And they wonder why the prices for used cars are going through the roof.
Driving one’s BMW without heated seats is a return to barbarism.
They can kiss my cold a$$........................
I guess eventually they’ll charge for luggage - put a suitcase in the trunk, $30. Oh, you wanna open the window....? $10.
As mentioned in the article, the buyer is already paying for the hardware (you don't believe that BMW is putting in heated seats for free relying on monthly payments, do you?) and then paying a second time to actually use it. Nope, not going to do it.
(Heated Seats As A Service)
You will own nothing and be happy ...
So now cars will be subscription based? How much a month for the radiator? Air cleaner?
This is part of the road to “you will own nothing and you will be happy”.
Everything becomes a subscription service. The things which are available to you are simply available to you “this month” because you sent in a check “last month”. It can all come to a stop at any time. And, yes, your social credit score will be a factor.
When I’m driving, the last thing I would want as a practical matter, would be ‘Hot Crossed Buns’. That kind of warmth is going to make me too relaxed, bordering on becoming sleepy.
What next? a Jacuzzi Tub Driver’s Seat? No. Just wait till you get home.
The great thing from BMW’s point of view is that this $18/month fee can later be raised to whatever the market will bear.
Anyway, what’s the monthly fee for working windshield wipers? The article didn’t say.
Suckers born every minute...
I guess they think their customers are too stupid to realize they can buy a car seat heating pad for about $30. Maybe they are.
This is really stupid. You can’t charge for something that is readily available on a Hyundai Elantra included. People expect more from a luxury car, else why pay more? It would have been much smarter to start subscriptions to stuff that people can’t already easily get, and something that isn’t easily hackable.
When the Hell did cars become like Xbox games?
Ridiculous.
I’ll stick with my 80s and 90s euro cars. Who cares if they are not on par with EPA requirements.
You will rent the car you own. And like it. /s
Can you get just one seat heated for $9 a month?
I have never had need for heated seats or steering wheel even when working on the North Slope.
Gadgets have driven up the cost of cars and caused reliability to plummet. I’d like to be able to buy just a simple vehicle that runs and drives well. No bells and whistles beyond radio, heat and air. The rest of it is useless and unnecessary complication. Moving maps and GPS? Just dumb to me. I somehow managed to find my way to drilling locations all over the nation with just a map and directions.
Standardized production runs, and then turn on or off “options” that all were installed with in production.
Sounds sleazy to me.
If a BMW was made to order, modern manufacturing techniques (given what some industries assembly lines are already doing) would know which car was made for which new owner, and its parts, including optional parts, would be computer selected to arrive on the assemply line, only per car as needed.
Monthly subscription of car options is like the old AT&T gambit of “leasing” your indestructible phone that lasted decades.
Biden heats his own