BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions Because People Hated Them

They’re recouping the costs of hiring an in house orthodontist to fix all them buck tooth grills they made.

My running theory for Audi is they started uniquely animating their indicators so people would use them. Not because they should, but because it made them feel special. Thus reducing the stereotype before getting to BMW levels.

I'm driving BMW and use turning signals 🙈

Exactly, unless it needs the company to have server space or an internet connection then it's not even close to something that should have a subscription.

I agree. Some subset of ADAS are using things like LIDAR mapping data that do incur ongoing cost. For example, Ford relies on road having recent LIDAR data to let you take your hands off. So they have a subscription, and if you don't pay... Well it's almost the same except your hands have to stay on. It is vaguely less competent, but still pretty much follows the lines/traffic on its own.

Of course their pricing is way more than I think will work out, but I can at least understand why a subscription fee is associated.

The argument I could maybe see is that their seemingly fine ADAS system is at higher risk of being hit with a mandatory recall down the road. Those generally ignore all warranty limitations (e.g suddenly having to replace airbags in 15 year old cars...), but might spare them the expense for those who lack the features, or at least the revenue from the users helps fund the possibility of converting a related recall.

More like "if this car is otherwise the best option, I'll go for it, but your policies are actively having me court your compeititors and damaging brand loyalty."

radio does suck, but its also a vital information system during emergencies. what liabilities does a manufacturer open themselves up to by refusing access to a potentially lifesaving device?

Also you have Chinese BYD making huge inroads in various markets now. They're going to massively drop the price floor for features that are seen as luxury right now.

Peak car was 1990-1994, largely mechanical, little electronics and reliable as hell. My Merc from that time is built like a tank and everything is screwed together, not glued.

I think most importantly it was that they often didn’t have an infotainment with everything integrated in it and that regular cars still were mostly using double din head units which are perfect to swap out. It’s a standard that we should have kept but didn’t. ☹️

Ironically the BMWs here in Germany tend to use their signals in my experience

must be a pretty busy guy if he has to install them in all those cars

Funny thing is, they do help you. Sure, there's assholes who see a signal as a sign that they need to speed up to prevent a lane change, but there are plenty of people who will see the signal and let you in, at least in my area. My own rule of thumb is if I don't have to slam on my brakes to let you in, I'll slow down for you, especially if you're a semi.

Unless I know you pulled into an onramp lane just to skip ahead of the people not doing that bullshit when it's stop and go level traffic. But it's usually hard or impossible to tell who is an asshole and who is just using the onramp because they just got on the highway and I try to leave space for people just getting on.

Ew. Sounds gross, so it probably isn't far off.

Under capitalism it's always been the case of"what is this worth to you". The difference is in the past if a company overcharges then a competitor could come along and undercut them (so long as the gap was big enough that it made financial sense).

Unfortunately, monopolies, regulatory/government capture, vertical integration, marketing and cartels have gotten so far out of control that consumers are left with little choice but to suck it up. And most governments in the Anglosphere don't really care.

Yeah we’re reaching the point where it becomes clear that the market can’t bear everyone charging the most the market can bear.

People will pay extra for a luxury. People won’t pay the most they’re willing to pay on a luxury on every luxury they’ve gotten accustomed to at a reasonable price.

Your 07 mustang is ICE so in the next 3 decades will lose all value.

They arent going to fix the heated seats if a coil burns out. They aren’t going to fix a spun bearing you incur while using the extra performance you paid for. They aren’t going to repair a blown transformer in the radio. So you are literally paying for nothing.

This is what a warranty is for.

Now kiss

!usernamechecksout@lemmy.zip

ain't that a bargain ?

?

I was not taking issue with leases, just commenting on the notion of a cost over and above a lease/car payment.

It's why I am considering availability of public transportation when house-hunting nowadays. When my car breaks down, I hope to be able to NOT buy a new one. Ideally, for the rare occasion that I need one in the future, I could rent one.

I think they need the smart features to get a 5 star safety rating.

Yes, and they will tell "Look! Consumer DEMANDED those smartcars! We are only replying to a demand!"

Subaru did this with remote start. Instead of just selling you the damn option you have to pay a subscription. Fuck that I'll just walk outside and start the car..

Do you mean the old mechnical trip computer, or are you refering to trip with software-only features?

People were objecting to the subscription, but they should have been objective to the locked features.

Why though, if it's cheaper? Do you rather pay for features you don't use or pay to remove features?

The problem is all the other people voting the wrong way with their bigger wallets.

Mostly, but never discount the power of well-wielded shame

Yeah I don't think the headline means they hated the heated seats, but that they hated the subscription.

The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

Terry Pratchett said it best!

“The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money,” wrote Pratchett. “Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of okay for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles. But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.”

BMW parts are bonkers expensive. I have a Cooper and whenever something goes wrong the repair is stilly expensive. Mini may be BMW's cheaper brand when you drive off the lot. But ownership costs outside of warrantee are BMW through and through.

Because - assuming you don't reach your data cap every month - you might be sharing your leftover data with somebody else who's getting it "for free" as far as They (the carrier/provider) are concerned. They can't control who/what devices connect to your hotspot, so They assume every tethered connection is siphoning data to a non-customer entity, potentially disincentivising "the leech" from subscribing to their own data plan.

If They can steer "the leech" towards becoming a paying customer, then they can harvest (more) data & device activity from both users AND they have more active data plans (paying account holders) to boast about to their real customers - the shareholders - than they would have otherwise.

It's pretty simple really, you just have to think like an executive who's fiduciarily beholden to lining the pockets of shareholders (as opposed to a business owner trying to provide a useful & mutually beneficial service to their customers). The latter do exist in the corporate world, but they are few and far between when you're a publicly traded S-corp like most (maybe all?) of the major providers. It's just the banality of societally-accepted evil at its finest (and yes; utter bullshit)

Yeah I thought this would go down like the netflix login clampdown - people online rally against it and say they'll cancel Netflix, but in reality their subscriber numbers are up massively

What surprises me is how often it works given the very simple fact that regular people don't have effectively infinite money. Who is it that is just eating this subscription pile up and never reaching a limit? "Most people"? That just can't be it.

"He's losing blood!! Quickly, we need to get him to a hospital!!"
Car assistant: "Oh, boy. I smell an easy upsell."

It makes sense but why make it a subscription. Charge me a flat fee for an upgrade.

I'm just glad we didn't have to get the heat involved.

"but muh preorder!"

Yeah I hate it too

Hardly. I love BMW cars in terms of performance and other things. Never once thought ohh no I want heated seats, steering wheel or whatever. Just a nice car to drive. Yeh other cars are nice to drive but good luck finding rwd that's not a supercar.

Your statement would probably apply better to new Range Rovers though.

It's interesting that people are surprised at these seatwarmers when they've only been offering indicators as aftermarket upgrades for decades and yet no BMW owner chose to buy them.

They're no longer that compact.

the last compact minis were made decades ago and you can buy them without giving BMW a cent. "mini" is just marketing for giant tanks now

Is this thing even real?

I would suggest using an aux cable instead.

Sadly my tape player doesn't work anymore, not really sure why? I had planned in getting on of these also my car lacks on aux port.

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