends might affect their margins, are building political and lawmaking campaigns to protect their revenue streams. So far, three states are investigating automaker subscriptions, and Indiana has banned any such service until next year. It's certain that those three states are the first fronts in a long political and legal battle. Powerful dealer franchise laws mandate the existence of dealers and restrict how automakers are allowed to interact with customers to sell a vehicle. On top of that, Bob Reisner, CEO of Nassau Business Funding & Services, said, "Dealers and their associations are among the strongest political operators in many states. They as a group are difficult for state politicians to vote against." In California earlier this year, the state Assembly debated a bill with wide-ranging provisions to protect against what the California New Car Dealers Association called "inappropriate treatment of dealers by manufacturers." One of those provisions stipulated that subscription services need to go through dealers, but that item got stripped out when dealers and manufacturers agreed to discuss the matter further. In Indiana, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a moratorium on all subscription programs by dealers or manufacturers until May 1, 2019, to give legislators more time to investigate. Dealers in New Jersey have taken their campaign to the state capitol, asking that the cars in subscription programs get a different classification for registration purposes. Automakers run the current subscription services and own the vehicles. Sign-ups and financial transactions happen online or through apps, leaving dealers to do little more than act as fulfillment centers to various degrees, with little legal recourse as to compensation amounts when they're called on to deliver or service a car. That's a bad base to build on for business owners who've sunk millions of dollars into their operations.

BMW 4 Series spied with its future competition

BMW showed off its new 4 Series coupe in concept form at the 2013 Detroit Auto Show earlier this year, but it won't be long before we see the production model, evidenced by this modestly camouflaged prototype spotted testing. In case you forgot, the 4 Series serves as the replacement for the two-door versions of the BMW 3 Series, just as the upcoming 2 Series will effectively be the new version of the 1 Series coupe and convertible sold in our market.
This isn't our first glimpse of the 4 Series out testing, and we've even spied its droptop, Gran Coupe and too-hot M4 kin. We don't expect the final design to stray too much from the concept car seen in Detroit, albeit without the normal conceptual goodies like oversized wheels and with the overstyled front fascia toned down a bit. Our spy photographers even caught the 4 Series coupe hanging out with an Audi A5, giving us a good glimpse at how the two cars will stack up in terms of size and design.
It's still unknown exactly what engines will power the car when it comes to production, but since this thing is a derivative of the 3 Series, we expect the usual range of turbocharged four- and six-cylinder engines to be available, likely in 428i ad 435i guise (though, to be fair, the larger 640i coupe uses a 3.0-liter turbo engine, so there's even the potential for 440i nomenclature to work its way into the mix). We'll have to wait until the car officially bows later this year to know for sure.

Daimler, Toyota, BMW to lead $10-billion hydrogen investment

Daimler, BMW, and Toyota are leading a group of 13 companies pledging to invest more than $10 billion during the next five years to spur enough infrastructure-building and technology advancements to get more of the general public to buy hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles. The automakers, which also include Honda and Hyundai, as well as companies such as Shell, AirLiquide, Linde Group, and Total SA, are part of what they're calling the Hydrogen Council. The group made its announcement in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday. The Hydrogen Council will pledge to accelerate its rate of hydrogen-related investments, which currently stand at about $1.5 billion annually. The coalition says its work represents a continuation of the 2015 Paris Agreement, in which many of the companies agreed to address the issue of climate change. The group says that hydrogen, which emits water vapor when used in fuel-cell vehicles, "can play an important role in the transition to a clean, low-carbon, energy system." The Hydrogen Council also vowed to push global governments to accelerate public investment in hydrogen-related infrastructure. Relative to other drivetrain technologies, hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are in their relative infancy in terms of adoption because of the high cost of both building fuel cell vehicles and setting up a hydrogen-refueling infrastructure. Toyota is the only automaker that sells a production fuel-cell vehicle in the US. The Japanese company, which introduced its Mirai domestically in late 2015, sold 1,034 of them in the US last year. Daimler subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz, used Tuesday's announcement to remind people that it would start selling its GLC plug-in hydrogen fuel-cell crossover this year. There are only 33 publicly accessible hydrogen refueling stations in the US, including 30 in California, and one each in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and South Carolina, according to the US Department of Energy. By comparison, there are more than 15,000 electric-vehicle charging stations with almost 40,000 outlets in the US. Related Video: Featured Gallery 2017 Mercedes-AMG GLC43 News Source: Daimler/Hydrogen Council via Bloomberg, Automotive News-sub.req. Green BMW Honda Hyundai Mercedes-Benz Toyota Hydrogen Cars infrastructure mercedes f-cell