BMW is planning on using the Tesla model where you pay a little extra each month if you want your heated seats or your cruise control, or you auto-dimming high beams or "the good suspension" to keep working... Really, you are just renting those things, they are not considered part of the car. Supposed to start with the 2021 iNext, the upcoming BMW long range full electric SUV. Heated seats as a service? BMW wants to sell car features on demand | Ars Technica
Yay /s I love Tesla for pushing for EVs, I don't like them to sprouting the idea of subscription-based features. Services? sure. Features? No. The buyer gets screwed over at the resale end. Of course most BMW "buyers" are leasees so it really doesn't matter to them and the manufacturer wins because they can continue to sell the "base" model with everything "deleted" and resell it on the used car market. And at some point, technology moves on and then what happens to those cars? They get permanent fixed into whatever setting they were last changed to? Because the technology that gives the car the ability to update OTA is now obsolete.
What Tesla features require a subscription fee? Tuners can already make changes to the car's operating parameters, and have them be invisible to dealer inspection. I see this move by BMW sprouting a new service market.
That is weird as a Model 3 owner, I've never had a monthly charge. I was offered an cell based, monthly service, ~$10/mo/, but I declined as my iPhone can easily be a portable, WiFi, hotspot. Bob Wilson
This is a fee like free super charging ... or free for awhile. Incentives given / taken away w/in a certain time frame bring some buyers to the table. Tesla starts charging $10 a month for its 'premium connectivity' features - Electrek as a side note ~ the car's web browser, as a premium feature is borderline humerus. Most 5 year old phone browsers are way more robust / responsive than the Tesla on board version. Maybe MCU 3 is better than the 2 earlier ones - but that is not something owners are clamoring to write about. .
Web connectivity isn't an equipment based car feature, it is a service. It has costs to the provider external to the car; network access, server maintenance, etc. BMW is making things like heated seats, active cruise control, and adaptive suspension subscription based.
Thanks for the warning. My out of warranty BMW i3-REx will never darken the BMW service department again. Bob Wilson
I was thinking FSD that they were going to move to a subscription-based format (hence "sprout the idea of"). They do have subscriptions right now for Premium Connectivity but that's along the same lines as Toyota charging for Service Connect or Remote Connect or WiFi Connect services.
That could be acceptable as the improvement of the system comes from data incoming from cars on the road. That network carries the same expense for the company as offering a connective service. Other companies will also have the expense of mapping roads, and maintaining the maps.
Trollbait, BWilson, I was wrong. I was referring to this: Tesla Yanks Features After Sale | PriusChat It was a one-time fee, not a recurring fee. I don't seem to be able to correct the original post. Mea Culpa.
Thought that was the case. Tesla removes features from cars they get back; trade ins, returns, etc.; before reselling them as used. In the above case, a mistake was made, and features were removed after the car left their possession. They did eventually turn the removed features back on.
many of us here have installed seat heaters on our earlier Prius that didn't have them. Are BMW owners so simple-minded that this is beyond them? .
The article said seat heaters, but it may actually be one of those package deals where the steering wheel, seats, and wing mirrors are all heated. Any of us could do a heated seat, but things like duplicating the active suspension may be a little harder...
There is a problem in that it may be a felony to hack their software, even if you (you think) own the car: “...Two of Electronic Frontier Foundations requests this year are on behalf of people who need to access the software in cars so they can do basic things like repair, modify, and test the security of their vehicles,” says Kit Walsh of the EFF. “Because Section 1201 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act prohibits unlocking ‘access controls’—also known as digital rights management (DRM)—on the software, car companies can threaten anyone who needs to get around those restrictions, no matter how legitimate the reason.” Wth! It Should Not Be Illegal to Hack Your Own Car's Computer | WIRED How much do you trust BMW to let you go around their paywalls?
Not at all as it has to do with my impression of their skills. I think BMW lobotomize their previous engineering and software teams. They can't make changes much less detect owners doing it by themselves. Bob Wilson
