For now, BMW is defaulting to a more traditional approach. If it requires a data package of some sort, it will probably have a recurring fee—and BMW says its customers are already comfortable subscribing to such add-ons.
Sounds like a fairly reasonable position imo, and that they listen to the outrage about heated seats (which tbh was ridiculous). I get the feeling that everyone who commented on this didn’t actually read the article, lol.
Full disclosure: I own a fairly recent BMW and do like it a lot. Would I have bought it with subscription based heated seats? Maybe not, but I do appreciate other things like having a physical button to go into battery save mode and not having to dive 3 touch screen menus down… or that it’s one of the most powerful hybrids in electric only mode (though not anymore I think)… or being generally more dialed back when it comes to driver assist features.
That said I will admit that it has a physical button that tells me to pay up when pressed, to enable automatic high beam control… though it’s not like it was an advertised feature (got it used).
Sounds like a fairly reasonable position imo, and that they listen to the outrage about heated seats (which tbh was ridiculous). I get the feeling that everyone who commented on this didn’t actually read the article, lol.
Full disclosure: I own a fairly recent BMW and do like it a lot. Would I have bought it with subscription based heated seats? Maybe not, but I do appreciate other things like having a physical button to go into battery save mode and not having to dive 3 touch screen menus down… or that it’s one of the most powerful hybrids in electric only mode (though not anymore I think)… or being generally more dialed back when it comes to driver assist features.
That said I will admit that it has a physical button that tells me to pay up when pressed, to enable automatic high beam control… though it’s not like it was an advertised feature (got it used).
The thing is- most cars have ongoing costs if you use anything data wise. I don’t get the selective outrage here.
Agreeing with you.