The truth about BMW's subscription model for heated seats and other features

Imagine having to subscribe to activate features in your prestige German automobile. BMW thought it could be a great idea, but exactly how big of a deal is this and does it mark some ominous future of the car industry? Let's see...

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Let’s talk about Bavarian SubscriptionGate.

Righteous indignation erupted across the United States recently when it was suggested that Bavarian Motor Works might invade the ‘land of the free and the brave’ with a $30 a month subscription fee to activate the heated seats on the way home from In & Out Burger.

This is arse-heating in the manner of a Mafia-inspired protection racket.

But how much outrage are heated seats actually worth? More than I thought. The motoring media went bananas covering this non-story.

So much fake outrage was whipped up over this that Bavarian Money Wastage (BMW) USA saw fit to wake up and douse the flames of fury with an official statement.

Thank the alleged heavens that nobody’s actually going to ransom anyone’s existing heated BMW seats. What a relief. $30 a month, if you ever want to feel that warm leather on your buttocks, ever again.

Many of you have asked me about this pressing automotive issue. And, to you I would say, it’s here now, dude, even in Australia. The Australian Connected Drive BMW Store will today allow you to drop $450 on your fine German chariot to unlock wireless Apple CarPlay, and/or $259 for auto high beams, and/or $650 for adaptive M suspension.

Psst! Subscription to your BMW is already here, nauseatingly enough.

These are all one-off fees that permanently unlock the joy of, for example, not having to plug your iPhone in, ever again. Subject of course to your car being compatible with said wireless upgrade. 

But if you’d prefer to be gouged monthly, today, you can pay $19 a month to turn the onboard camera system of your BMW into an onboard video recorder. Who doesn’t want that?

You can try this for a month free - then pay monthly or sign up for a whole year for just $79. (That’s, like, eight months free.) Three years for $189. Or lifetime - lifetime of the car, presumably, not you - for just $429.

But, in the style of a late-night infomercial, wait. There’s more.

Ahh yes, those beautiful routes. Remember to get signed releases, would be my advice.

Cure the insomnia of everyone you know with your compendium of Australia’s worst traffic, in 40-second scenes:

Meditate to ‘Gridlock on the M2’;

Be inspired by the drama of ‘death-wish tradie cutting me off in his overloaded Ranger Wildtrak, again’';

Who could forget the remarkable spontaneity and comedic brilliance of ‘Random Dude taking a piss near the Richmond Rd off-ramp’? or;

The smash hit four-season Emmi-award nominated series: ‘Arseholes who tailgate because they presumed I’m a rich wanker’. 

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You won't catch cool stuff like this...

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It'll be endless this. Paid for.

And - personal favourite - the remarkable self-help series (available on Kindle): Be Superior: 300 times I didn’t bother indicating, this week’.

Only $19 a month.

And okay, it’s not Top Gun: Maverick, but why not put your money into literally anything else? Perhaps you could just save it, invest it or buy something you like.

You could even save it up for a new BMW 4 Series or an M3 Competition. Just a thought.

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THE SLIPPERY SUBSCRIPTION SLOPE

Look, we all subscribe to all kinds of things already - Netflix. Amazon Prime. Cloud storage. I cut these videos using Adobe Creative Cloud - Premiere, Photoshop, Audition, Acrobat. It’s, like, $80 a month. And it’s always up to date.

Your car’s registration is, essentially, an annual subscription to use the roads. Insurance: same thing.

It may be that in the future, BMW can build (for example) a single ‘Sport’ or ‘Luxury’ focussed version of a future 3 Series, sell it with most of the premium features greyed out for some poverty price, and you can pay to unlock the level of luxury or sporty prowess commensurate with how you’d like other wankers to perceive you, status-wise.

But there is a balance, right? The steering, and the lights? They pretty much have to work, out of the box. I do, however, know a bunch of people who would pay to unlock 50 extra kilowatts - that’s an easy sell.

Just keep in mind, carmakers like Ford have already started thinking about other ways to make additional revenue off your in-car experience, such as projecting paid advertising onto your LCD infotainment touchscreen.

However, you’d be properly spewing if you paid AV Jennings the big bucks for a cookie-cutter mansion in a new development - and it was $30 a month to unlock the ‘flush’ function on the toilets, or $20 a month to use the oven. And this is pretty much the philosophical line it would be dead easy for some hard-headed Bavarian beancounter to trip over.

Sometimes, it is possible to just not do something you’ve just thought of - like not subscribing to recording your 90-minute concrete commute.

It could be a slippery slope, essentially. And, of course, governments would be late in implementing legislative safeguards to make sure critical vehicle functionality for safety would remain. Just look at Tesla’s disgraceful leniencies with allegedly self-driving ‘AutoPilot’. Just that term should be criminal. Same goes for Tesla’s ‘Auto Park’ rubbish >>.

And, of course, there is the minor inconvenience that, for example, the heated seats on a Kia Seltos GT-Line are pretty much identical to the arse-toasters in your average BMW, and probably even come from the same supplier, except that the Kia offering is notionally ‘free’. At least, free of a monthly ransom.

Until that time when subscribing for automotive features is normalised and presented in a way that actually represents value, even in the context of luxury, paying a carmaker per month to keep your arse warm, et cetera, is an IQ test. 

If you pay, you fail.

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