Sorry, I don’t mean to dunk on Altima owners here, or the Altima itself. Nothing wrong with driving an Altima of any vintage. That said, Big Altima Energy has been a thing for a good long while now, and even if the model association isn’t truly deserved, the specific energy being attributed to it is certainly real, and predates the Altima itself. We have all encountered the type, as well encapsulated in the Reddit post below: “BAE means being as trashy as possible, as overly confident as possible, and as egotistical as possible while not having a reason to.”
Spacer
I think the additional detail in a reply to the post is apt:
An Altima driver doesn’t care that their front bumper is missing. That RAM that was tailgating them? Well, the Altima brake checked them and speed off to “teach them a lesson.” They’ll gladly weave in an out of traffic whilst scrolling on their phone […] If you are in the way they won’t mind collecting another dent. All that matters to them is getting to their destination ASAP, and as long as the car is still running, they’ll do it again.
Yep, that’s Big Altima Energy, alright. And I think the other cars called out for oozing BAE above are well picked, but they certainly aren’t the only ones, which brings us to today’s Ask:
What Not-Altimas Have The Biggest Altima Energy?
It’s easy to call out the various ten-plus-year-old sports/muscle/hot-hatchs favored by the yoofs as having BAE, but I think that’s a different kind of bravado. That said, I do get big BAE (yes, “big big Altima energy) from any well-clapped-out S197 Mustang still on its stock wheels, and the V6 models are probably going to be even more sketchy, driver-behaviour-wise, than the GTs. See also Chargers of the same vintage, but less frequently Camaros and Challengers. Don’t ask me why, that’s just the vibe I get.
The Bishop called out the Chevy Cruze, which I would not have thought of, but yeah, that tracks. It even looks sorta like a second-gen Altima if you squint hard, like really hard, and the Cruze’s grille is smashed up as seen here.
Let’s hear from you. What cars fill up your rearview mirror with Big Altima Energy (and existential dread, one assumes)?
Top graphic image: Nissan
The Kia K4 “Kill Four” will take the throne. Cheap, easily damaged, relatively quick, and already popular with low credit score buyers whose idea of maintenance is to beat the hell out of them until they break down. It’s only a matter of time before K4s weaving through traffic with dented fenders and broken lights are a common sight.
I find this hilarious! In Korea, Kia sedans (even before the emergence of K4) are referred as “science” due to their association with causing accidents due to reckless driving
Any midsized-fullsized sedan that ends up being a used car deal with low resale.
Midsized: Charger, Malibu, Sonata, Altima
Full sized: impala, Lucerne
Luxury: DTS, S430, S500
Volvo sedans are the exception. I’ve never seen one driven in an Altima-like way.
Has anyone mentioned clapped out Prius second gens? Those things in the right hands can be sheer terror spreaders. They carry around a ten feet surrounding danger zone halo. Watch out.
This tracks but don’t sleep on the 3rd gen either. There a reason why it costs more to insure my 3rd gen Prius than it does to insure my newer gx460
woah. that’s nuts.
Around here, I’d say it’s the Mitsubishi Mirage. Going and maintaining 90mph in something with all of 78 horsepower is serious commitment. Almost every one I see has some kind of body damage or missing hubcaps. That said, they seem a little more considerate than your average Altima driver. They seem to stick to the fast lane rather than weaving about, which I appreciate.
That said we just moved out to the country and as we all know, people in massive pickup trucks reign as Supreme Asshole out here.
To be honest, I’ve never noticed Altimas as being exceptional in terms of containing horrible drivers. The car that’s trying to drive 80 in the 50 mph traffic is just as likely to be a Corolla with plastic taped over a missing passenger window, a badly mangled fender, and a Playboy sticker on the bumper as it is an Altima. I think we just have a less selective population of dirtbags around here.
Apart from the Japanese coupes, it’s the big, lifted trucks of all makes that are full of people who are proud to live the brodozer stereotype. I watched one get into the right turn only lane to barrel straight through an intersection in order to pass up traffic and then turn left from the straight through lane at the very next intersection. (That was yesterday.) I’d say it’s about an every-other-day occurrence to have one filling up your rear view mirror on the freeway despite the traffic being too heavy to go faster and despite the fact that you’re passing the cars in the lane to your right.
The Chargers and Challengers are also a force for bad driving energy here, but they’re not as common as the trucks and the coupes.
Agree on the Chargers/Challengers and to some extent 300s. They’re all owned by a-holes going 145 in a 35mph school zone with straight pipes on the V6. Then they all gather at the parking lot of the business behind our house and host weekly rev offs/street racing.
In this foul year of our Lord 2026 a third hand Ford Fusion stands as the BAE Highlander. So much so my newly driving 16 year old daughter asked after a few months’ driving, “So what’s with all the beat up Fusions trying to kill me on a daily basis?!?”
This. Once all the local market Altimas have been destroyed the ex rental ex single parent now bhph $100 per week Fusions have taken their place
Maybe I’m misunderstandng the assignment, but it seems the criteria are:
-The Car Itself: BAE inheres in an unassuming vehicle. A shabby 17-year-old Quattroporte swerving across a three-lane expressway surprises no one.
-The Condition: Missing bumper? Stretch-wrapped window? Smashed-out Altezza taillight on one side and a red biohazard bag duct-taped over the other? Padlock & hasp on a door? Spray foam? Stickers touting regional pride or featuring skulls, marijuana, or aggressive animals? Treadless space saver spare? These are the signs. Not many Teslas rock this hard.
-The Behavior: Pulls out in front of you, drops speed to a crawl, and then goes full Radimak when you pass them? BAE. Swerving across lanes, weaving within them, tailgating, brake-checking, passing on the shoulder/median, surging and slowing in lockstep with the texts they’re sending? BAE. A Mustang that keeps trying to race someone because the driver doesn’t know that “F Sport” is mostly an appearance package? Not BAE.
I think Altimas corner this market. Their nearest competitors in my area are Impalas and Malibus, but those people are somewhat careful with their cars because they could barely afford them and that might be where they live… the behavior element’s not there.
My next pick was “any minivan pushing triple digits in the fast lane”, but while plentiful, these are often in good condition and fail to be unassuming. The shock of seeing a few thousand meat-filled pounds of suburban angst hurtling to tuba practice, then lacrosse, then STEM club is always a little unnerving.
Then I thought “the Fresh Broz”: the FR-S/BRZ/86 trio. One does see them doing sketchy stuff, but they’re overtly sporty and tend to be avidly maintained, if not well maintained. The bumper might be crushed, but it was lovingly reassembled with that zip tie suture technique and a few plucky stickers.
You can make a case for the Royal-itmas, Infiniti G and M cars that share a lineage, but those are less likely to satisfy the behavior or condition criteria.
So yeah. I think it mostly is an Altima thing. Maximas and Sentras belong too, if only because I can’t tell the difference from more than fifty feet away.
Well put, I’m gonna say BAE also includes DGAF where/how they park, so why Tesla made my list. Driving a Tesla or an Altima doesn’t make one an ambassador exempt from the rules but it seems on
brand for both sets of owners.
Recent Sentras (Smalltima)
Hyundai Sonatas from around ten years ago.
Infiniti G35/G37 from a while ago – you know which models I’m talking about.
Camry and Hyundai sedans here are the biggest Altima Energy perpetrators here.
They’re all basically gone now (when was the last time you saw one?), but the Pontiac Grand Ams of the late 80s and 90s were dishing mayhem before the Altima tried its first Marlboro
Mark my words, the Kia K5 is the new Altima.
Might expand this to just Kia sedans. Cheap, plentiful, unassuming.
Nissan Sentra. Still driving at Mach Jesus in the snow, still missing a headlight, still wanted for vehicular manslaughter in 13 states…just 7/8ths sized.
I had to look it up: https://www.carsized.com/en-us/cars/compare/nissan-sentra-2019-sedan-vs-nissan-altima-2011-sedan/
Late model Camry SEs have absorbed a lot of the BAE in Northern California.
Typically with an UBER sticker on the back
Source: Drive I-280 daily
TRD = Totally Random Driving
Every manufacturer that sells loans rather than cars. So anything Nissan, Kia Hyundai or Dodge.
Today’s Altima driver is the child of the driver with Calvin peeing on something in the back window 30 years ago. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Definitely 2011-2014 Hyundai Sonatas and Kia Optimas. That was when those two nameplates got seriously stylish and provided good value for the money. Poor long-term reliability and durability and negligent second and third and fourth owners puts them squarely in BAE territory.
Theres still a lot of Ford Tauri around here with red tape over broken taillights, glad bags taped over a broken windows and running on mini spares.
And what’s with Tesla? Nobody here can figure out how to park them. Don’t they have a feature where they can park themselves?
Are we talking bubble Tauri or (itsdefinitelynotaFiveHundred) Tauri? Because anything vulcan powered is too slow to reach menacing velocities on the commute to the BK lounge
Here’s my rundown:
Any over-sized pickup which has a) it’s trailer-towing mirrors extended out as far as possible when not towing anything, b) a Carolina Squat, c) tires which extend beyond the fenders, and/or d) truck-nuts.
Nissan Versa, Sentra and Rogue.
Infiniti G35
Kia Optima
Anything which is over 10 years old and has paper tags.
I think the rules go like this:
200-350hp.
FWD or maybe AWD if you’re fancy.
Has to have a V6 or turbo 4. No V8s, no fours under 200hp.
MUST be automatic. A clutch pedal will make you think about what you’re doing.
Must be cheap. This precludes 10-20 year old luxury cars, which are cheap until you hold the title. Exceptions to all qualifying Acuras, which remain reliable. (You can’t be a menace if your C230 is broke)
Must be unassuming enough to not attract cop attention, whilst simultaneously not being a grandpa car. This simultaneously eliminates Audis, as well as Buicks and Lexus ESs. Also every Cadillac, both pre and post CTS.
Must have 4 doors minimum. The more friends/Uber passengers the better.
A general apathy to society at large.
Optional extras include:
Tint on every window.
An Uber light on the dash.
Bumper stickers with crude sayings/implications. References to speeding highly encouraged.
Damage to bumpers, doors, and windows.
Grandma’s hand-me-down full size sedan with a GM 3800? Definitely agree with Pontiac. Esp G6.
<racks brain to think of anything not already mentioned in the article above>
Not to generalize/stereotype/etc… of course, but the main thing that comes to mind is gardeners’ work trucks. Not exactly BAE since the confidence factor might not be involved as much, but otherwise it’s the same impression: the clapped-out, dinged-up, rusting pickup truck full of garden gear in the back is always racing down the hill in the middle of the divided road (one lane in each direction, with no center divider or line) around blind turns, with the driver and his pal oblivious to the series of near-death experiences they’re causing other drivers to enjoy.
Maybe confidence is part of it? The confidence that if an accident occurs they’re not likely to stop and exchange info, and if they did, the insurance would be fake anyway (as has happened to me twice so far in 30 years in CA).
Hope this doesn’t come off as racist, or elitist, or whatever… it’s just a regular experience here in LA. One of the many factors trying to offset the lovely weather year-round.
Contractors of many stripes can be their own type of menace, it seems, but their jobs kinda stink. Still ticks me off when they weave through traffic with reckless abandon, but I kinda get it. And that’s not just an LA thing; the white van man/tradie is internationally infamous.
But that’s its own thing, I don’t lump that in with BAE.
speaking of LA, reminds me of the time when I saw a 1990 civic delsol with peeling clearcoat tailgating a Bugatti almost bumper to bumper while going approx 50 ish mph on I-10. that man had lionheart
A couple of thoughts:
I watched a The Drive video on snap oversteer recently, with an older Mustang as the comparison to an MR2. The thing that has stuck with me from the video was a line from the driving instructor that was something like, “The problem with Mustangs of certain generations is that they get cross shopped with Altimas.” Yeowch, but fits the question.
Lately where I live, it’s newer Tacomas. Not my jam as something that looks enjoyable to drive, but whooo boy, they must be just about the fastest, large scale production vehicle right now.
You must be in an outdoorsy state like myself. The late model Tacoma/4Runner with a spacer lift, off-brand mud terrains, ebay raptor grille and amber fogs, rooftop tent or other broverland tchochkes slapped on the exterior, driven with absolute abandon in all weather conditions, is an absolute plague!
Smiley for “broverland”. Brilliant portmanteau!
Agreed. I’m gleefully adopting the term “Broverlanders”. They abound here in NorCal. Seems like at least half of all newer Tacos and 4Runners are rolling on 35” or bigger tires, have $10k of pristine trail armor, an equal amount in tacticool accessories, and the obligatory sticker set: Punisher skull, blue/red/green line flag, AR family, and a thief’s catalog of logos for pawnable gear to be found inside.
Malibu drivers seem to have that BAE around here.
I think what you’re witnessing is BRE (Big Rental Energy).
I live in a GM factory town so the buy here pay here lots do not have enough Nissans
Ah, that’s changes everything.
I’m really upset about the Ram 1500 comments. I recently traded my 2015 in, and despite owning a vastly superior vehicle now, I still miss it…does that mean that I was one of them?
Anyhoo, in my little corner of the Mountain West:
*anything* with underlights
Any truck with Moto Metal wheels
Any 10+ year old diesel HD truck with a tune and a 4″ exhaust tip
Mid 2010s Imprezas/Outback Sports/Crosstreks with a boatload of snowboards or park boards on the roof headed up BCC to Brighton
RWD OG Toyota Trucks/1G Tacomas.
I’m from the same locale as you, and that Moto Metal wheels comment really hit the mark
I’m in a rural part of the PNW, but the BAE models that are not Altimas are one of three:
1) Ram 2500
2) Ford F250
3) Teslas
There are also plenty of Altimas still holding it down, but the trucks are big players too. The Rams are usually lifted and emissions-deleted, while the F250s are usually Platinum trims driving fast while hauling a $150k RV trailer (or the equivalent value in side-by-side ATVs).
When I was still in Colorado, it was JL Jeeps, BMW 3 series, and any RWD Infiniti.