
I open up my chest with some renderings I do for my regular client. He made a good deal with BMW (car manufacturer) to sell the carports as an accessory so I get a little bit of the pie and can do nice renderings with a better budget.
Technically I use HDR images sometimes but always Pathtracing. Rendertime are around 8-15 minutes. Mostly 3000 samples are good to go. For the dark ones I let it cook a bit longer.
I use Photoshop and After Effects for post.