Bayerische Motoren Werke AG, commonly abbreviated to BMW, is a German multinational manufacturer of luxury vehicles and motorcycles headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany. The company was founded in 1916 as a manufacturer of aircraft engines, which it produced from 1917 to 1918 and again from 1933 to 1945 creating engines for aircraft that were used in the Second World War.
A luxury car is a car that provides above-average to high-end levels of comfort, features, and equipment. Often more expensive materials and surface finishes are used, and buyers expect better build quality. The usually higher pricing and more upscale appearance is often associated with higher social status of the users, compared to low and mid-market segment cars.
Infiniti is the luxury vehicle division of the Japanese automaker Nissan, marketing having begun on November 8, 1989, in North America. The marketing network for Infiniti vehicles included dealers in over 50 countries in the 2010s. As of 2020, there were 25 markets served by new car dealers, primarily North America, China, Taiwan, and the Middle East.
Governments and private organizations have developed car classification schemes that are used for various purposes including regulation, description, and categorization of cars.
The Volkswagen Passat is a nameplate of large family cars (D-segment) manufactured and marketed by the German automobile manufacturer Volkswagen since 1973. It has been marketed variously as the Dasher, Santana, Quantum, Magotan, Corsar and Carat, with varying body styles such as saloon, estate, and hatchback.
A crossover, crossover SUV, or crossover utility vehicle (CUV) is a type of automobile with an increased ride height that is built on unibody chassis construction shared with passenger cars, as opposed to traditional sport utility vehicles (SUV), which are built on a body-on-frame chassis construction similar to pickup trucks.
The BMW X5 is a mid-size luxury crossover SUV produced by BMW. The X5 made its debut in 1999 as the E53 model. It was BMW's first SUV. At launch, it featured all-wheel drive and was available with either a manual or automatic gearbox. The second generation was launched in 2006, and was known internally as the E70. The E70 featured the torque-split capable xDrive all-wheel drive system mated to an automatic gearbox. In 2009, the X5 M performance variant was released as a 2010 model.
Executive car is a British term for a large car which is equivalent to the European E-segment and American full-size classifications. Executive cars are larger than compact executive cars, and smaller than luxury saloons / full-size luxury sedans.
A compact executive car, also known as a compact luxury car, is a premium car larger than a premium compact and smaller than an executive car. Compact executive car is a UK term and a part of the D-segment in the European car classification.
The C-segment is the 3rd category of the European segments for passenger cars and is described as "medium cars". It is equivalent to the Euro NCAP "small family car" size class, and the compact car category in the United States.
The B-segment is the second smallest of the European segments for passenger cars, between the A-segment and C-segment, and commonly described as "small cars". The B-segment is the largest segment in Europe by volume, accounting for 20 percent of total car sales in 2020 according to JATO Dynamics.
The A-segment is the first category in the passenger car classification system defined by the European Commission. It is used for city cars, the smallest category of passenger cars defined.
The D-segment is the 4th category of the European segments for passenger cars, and is described as "large cars".
The F-segment is the 6th category and largest of the European segments for passenger cars, and always belongs to "luxury cars".
The BMW X1 is a compact crossover SUV produced by the German automaker BMW since 2009. The first-generation X1 was based on the E90 3 Series and offered rear-wheel drive layout as standard. At its introduction in 2009, it was positioned as the smallest SUV in BMW line-up, below the X3 prior to the launch of the smaller X2. The X1 essentially is aiming a wider range of customers due to its smaller size, increased efficiency, and a lower price tag due to the all-wheel drive layout (xDrive) being optional.
The Volkswagen Group MQB platform is the company's strategy for shared modular design construction of its transverse, front-engine, front-wheel-drive layout automobiles. It was first introduced in the Volkswagen Golf Mk7 in late 2012. Volkswagen spent roughly $8bn developing this new platform and the cars employing it. The platform underpins a wide range of cars from the supermini class to the mid size SUV class. MQB allows Volkswagen to assemble any of its cars based on this platform across all of its MQB ready factories. This allows the Volkswagen group flexibility to shift production as needed between its different factories. Beginning in 2012, Volkswagen Group marketed the strategy under the code name MQB, which stands for Modularer Querbaukasten, translating from German to "Modular Transversal Toolkit" or "Modular Transverse Matrix". MQB is one strategy within VW's overall MB program which also includes the similar MLB strategy for vehicles with longitudinal engine orientation.
BMW India is the Indian subsidiary of German car manufacturer BMW. It started operations in January 2007 with a wide range of its activities, including a manufacturing plant in Chennai, a parts warehouse in Mumbai, a training centre in Gurgaon NCR, and development the of a dealer organisation across major metropolitan centres of the country.
S-segment cars are a European car segment class for sports coupés. The equivalent Euro NCAP class is called "roadster sport".
The Porsche Taycan is a battery electric luxury sports sedan and shooting brake car produced by German automobile manufacturer Porsche. The concept version of the Taycan named the Porsche Mission E, debuted at the 2015 Frankfurt Motor Show. Four years later, the production Taycan was revealed at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show. As Porsche's first series production electric car, it is sold in several variants at different performance levels, and may spawn further derivatives in future models. It is built on the J1 electric car platform shared with the similarly shaped Audi e-tron GT.
Subcompact crossover SUV is an automobile segment used to describe the smallest segment of crossover SUV, a type of sport utility vehicle, below the compact crossover SUV. Subcompact crossover SUVs are usually based on a platform of a subcompact passenger car, although some high-end subcompact crossover models are based on a compact car (C-segment). The segment started to gain traction during early to mid-2010s when the number of models and sales figures rapidly increased in major markets such as North America and Europe. In 2019, around 22 percent of SUV global sales were contributed by subcompact crossovers.
