Subscription service for heated seats, auto high beam and more

Forums › Transport (cars, bikes and boats) › Subscription service for heated seats, auto high beam and more

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#2941751 14-Jul-2022 10:18

If you pay extra for downloadable content, does it belong to car or the person who bought it? Ie when you sell does it go with car or stay with you and the new owner has to pay again..

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Klathman

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#2941758 14-Jul-2022 10:34

I think my biggest problem is the wastefulness of the process. If I want a car without heated seats and yet they install them anyway just in case I or a future owner wants to use it seems like a waste of resources.

If it's a software change then fair enough I guess. It's not like there is an extra resource cost to not activate software but when you have to manufacture unwanted components that's just wrong.

Handsomedan

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#2941759 14-Jul-2022 10:42

afe66: If you pay extra for downloadable content, does it belong to car or the person who bought it? Ie when you sell does it go with car or stay with you and the new owner has to pay again..

It would all be in the EULA. You'd need to scoll through the massive T&C screen to see if it's in there (but you might have to subscribe to that section of the agreement)

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jonathan18

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#2941761 14-Jul-2022 10:48

Handsomedan:

afe66: If you pay extra for downloadable content, does it belong to car or the person who bought it? Ie when you sell does it go with car or stay with you and the new owner has to pay again..

It would all be in the EULA. You'd need to scoll through the massive T&C screen to see if it's in there (but you might have to subscribe to that section of the agreement)

I’m not sure about BMW, but in regards to Teslas, I understand something like FSD is bought for the car, so goes with the car when sold. (Watched a YT video from a US Tesla nut who was complaining about this.) This is where paying for the same service as a sub could be advantageous - I’d certainly give advanced autopilot a go at some stage if this was the case.

jarledb

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#2941772 14-Jul-2022 11:13

michaelmurfy: The Tesla has software unlocks like enhanced autopilot

[...]

Yes enhanced autopilot for example is expensive at $5700 but I did buy this upgrade despite it only being a software update - it does add some “nice to have” features. You still get basic autopilot for free with newer cars that have hardware support (some older cars required an upgrade and thus autopilot was at a cost).

What I think is cheeky with Tesla is that "Full self driving" ($11,000) and I think Enhanced Autopilot as well is services you buy and can use while you own the car, but that does not transfer if you sell the car. So the new owner would have to pay for "Full Self Driving" or Enhanced Autopilot again.

Edit: Seems like this could be different country by country. Will check this further...

Edit 2: I have seen discussions about FSD not following the car, but seems like it should follow the car, I assume the same is true for Enhanced Autopilot, so what I wrote is wrong

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MikeAqua

7769 posts

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#2941773 14-Jul-2022 11:15

No thanks. No subscription services built into either of my cars, thankfully (except mobile data). No plans to upgrade for 5 to 10 years. So I can kick that can down the road.

Mike

Benoire

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#2941803 14-Jul-2022 12:30

The question I have on this, and I haven't been able to find the data or pages, is that does this replace the optional extras at time of purchase? Before you would choose the car, add colours, tyres, extras such as air play prep, heated seats etc. and off you would go. If BMW and others are now offering an unlock fee, does this mean that the extras are built as standard in to the car no matter the spec and essentially you now can choose to unlock now or at any time in the future? If so this helps the manufactere as essentially creating a single SKU that they can pump out, e.g. a single 3 series front seat rather than one with heating, one with comfort seat control etc. and this could also help leasing where by leasing builds these costs in as upfront payments rather than over the lease...

robjg63

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#2941804 14-Jul-2022 12:46

This is plainly ridiculous - I hope it costs them sales.

It is one thing to have to pay for real software features (Collision avoidance, Self drive, GPS etc). These things are totally software driven and require money and investment to keep them up to date.

A switch to turn on the seat heater?

Blatant gouging!

So when you buy the car, you only buy certain parts of the hardware you take away from the car lot? Someone will have a go at them in the US courts for sure.

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frankv

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#2941807 14-Jul-2022 13:09

Senecio:

If you buy a new car and option it up it will cost you a fortune. It’s not uncommon for some European cars to have a base price of ~$80k but an options list of another $50k on top of base. When you sell that car or trade it in you never get any of that money back. You’ve just paid for the next owner to enjoy those luxuries you paid for. This way you can buy the base car, subscribe to only those services you want and when you move the car on you’ve only paid for those services while you were using them.

Whilst I also dislike the death-by-a-thousand-tiny-cuts subscription model, the alternative is that you pay for it in the up-front price. The car manufacturer will get their money one way or the other. So I'm paying for Android Auto in my car, whether I use it or not. Whatever it costs to provide that is included in the price. I think I would have preferred a $1/month fee, which I wouldn't have paid. But I doubt it would have reduced the purchase price by much.

But that's OK for something where there's no extra hardware, or the additional hardware is negligible. But heated seats means extra wiring, and the heating elements built into the seats. So there's a non-zero cost to provide the unwanted features. But maybe it makes it a bit cheaper to build a car if you don't have to deal with all the options? "Oh, this car being assembled has the heated seats, so I have to install wiring loom variant 134, and the person further down the line has to install panel variant 34 (with the heated seats switch), and another person has to install the actual heated seats". So each option introduces 3 different components that have to be kept in inventory, and spare parts.

gzt

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#2941808 14-Jul-2022 13:11

Klathman: I think my biggest problem is the wastefulness of the process. If I want a car without heated seats and yet they install them anyway just in case I or a future owner wants to use it seems like a waste of resources.

You will find this occurs already to some extent. For example it is common to find wiring looms in place for features not installed like heated mirrors and heated seats. The cost of a heating element on a mirror is tiny. Having all these features available on demand in all cars increases supply chain efficiency in some cases and assembly efficiency. In some cases this decreases waste in the process.

Benoire

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#2941818 14-Jul-2022 13:30

gzt:
You will find this occurs already to some extent. For example it is common to find wiring looms in place for features not installed like heated mirrors and heated seats. The cost of a heating element on a mirror is tiny. Having all these features available on demand in all cars increases supply chain efficiency in some cases and assembly efficiency. In some cases this decreases waste in the process.

This is accurate. My Audi S4 has effectively the wiring across the car to support the extras we didn't add. We could get them later, plug most of them in and then code the car to accept them.

There are some things that you won't be able to do via this method, e.g. sunroofs and I also wonder about the BMW suspension settings unless they've switched the suspension setup to fully adjustable for all cars now...

From a consumer perspective though if they are able to offer all of these features built in (assuming you are not paying extra for them) then the enabling them at the base price must be economical already as the SKU savings must be substantial to take this approach and they could be charging this simply because they can, not because they must as I can't imagine they would rely on a %age of users paying the fee as that has an unknown economic return.

Rikkitic

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#2941840 14-Jul-2022 14:24

This is just a step on the way to subscription services for organ transplants and other medical services. After five years your kidney stops working if you don't renew. Think I'm kidding? Why should this be any different? It is a terrible idea and a terrible principle to get established.

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Batman

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#2941842 14-Jul-2022 14:27

Senecio:
I’ll admit, I’m in minority here.

If you buy a new car and option it up it will cost you a fortune. It’s not uncommon for some European cars to have a base price of ~$80k but an options list of another $50k on top of base. When you sell that car or trade it in you never get any of that money back. You’ve just paid for the next owner to enjoy those luxuries you paid for. This way you can buy the base car, subscribe to only those services you want and when you move the car on you’ve only paid for those services while you were using them.

You'd think so.

But these options cost money, you'd think they give it to you for free and charge 15 quid?

Bung

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#2941844 14-Jul-2022 14:35

How do you flaunt conspicuous consumption if all models look the same?

Scott3

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#2941848 14-Jul-2022 14:37

When I had a BMW i3, it was possible to code the car to things like

- Change from MPH to km/h
- Enable AM on the radio.
- In the USA, enable the entire fuel tank to be used (USA had some rule that the car needed to have more electric range than petrol range to get EV subsidies, so BMW Software limited how much of the fuel tank could actually be used, in order to make the car eligible.

If automakers go big on subscriptions, software unlock's etc, I am picking a substantial car hacking industry starting up.

Already exists to some extent, not to defeat subscription models, but to just do things that automakers didn't allow for in user menu's. My nissan leaf has had both the dash display and entertainment unit converted from Japanese into English, which added a lot of value for me.

Risk's becoming like games consoles of a decade ago, and arms race between hackers & console makers, with the hackers normally winning within hours, but the anti-hack measures making the console harder to repair etc.

Seat heater are a funny thing to include. No need to get into any software changes, could just install an alternate switch and power supply to get them working.

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