![]() ![]() Recently I was flying around in a 1917 BMW IIIa airplane. BMW has been perfecting the inline-six for generations. The M240i’s power unit is a 3.0-liter turbocharged 24-valve inline-six-cylinder. Pop the hood and there it is again: attention to brand DNA. A pair of healthy kidneys sit on the M240i’s nose. The kidney grille, for example-in some unmistakable form-has adorned nearly every BMW car going back to 1933-even the concept cars. ![]() A glance at the M240i and you instantly see the design language that has run through these vehicles for generations. A Cadillac of today will resemble nothing of a Cadillac from the 1960s or 70s or 80s. I’m a fan of the Mustang Mach-E but to call an electric Ford SUV a Mustang is a bit ridiculous. People often fail to mention, when speaking of BMW (or, for that matter, Mercedes and Audi) how much attention the designers and engineers pay to brand DNA, something American manufacturers have failed to do over the years. The Mineral White Metallic paint and Tacora Red Vernasca leather suited this vehicle. Styling is subjective, but for me, the vehicle presented a critical balance between attitude and understated panache. The M2 CS Shows Exactly What BMW Does Bestīut was the M240i a real M vehicle? Or a 2-series with a few add-ons and a single letter that can jack up the price? On the high-speed roads of California’s Gold Country, I aimed to find out.īefore leaving my driveway, I could make some snap judgements.The BMW 228i Gran Coupe Doesn't Feel Like a BMW.In other words, cars that mere mortals might actually afford. The M240i (two doors) and M235i (four doors) are the lowest-cost cars that carry the M-sport badge, with a base price under $49,000. So it was with huge expectations when I recently climbed into a 2022 M240i for a week-long test drive. The only problem? I could never afford to own any of them. Since then, I’ve been a fan and have driven countless M cars. The car made me so much better of a driver than I’d ever been before, on a track full of swimming-pool-sized puddles. But then, I started lapping and building speed confidently, moving through high-velocity sweeping bends (turn 7, turn 11) with my foot down. I got sideways on cold tires in turn one. I recall motoring out of pit lane in a new M4 provided by BMW, ready to piss my pants because I had no experience track driving in this much rain, and because Road America is the real deal. It was early spring 2014, at Road America during a furious squall. One was the day I first experienced the genius of a BMW M vehicle. While some of these ideas have merit, they don’t address what we believe is the root of the problem: the widespread assumption that low-wage jobs are filled by minimally capable people-a prejudice that has denied millions of employees the opportunity to enhance their skills and exercise their minds.Over 20 years of writing about cars, certain moments stand out. economy and elsewhere has inspired a slew of proposals, including mandatory labor representation on corporate boards, benefits for gig economy workers, tax breaks for investments in human capital, and a minimum guaranteed income. Michelin kick-started this change through a bottom-up process involving targeted experiments in select plants and eventually scaled up the most successful approaches across the organization. The SolutionĬompanies like Michelin have challenged that mindset and dramatically increased the authority and accountability of workers on the front lines. There is a widespread assumption that low-wage jobs are filled with minimally capable people-a prejudice that has denied millions of employees the opportunity to enhance their skills and use their brains. The number of “good jobs” in the United States and other countries is declining despite sustained government and policy efforts. The outcome: a workforce that’s deeply knowledgeable and relentlessly inventive-and that had delivered half a billion dollars in manufacturing improvements by 2020. The firm kick-started this change through a bottom-up process involving targeted experiments in a handful of plants and slowly scaled up successful approaches. Since 2012, under the banner of responsabilisation (French for “empowerment”), the company has dramatically increased the authority and accountability of workers on the front lines. As a result, firm performance suffers.īut there is a path out of this trap, as the French tire manufacturer Michelin has found. ![]() The view of manual employees as mindless machines dates back to the Industrial Revolution, when most workers were poorly educated, and was entrenched by Frederick Taylor, whose bureaucratic model institutionalized a caste system of thinkers and doers that still persists-which is unfortunate, because that model allows a vast reservoir of human ingenuity to go untapped. ![]()
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