Driving Dystopia: BMW Sneaks Subscription Services Back Into Vehicles

Last year, BMW walked back its decision to offer subscriptions for heated seats. This came after numerous automakers had started considering the financial benefits of placing hardware already equipped to the vehicle behind recurring paywalls. While just about every brand was testing the waters of subscription-based features, German nameplates were the most aggressive and therefore caught the most backlash.

Ultimately, the incurred shame forced the industry to retreat. But the intention to normalize subscriptions remained and BMW has since decided to offer monthly billings on adaptive headlights — which is something you’d expect a luxury brand to offer by default.

BMW resuming its push for subscription services dates back to January, when news leaked that it planned to add power to some of its all-electric models in exchange for an annual fee of $1,200. People were immediately annoyed and got so upset that the world seemed to forget that Mercedes-Benz had actually been doing the same thing for a while.

Regardless, the Bavarian brand is misbehaving again by offering over-the-air updates that includes a subscription to the adaptive headlight feature. To be clear, BMW (like a lot of automakers) will already allow customers to purchase upgrades to the vehicle using its connectivity features.

While these were things that likely would have been provided free of charge a decade ago, they’re typically limited to customization features or upgrades to services that the vehicle did not receive from the factory. But items like heated seats and adaptive headlights are features that are equipped to the vehicle before its purchased, meaning BMW is trying to get you to buy something that you technically already own.

The MyBMW application and BMW’s ConnectedStore have grown a lot in recent years and are helping to normalize something that’s ultimately designed to get customers to pay more for services they previously either wouldn’t have had access to or would have been tabulated in the original MSRP.

AutoEvolution covered the topic and diminished the whole thing as a public relations issue, which is partially true but also totally preposterous. BMW has decided that it’s more cost effective to build cars with more features installed and then try to bill customers that want to unlock them. By doing this, it’s reducing overhead by streamlining the manufacturing process. But this also incentivizes the brand to effectively disable equipment and then place it behind a recurring paywall. We've seen the industry weaponize connectivity against customers for years, so it seems odd that the end goal would be anything other than normalizing the subscription model.

From AutoEvolution:

However, what BMW is fighting against here is a PR problem. The company thought that it would be a good idea to build most or all of its cars with heated seats and not offer that feature as standard on each vehicle. So, to streamline manufacturing, it created the heated seats subscription. The horror, right?

Well, that was exaggerated as well. The automaker included the option to pay for heated seats on a monthly basis, that's true. But what many outlets and influencers omitted to say was that the option to pay once and be done with it existed. That's right, nobody forced BMW owners to subscribe for heated seats. It was just an option given to customers interested in having heated seats for a couple of months or for those who forgot to option them when they ordered the vehicle.

It was also good for the car's resale value. If you lived in California and didn't need heated seats but ended up selling your ride to someone in Montana, the new owner could've simply activated that feature remotely.

Unfortunately, the above example really only benefits BMW — which can continue billing someone for equipment that’s already installed on the vehicle. It also opens up serious questions about who actually ends up owning connected automobiles when manufacturers retain so much control after that initial point of sale.

The “High Beam Assistant” feature seems to be presented in the exact same manner as the heated seats were. Customers can buy the feature outright and BMW will likewise allow drivers to subscribe on a monthly or annual basis. However, it’s bizarre that the automaker would paywall what’s effectively a safety feature and subscriptions longer than a couple of years end up costing more than purchasing upfront.

Louis Rossman, who is extremely active in the right-to-repair movement and routinely tracks these kinds of industrial trends, criticized the scheme heavily. His opinion was that the only saving grace was that BMW still provided users the ability to permanently buy into the feature, assuming that would change the second the company could eliminate the option. Your author is inclined to agree, as the subscription model would undoubtedly be more profitable for the manufacturer over time.

As of now, we’re only aware of the adaptive-headlight payment scheme existing in Europe. But it doesn’t seem acceptable anywhere considering this is a feature even the most affordable vehicle is likely to come with in 2024. It’s not so much the money as it is the principle of BMW giving customers less value for money than they would have gotten years earlier while also attempting to wrestle ownership rights away from the person that’s paying for the car. That said, we shouldn’t fixate singularly on BMW. Loads of companies are trying their hand at things like this, with the German luxury brands seeming the most willing to push the envelope.

The good news is that automakers don’t seem to be making tons of headway with subscriptions. Kelley Blue Book noted that, despite the industry viewing payment plans on features as extremely profitable, it's having serious trouble normalizing them. The outlet stated that most people are already burnt out on subscriptions going toward other services that have nothing to do with automobiles, adding that drivers were likewise unwilling to opt into monthly or yearly fees for equipment they already expect to be on their vehicle. The last issue was that car prices have only increased in recent years and people simply had less disposable income in general.

[Images: BMW]

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