Cheating? BMW's Way Of Counting Sales Raises Ethical Questions

Sales are sales. In the auto industry tracks sales at the time they are sold to the dealer, according to the accounting rules, then its a sale.

If an automaker wants to discount to drive sales, then that's their prerogative.

Cheating is when you lie to the government about emissions and put overt, defeat cheat devices that will alter emissions equipment so the car passes the test.

BMW may have some issues as a company, but ethics violations are not one of them.

mre30: Just to add to what you said, as long as the car counts only *once* as a sale (i.e., counts as a sale when dealer buys it as a demo, but not a second time when the demo car is sold to a customer), then BMW is not inflating sales. They are merely shifting the occasional sale to declare it a few months sooner than they normally would. It's the same single sale. It's just a question of timing, as to when they declare it.

Meh, clearly it's done industry-wide.

zero proof, laughable commment

The entire industry has sunken to new lows with repeated recalls and unethical practices...a reflection of the downward spiral of society and culture as a whole. Its all about the money, me and the here and now. Not what's right, not what's wrong. Who do you trust today? Who can you trust? The government? Banks? The Courts? Universities ? The church? The IRS ? The VA ? Hospitals ? etc etc

Lets see - Car "sales" are not something that requires a major Accounting firm - and notarized counts - to report. Car manufacturers report PROFIT and LOSS to their stockholders - the number of cars sold is not reliable. So - anyone who trusts the sales reported to the press - for more than being an ESTIMATE is simply not being logical. AND it really does not mean anything to be Number one in a particular category - since those categories themselves are also "trumped" up nonsense as well. I suppose that "close" to first does not sound as good as claiming first - but in reality - close counts in Horseshoes and HandGrenades - the Atomic Weapon doesn't need to be exactly on course.

Anyone who expects anything to do with car sales to reflect a high level of integrity is living a fantasy.

The numbers prove that everyone can be labeled a cheater. The numbers prove that registrations occur after final sales contracts are signed across the board. For any one brand to point the finger at another is sour grapes. For any industry analyst to point the fingers at any manufacturer is creating drama where it's not needed.

If you want a good example of unit sales shenanigans, look to Microsoft's counting of Windows 10 sales:
...Ship 100 OEM license to a PC manufacturer = 100 Windows 10 sales!
...OEM ships 100 PCs with Win7 installed = STILL 100 Win10 sales!
...Sell a new 1000 seat Win10 license to an enterprise, but they install Win7 = 1000 Win10 sales!
...Enterprise renews an existing 1000 seat Windows support license on existing Win7 PCs, with eligibility to upgrade to Win10 but they stay on Win7 = 1000 Win10 sales!
...1000 free Win10 downloads forced to people who don't want them, and who revert to Win7 = 1000 Win10 sales!

BTW, they do this with every release of Windows, just to let the public know how "wildly successful" it is. Even Vista and Windows 8 boasted stellar success using these methods.

Everyone does this to make copy for press releases and commercials.

Outside of Honda,few cared when Ford was shoveling a lot of that hideous 3rd gen Taurus into Hertz to boost sales.

Lexus wins....