“Read my lips: no new subscription”
BMW spokesman, probably
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Completely fine if the customer does not check the option box up front, then decides they may want it later, or to try it out for a period of time before deciding if they want it permanently.
Also good for dealer inventory cars that may be missing a few features a customer wants, but can be upgraded during or post-sale.
Unless the equipment needed for heated seats becomes standard and without a cost increase to the vehicle, there is no consumer value in this. I would expect the cost of the car to go up, even if I opt not to subscribe for heated seats, or wheels, etc.
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I will wait for the sale during the summer.
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BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month - The Verge
“A monthly subscription to heat your BMW’s front seats costs roughly $18, with options to subscribe for a year ($180), three years ($300), or pay for “unlimited” access for $415.”
I don’t think this is as surprising as people make it - feels like we all knew this was coming for a couple years now.
Call me whatever but this kinda stuff is not really news unless it’s happening where you live.
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I get you, but its also an indicator of where things are going and what to expect. Still noteworthy.
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Test markets my friend. Test markets. Coming soon to a BMW near you.
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Agree that there were clear signs this was coming, but it’s really unnerving to see stuff that is safety related (Driving Assistant Plus and High Beam Assistant) be subscription based. Yuck. Will my blind-spot monitoring and rear cross traffic alert also become subscription based??? ::shudder::
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How long until someone hacks it? 
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Have you heard of Tesla? 
Already possible with coding.
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Heated front seats option in my 5 series cost $500- probably a little cheaper since I got the Premium package.
Subscription plan price is:
3 years for $300.
The unlimited use for only $415.
I was robbed.
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Wait until they make you watch 30 sec ad to start your car (or subsribe to BMW premium for $30 month)
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Right on - decoding the anti-dazzle removal on the headlights, for example, is a good example of the coding scene coming together to reenable market specific features (due to antiquated regulatory standards). Standardizing the parts line likely means having the extra hardware in all the vehicles is well worth it to them and maybe even cheaper at scale, especially on leases when they can upsell these features on the final sale.
That said, where I think this will get interesting is when these cars go in and they hook it up to ISTA and dump the FASTA data (which I suppose eventually is bound to happen OTA too). The OperationLog may expose those of us making coding mods (they literally VO add TDX03 when they suspect tuning mods, so this seems well in the realm of possibility), and RTR aside, enabling non-purchased features like heating/ventilation is bound to hit a gray area on MagMoss if we ever need future work on a related part (say, a blown seat motor).
Fun times. 
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This has been long in the making by multiple manufacturers like BMW, MB, and Audi discussed on this forum multiple times before. Personally, even though some may view it as a cash grab method from BMW, I think it’s a “comfortable” idea. Especially for people that live in warmer climates that get those 1 - 3 months of cold weather throughout the entire year and then can easily unsubscribe. Having heated front, rear, and steering wheel myself living in the NE I probably use it 3-4 months out of the year anyways.
When I asked the VW service station about hacking my VW (VW Vortex has a lot of info about this), the (surly) service person said that hacking can sometimes have unexpected side effects (throwing error codes and stuff) b/c 2 features that seem unrelated are connected by the coding somehow?
I don’t think any manufacturer cares right now about coding- because they aren’t losing money- significant money anyway.
If car companies do switch over to subscription fee model- you can bet they will put tighter safeguards on the code, or do OTA updates which check the revisions for changes. Basically they’ll make it more of a hassle to code/recode- and only those that really want to do it will. They’ll probably come up with a $500 or so “re-coding fee” if they find you’ve modified the code vs the stock code (easily done already) and they have to change it back.
Might as well charge for push to start too since they include physical keys with the car still
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Software update already does that.
You pay 60k pemium for a depreciating asset, and they come back to nickel and dime you on keeping your buns warm. Right…?..
The idea behind a subscription model is shared responsibility between a customer and a vendor. Netflix, the go-to example, is responsible for obtaining copyrights, maintaining servers. In exchange for a fee, I get access to a variety of content.
Having satellite access for OTA updates for an autopilot system or live traffic report is one thing.
But to use a static feature already there? Isn’t that why they backed off of Apple CarPlay subscription? (Because Apple was in charge of it, not BMW?)
Eh, the market will dictate the fate of this. But when this was brought up during their tea & biscuit time, did everyone go "Watkins, this is a brilliant idea!"
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