BMW wants to charge a subscription fee to enable heated steering wheel

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/07/03/business/bmw-options-software-subscription-features/index.html

by gbaygon • 6 years ago

44 47 6 years ago

edition.cnn.com

cerberusss• 6 years ago

This could very well be the cheapest for the consumer. Considering BMW has the highest maintenance costs of all brands in the USA, having a subscription fee for certain features may very well be cheaper. That's assuming BMW doesn't charge for a broken feature.

https://twocents.lifehacker.com/the-car-brands-with-the-high...

LatteLazy• 6 years ago

That's assuming BMW doesn't charge for a broken feature.

That's a big assumption to make.

Lammy• 6 years ago

Does that mean they would cover all parts/labor expenses to replace a broken steering wheel heater?

tasssko• 6 years ago

I paid for Audi connect - total waste of money. Mercedes me connect - total waste of money. Mercedes recently changed to a subscription model but I honestly would not pay for nice to have features. Must have features? maybe.

dharmab• 6 years ago

That's assuming BMW doesn't charge for a broken feature.

I see you haven't owned a new BMW. The Bluetooth on my Motorrad doesn't work with the most popular brand of Bluetooth helmet systems, and there's a running joke that RDC stands for Rarely Displays Correct.

m4632• 6 years ago

(bmw owners won't have to pay for turn signals they don't use)

Actually, I think it might be good if the features suck.

Sort of like restaurants going out of business if they didn't make tasty food. (of course, restaurants have healthy competition, and ... when we used to go to restaurants)

yostrovs2• 6 years ago

Hyundai charges a subscription fee for remote start built into their cars. First three years are free, paid subscription thereafter. You have to use their app to remote start. There's no button on the key fob.

jackson1442• 6 years ago

I know my Kia fob doesn't have a remote start _button_ on it, but if I press lock then trunk, it activates remote start. Perhaps that's an option on Hyundai fobs? After all, Kia is owned by Hyundai.

yostrovs2• 6 years ago

Just tried but it didn't work. Thanks for the suggestion though.

cromka• 6 years ago

I guess it's because cover the cost of the data plan, so after the first 3 years you have to start paying for it yourself. Tough but fair, imho.

gentleman112• 6 years ago

We should be allowed to own our things again. Software locks that you are not allowed to bypass proves that most of the important items in our lives are not ours. The future might be a world where only multi billion dollar corporations own property

magicnubs2• 6 years ago

This is interesting. It seems like everything is going subscription-based. It sort if makes sense in that software can be improved upon after sale and needs to be maintained, but on the other hand a single but fix can be sent to an arbitrarily large number of units, so with this model only the largest companies will be able to compete in features and price.

With so many purchases to consider, and less and less time during which to do it, I wonder when we'll get to the point that there are companies that sell an entire "lifestyle". You make $30k/year? Here's our bronze subscription option. For $20,000/year we'll put you up in a spartanly furnished apartment and with a servicable car and you'll get your staple foods and toiletries delivered every other week. Whatever you have leftover after taxes is yours for saving or spending. Make $150k? The gold package costs $90k/year and includes a luxury apartment downtown, a Tesla and fresh vegetables shipped twice a week!

magicnubs2• 6 years ago

Oh and also from the article:

In some markets, BMW owners may also be able to pay for "authentic" BMW engine sounds that will come through the car stereo. In many BMW cars today, the engine sound is augmented inside the cabin with pre-recorded sounds from the stereo. These are tuned to match the engine speed and performance so they sound like actual sounds coming directly from the engine. This is done so that the cabin can be quiet during normal driving but occupants can still experience engine sound when it's wanted, BMW executives have said.

I'm not going to go as far as to say we've stopped building useful things, but we really could be a post-scarcity society if we had our priorities right.

ajhurliman2• 6 years ago

Maybe, but social pecking order will always be a scarce resource, so I think we're going to be on this track for a long time.

klyrs• 6 years ago

It might feel post-scarcity if you can afford a BMW.

dTal• 6 years ago

That is such a terrifying and plausible dystopia. Holiday packages, but applied to your whole life. A whole new avenue for monopoly and corporate power consolidation!

intopieces• 6 years ago

For $20,000/year we'll put you up in a spartanly furnished apartment and with a servicable car and you'll get your staple foods and toiletries delivered every other week.

This would be amazing, and I would subscribe. It sounds like Basic Income.

mdocherty• 6 years ago

This is how retirement communities work

smabie2• 6 years ago

That's a really great idea, actually. The majority of people worry about money not because they literally can't survive, but because there are too many, complex, choices to make about money. Maybe I want a nice car but a shitty apartment, I could get the gold transport package and the bronze apartment package, or whatever.

ac29• 6 years ago

It sort if makes sense in that software can be improved upon after sale and needs to be maintained

Sure, but its not like a heated steering wheel should need software maintenance. It shouldn't even need software.

adarioble• 6 years ago

While I dislike “subscription everywhere” model, I suspect this could work miracles for second hand market, allowing consumers to add options to their purchase. I wouldn’t be surprised if these options are thrown in as “freebies” to the first owner and free for a couple of years and then turn into subscription.

ajhurliman2• 6 years ago

It bothers me that they're intertwining a subscription model for something that shouldn't need a subscription (steering wheel heaters). If the car came with one, it should just be available.

Adding this layer of abstraction complicates things and puts an unnecessary burden on to the user to consider a complex pricing structure of what features they want for what duration of time.

Between healthcare, airlines, music, and now cars, it's becoming ridiculously complicated just to buy things. I don't like it when companies complicate their pricing models to eke out a few extra dollars from those consumers who haven't meticulously studied the pricing models to optimize their purchase; I have other things going on in my life.

popotamonga• 6 years ago

I stopped buying. Rent a nice bmw 300/mo taxes and full insurance included. Peace of mind.

sircastor• 6 years ago

This sort of reminds me of Tesla's higher capacity battery via software. The fact that the whole battery is there and it's just a software lock makes me kind of angry.

abeppu• 6 years ago

Is there a product review site that includes a "you actually own it" component? This should include aspects like:

- Can it be repaired by someone other than the manufacturer? - Does it risk becoming a brick if their service shuts down? - Does it require a continuing subscription? - Can the manufacturer disable it without your sign-off?

I would consult such a resource, but I also think that if an influential product review site (e.g. wirecutter) were to specifically and consistently identify these aspects when making recommendations to buyers, eventually it might sway producers?

tonyedgecombe• 6 years ago

So you have to pay extra to go round corners?

gentleman112• 6 years ago

You will have to sign the nda before they will tell you

soganess• 6 years ago

You're actually going to have to sign an NDA about not releasing the draconian, ahem, I mean brave, err... forward thinking... terms of my actual NDA. You see, I don't want you reusing those ideas without due compensation. It just wouldn't be fair.

rasz• 6 years ago

You sure do if those corners are on a race track: https://www.mylaps.com/transponders/

no transponder no racing for you

sneak3• 6 years ago

The inability to receive future (prepaid) self-driving software updates on a Tesla if I remove the GSM interface to prevent corporate tracking my driving movement 24/7 is the main reason I am likely never going to buy a new one.

This sort of rent-seeking is really terrible.

m4632• 6 years ago

Not that I don't think the trend is terrible, but isn't rent-seeking when you charge extra for something but make no discernible improvements?

sneak3• 6 years ago

The cars in TFA ship with the hardware to do things like lane assist and heated steering wheels. The functionality is already there. They are charging subscription fees to flip an enable bit in software.

Correspondingly, they remotely disable functionality in your vehicle if you stop paying them.

I'm not sure of a better example of rent seeking.

duskwuff• 6 years ago

Is there something I'm missing here, or are you really complaining that your car can't download updates after you disabled its network interface?

sneak3• 6 years ago

Any modification to the car’s surveillance systems means that the company will no longer service your vehicle.

If you prepay for an update, but modify the car to not track you, it is my understanding that, network or no, it will not receive any service (including updates) from Tesla.

alehul• 6 years ago

Having an optional subscription to enable the heated steering wheel or adaptive cruise control is bold (and probably a bad idea) because people want what they buy to be 'a good value.'

Tesla has made me believe that software 'eating' cars is the future because, by letting software take over capability from hardware, it allows for software updates to improve earlier models of cars, making them a better value long-term. The marginal cost of improving a car with a software update is essentially nil for the manufacturer.

With that low cost per unit to deploy a software update that improves the car, BMW choosing to hold it hostage and demanding a subscription fee is a bad look, even if it's efficient for them. Having the steering wheel already in the car with the necessary hardware (where the unit cost is for BMW) exposes it as being a feature cheap enough that they can throw the necessary hardware into every model.

Even if it made less economic sense, it would appear more valuable if you were able to go to a BMW dealership and have the steering wheel swapped out for one with heating enabled.

Yaggo• 6 years ago

Tesla Model 3 SR+ were originally sold without rear seat heating. Later it became possible to enable it for a fee, via the Tesla app. Few clicks and voilá, suddenly you have rear seat heating.

So every car already had the hardware, obviously because it would be more expensive for Tesla to produce two variants of seat elements.

mr_toad• 6 years ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_discrimination

HeyLaughingBoy• 6 years ago

This model has been around for a long time. I recall a job back in 1997 where I had to add code to permit a service person to enable a feature on a machine. All the machines shipped with the same hardware for the reason you said: manufacturing costs would be too high to make some with and some without.

I had never heard of this before so I asked if it wouldn't piss customers off to see that they were just paying for some guy to come in and enter a code and not to actually install anything physical. The answer was "it never has before." We'd been doing it for years by that point.

dangus• 6 years ago

This will get a lot of well-deserved criticism.

However, I think there’s potential in this idea to overall benefit the consumer.

The cost of options sometimes includes the fact that the carmaker has to provide a separate SKU. Does a heated seat cost a lot in raw materials? No, not at all, but a carmaker might have to lose time on the assembly line changing the line to build a different variant. Or the dealer might lose a sale if they don’t have the customer’s desired trim level in stock

Not only that, differentiating optional features are revolving more and more around software (e.g. autopilot).

As long as this doesn’t become confusing or excessively expensive for the customer, it could actually be a win-win.

Presumably, the base model could be cheaper, and the consumer could upgrade the car later. Or, the consumer could pay for subscription features when their job situation is good and cut them out down to basic transportation if it’s not so good.

The consumer would also not be stuck with options that they decide later that they don’t use often. Maybe they wouldn’t be stuck with entire options packages that they have to go with just to get the one thing they want.

The devil is always in the details, so it could go either way, it just depends how fair the pricing ends up being.

If you don’t think people will buy it, might I interest you in purchasing my new TV show for only $3 an episode? You’ll own it forever!

johnklos• 6 years ago

This is the dumbest shit ever. Of course it'll work for them because so many of their cars are leased, so people won't want to bypass computer control with a relay or custom firmware.

But the idea of installing hardware, then charging a recurring fee to use it is just horrible. It's a sign of how capitalism is simply broken. It was one thing when IBM did it on their computers when there were a few hundred or perhaps a few thousand of them on the planet, but now we're intentionally using resources to make things that may never get used, with no consideration for the environmental impact?

So who's going to be running the "feature activation" servers for older models when they're no longer "supported" by BMW? Do we really think BMW will simply unlock the features on cars about to go out of "support", or do we think they'll lock everything off regardless of what people have paid?

hotwire• 6 years ago

In Ubik by Philip K Dick, the door of his apartment won't open unless he pays it five cents each time. Life imitates art.

“The door refused to open. It said, “Five cents, please.” He searched his pockets. No more coins; nothing. “I’ll pay you tomorrow,” he told the door. Again he tried the knob. Again it remained locked tight. “What I pay you,” he informed it, “is in the nature of a gratuity; I don’t have to pay you.” “I think otherwise,” the door said. “Look in the purchase contract you signed when you bought this conapt.” In his desk drawer he found the contract; since signing it he had found it necessary to refer to the document many times. Sure enough; payment to his door for opening and shutting constituted a mandatory fee. Not a tip. “You discover I’m right,” the door said. It sounded smug. From the drawer beside the sink Joe Chip got a stainless steel knife; with it he began systematically to unscrew the bolt assembly of his apt’s money-gulping door. “I’ll sue you,” the door said as the first screw fell out. Joe Chip said, “I’ve never been sued by a door. But I guess I can live through it.”

smabie2• 6 years ago

I think this is a great idea but for whatever reason, hardware that is disabled until I pay pisses me off. I understand the logic behind it and it's probably a win for both the company and the consumers. But it's still distasteful to me. Anyone else feel that way?

windex• 6 years ago

It's not just you. It's not a win for the customer although people might tell you it is. Feels like dystopian sci-fi where people have to pay for everything and own nothing.

dang• 6 years ago

Recent and related:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23728200

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23718101

BMW wants to charge a subscription fee to enable heated steering wheel

Related Stories