Subscription to Unlock Features on Your Car

[engine]

It seems BMW is trialling a subscription service to allow users to unlock some features of their vehicle, such as heated seats.

Perhaps this service has been unsupported for many years on the vehicle's indicators! :)

[theverge.com...]

[thecoalman]

There is a cost benefit to the manufacture to just include everything and then limit it through software. If you have a line of cameras for example they may all be the same except the glass. Years ago a common way to convert VHS was through specific DV camcorder models that had passthrough. You could hook the VHS deck to the DV camcorders RCA jacks and either record to tape in DV format or send the DVl stream over firewire direct to computer..Sorry Engine, you can't do this. Cameras with this feature had it disabled in the UK as there was a hefty tax on recording devices and they consider it a recording device.

That said these subscriptions are out of hand. I wanted to get my Mother an automatic pill dispensing machine and the first one I came across is subscription based. Rough guess was many thousands of dollars for a few years. This for a machine that may be worth a few hundred bucks.

[engine]

Well, the money-making answer for the business is the subscription, however, the normal solution is a one-off charge when you buy the vehicle (whether it's controlled by software or not). The one-off way is how it's been done in the past, so the subscription model is pure extraction of money from the buyer, imho.
I doubt the basic model without the subscription will cost any less.
I'm not impressed.

[tangor]

Guess what I am not buying? :)

[Marshall]

My heated seats were included in my Suzuki. Ironically, though I live in the northeastern part of USA, I seldom use them.

[LifeinAsia]

If I wanted to pay monthly for a car, I'd have gotten a lease. It's *MY* car- why should I have to pay monthly for anything about it? (Other than specific 3rd party services like SiriusXM.)

[ronin]

Cars are, I conclude, like printers.

If you want to live without a car (or a printer), you can't repeatedly cut down your usage until one day you realise: "I haven't used my car / printer for the last three months - obviously I don't need one anymore."

This won't work because as long as you have a car / printer it will be easier to use it than to find workarounds.

You will only make the effort to find the workaround, if you no longer have the car / printer in the first place.

So the first step is to get rid of the car / printer and grit your teeth.

The second step is to find the workarounds.

[phranque]

i remember taking the mask off a vcr remote a couple of decades ago and discovering additional features (buttons) were available, but not "unlocked" for my model...

[lucy24]

If you want to live without a car (or a printer)

Happily, printers offer a third option: Wait a while, and the printer will die. No action required on your part.

I suppose this does eventually happen with cars too, but there the elapsed time tends to run in decades rather than years.

[phranque]

printers offer a third option: Wait a while, and ...

you will upgrade to a computer (or OS) that no longer supports the printer.

[not2easy]

Thing is that the car owner was already charged for heated seats or they could not be "turned on" for a fee. If heated seats were not part of the car price then any car could subscribe, but the extra cost of seats that can be heated is part of the cost of the car. That subscription fee does not cover the cost of additional energy used to actually use them either. Such a deal is not available to anyone I know. It takes someone with more dollars than sense to grab a subscription like that. ;)

[engine]

Cars are, I conclude, like printers.

Not quite, imho, because a printer is not essential, unlike a car in some remote areas. There is no need for a subscription to turn on the features of a printer.

Thing is that the car owner was already charged for heated seats or they could not be "turned on" for a fee.

As i said earlier, it's purely a money-making exercise for the carmakers.

It takes someone with more dollars than sense to grab a subscription like that. ;)

Unfortunately, some people will pay, and the carmakers will not allow push-backs for those that won't pay.

Perhaps some carmakers that don't do this will benefit.

[thecoalman]

Thing is that the car owner was already charged for heated seats or they could not be "turned on" for a fee.

Depends on how you want to look at it, what it cost the manufacturer and if any savings were passed onto you. If you had 100 cars with 50/50 mix of people that were going to subscribe to the heated seats it may be cheaper for those not subscribing just to manufacture one seat. It's entirely possible it cost you less if you didn't subscribe to it.

[engine]

[It's entirely possible it cost you less if you didn't subscribe to it.]
Agreed, but it doesn't cost less: They are still charging that other percentage for the cost of the seat.

[lucy24]

I think we have to stipulate that a heatable seat costs more to manufacture than a non-heatable seat. And someone is paying for it, whether that’s drivers in Arizona paying for something they will never personally use, or drivers in Vermont paying for something the said Arizona driver will never use.

Now, there are absolutely situations where it is appropriate to distribute costs widely rather than keeping it to point-of-use--I am perfectly OK with paying to fix the pothole in front of your house--but this really isn't one of those situations.

[thecoalman]

I think we have to stipulate that a heatable seat costs more to manufacture than a non-heatable seat

Usually but it can also be cheaper to manufacture one seat. e.g the cost to make 50K non heated seats might be $500 each and $600 for 50K heated seats. The cost for 100K heated seats might be $540, overall there is a savings. An even better example is if you have high demand for heated seats, it might be $600 to make 10K non heated seats and $590 to make 90K heated seats.