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6 luxury car brands to watch in 2024

2023 was a healthy year for the auto industry, and even with incentives returning and dealer lots filling up, there's plenty to like about the market if you build luxury automobiles, and we expect 2024 to be more of the same, which makes luxury-segment rivalries all the more interesting. Top luxury car brand rivalries? Well, that sounds downright uncivilized. But we know better, don't we? And when every quarterly sales update is an opportunity to remind somebody else that they bought the wrong status symbol, well, who can resist? Certainly not the diehard customers who fly their favorite brands' banners high.  Read more: Auto sales: Industry records best year since 2019 Read more: 2023 auto sales and 2024 preview: Ford Bronco vs. Jeep Wrangler This is a tricky segment to define, but essentially, we're looking at luxury car brands with depth to their portfolios and dealerships that exist to attract real-world customers. The Bentleys, Rolls-Royces and McLarens of the world are luxury cars, certainly, but we're more concerned with brands that have a bit more mass appeal — manufacturers who treat supply constraints as fiascos rather than features. If you disagree with our selections, feel free to let us know in the comments.  And since we're mostly concerned with finishing order, the luxury brands and totals featured here may change as new data come in throughout 2024. Due to the wild swings of the past several years, we're treating 2023 as the baseline by which we'll measure sales performance. And rather than rank brands vs. their finishing order in 2022, when supply-chain and inflationary issues still played havoc with sales figures, we're starting 2024 off with a clean slate.  The mainstream luxury segment is always a dogfight, but with their varied approaches to electrification all of the major luxury brands are in the midst of reshaping the premium landscape. Who is doing it right? Well, according to U.S. shoppers, the usual suspects are up to their old tricks.

Trump turns his unpredictable ire towards German carmakers

President-elect Donald Trump likes to be unpredictable. During the election, he used the phrase in reference to foreign policy and dealing with terrorism. But he's using the same tactic with the automotive industry, making broad statements that send manufacturers into emergency-response mode. The latest salvo comes from an interview with Germany's Bild, where Trump threatened a 35-percent import tax on German manufacturers. ( Reuters covers the highlights in English here.) "If you want to build cars in the world, then I wish you all the best. You can build cars for the United States, but for every car that comes to the USA, you will pay 35 percent tax," Trump said. Trump's comments seem to be directed at manufacturing in Mexico, although it's unclear if the comments refer to any import from a German automaker or just those from south of the border. BMW is building a $1-billion plant in San Luis Potosi, Mexico, where it plans to assemble the 3 Series. Mercedes-Benz is joining up with Nissan to build a new facility in Aguascalientes near the Japanese company's existing factory. And Volkswagen recently expanded its massive footprint in Puebla to build the new Tiguan as well as a separate factory for the Audi Q5. Reuters states that Trump thinks there's not enough reciprocity between Germany and the United States, as Germans don't buy Chevrolets at the rate American buy Mercedes-Benz Vehicles. At present, only the Corvette and Camaro are sold in Germany. The German subsidiary of Chevrolet parent General Motors, Opel, is the fifth-ranked automaker in the European Union, ahead of FCA but trailing Ford, VW, and both French auto companies. In response to Trump, Germany's deputy chancellor (Chancellor Angela Merkel is shown above) and minister for the economy, Sigmar Gabriel, did not mince words. As reported by The Guardian, Gabriel said "The US car industry would have a bad awakening if all the supply parts that aren't being built in the US were to suddenly come with a 35% tariff. I believe it would make the US car industry weaker, worse and above all more expensive." Asked what it would take for Germans to buy more American vehicles, he said "Build better cars." Gabiel also noted that BMW's largest plant is already in the US. The Spartanburg, SC plant exports about 65 percent of its 400,000-unit annual production to foreign markets and directly employs 8,000 workers according to BMW.

2016 BMW 330e Plug-In Hybrid First Drive

Piecing together the i8 eco sports car taught BMW some valuable lessons, some of which you'll see in the next generation or two of the company's electrified mainstream cars. You won't have to wait that long for BMW to deliver on the key lesson, which can be seen right here in the 330e: make hybrids fun to drive and don't make people compromise on what they like. The 330e neatly sidesteps the traditional character-blanching entry ticket you get with hybrids by delivering almost as much torque as the 340i and a sprint time to 62 miles per hour of 6.1 seconds. For most people eco-conscious enough (especially in a time of cheap gas) to bother with plug-in hybrids, that's going to be quick enough. And so is the 140-mph top speed. It won't quite manage the precision of a normal 3 Series because it's 353 pounds heavier, but it's not far away. This 330e is (theoretically) capable of delivering 25 miles of electric-car range or ridiculous amount of range as a gasoline-electric hybrid. It will post a 44-gram CO2 emissions figure and officially deliver 1.9 liters/100km on the NEDC test cycle in Europe, which translates to 124 miles per gallon equivalent in the US, though it's unclear what the EPA-certified number would actually be. While punching in a straight line is always good, and sipping fuel like it's being rationed is nice, the key part to the 330e is that still handles like a 3 Series should every time you arrive at that one fun corner. It won't quite manage the precision of a normal 3 Series because it's 353 pounds heavier, but it's not far off. BMW has buried the 7.6-kWh lithium-ion battery pack beneath the cargo floor, while the electric motor resides up front, so the weight distribution moves from 50:50 to 49:51, leaving it a touch heavier in the back. Effectively, it's a 3 Series with the 320i's 2.0-liter, four-cylinder gasoline powertrain, the standard eight-speed automatic transmission, and an electric motor sandwiched in between to create a hybrid. The electric motor adds 87 hp to the gas engine's 181 horsepower to offer 248 hp of total power (yes, we know they don't directly add up, but that's the total output). While it has 74 pound-feet of continuous torque, the electric motor can overboost to 184 lb-ft when it needs to. Add that to the gas engine's 214 lb-ft and the car has a maximum of 310 lb-ft – 22 lb-ft shy of the 340i, without pumping out as many emissions.