If you use apple Carplay maps and select the "english" voice you can get your favourite dialect. BTW Any English place or street names are pronounced as if one was in England?
I have always been disappointed that I can't select a British accent for the built-in NAV. Not a big enough problem for me to set up CarPlay because I can still find my way to Trader Joe's without help. Maybe when I get older...
Same here — disappointed and genuinely surprised, given how obviously desirable that capability would be in this car and how supremely cheap and easy it would be for BMW to make it happen. Good to know it’s available through CarPlay, though!
How come the voice doesn't say multi-storey carpark? Parking garage sounds so dirty with a British accent.
Do UK MINIs have British accents? And Australia having an Australian one, etc.? English-speaking only, I'm assuming German and other countries would have native language.
I’m in USA 40 years and I come here as 30 years old . Work so hard supporting 2 kids putting them through high education's and don’t have time for any school to learn English but my American friend is telling me I still text in Polish accent .Who cares English with an accent UK AU or USA which USA English is the most easy and simple pronunciation for anyone. Thank you and I don’t care what accent I hear in a car .
I liked the fact our Land Rover has a British accent for the GPS. That said, I’m originally from the UK and when I was there I set the GPS in my cars to use a US accent. So I guess we just want whatever is different…
I'm even older than @Rexsio and grew up loving British sports cars. In the 60s my father sold his 1961 Buick convertible and bought a Sunbeam Alpine sports car. Later, he bought a Triumph TR-4. My brother had an MG-B and the first car I bought was a 1959 Austin-Healey 100-6. In the late 70s I had a 1968 Morris Mini Moke. British cars are special to me. Now, possibly thanks to Brexit, the era of British cars appears to be drawing to a close. Rolls Royce, McLaren, Lotus, Jaguar, Morgan--all of these manufacturers are now owned by non-British companies. MINI, the last line of cars mass-produced in Britain, has begun the move to China. I am very happy to own one of the last British-built MINI Coopers even though the company is owned--and the car was designed--by BMW. I appreciate that BMW designed their MINI to retain as much of the cache of the Alec Issigonis' miracle as possible. In the early days of the BMW MINI, the company enjoyed being quirky. Sadly, those days are over and the BMW bean-counters have pulled back on the reins. It is becoming more and more difficult to order a MINI the way you want it and soon the car will lose all its connections to Britain other than its name. It's good that poor Alec isn't still around (he'd be 116 years old) to see what's happening. In light of where the MINI brand is going, I shouldn't be surprised BMW didn't implement a quirky British detail in a car that will soon be replaced by a Chinese version. Even if it doesn't sound British, I'm still very happy to own one of the last British-built MINI Coopers. However, I will be upset if the 2024 MINI Cooper SE speaks with a British accent.
So, will the new Chinese MINI have a nav voice that sounds like Hop Sing? Sent from my iPhone using Inside EVs
@insightman It is sad. We are very good at inventing things and engineering in general but once we’ve sold the problem well enough we seem to lose interest and allow the accountants to take over who are risk averse and like to squeeze the last £ out of everything with very little in the way of reinvestment. Over time companies from other countries reproduce what we create and do it better than us through constant refinement and reinvestment. On the odd occasion when the engineers have enough power to keep moving things ahead and you have an enlightened management (think ARM) we instead sell out. Sigh… At least Mini so far he had a better date than MG whose cars are sold all over the world in stores with Union Jack flags everywhere and are even on the back of the cars as badges, but they’re just Chinese EVs… I’d love an Austin Healey…
