this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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A friend bought a new BMW. Everything is controlled with an app. There's also an interface in the car itself, obviously, but the app has more functions.
Things like seat heating, air conditioner, enhanced cruise control and all the fancy things are only available if you subscribe to one of the three offerings.
I just glanced over the app, so i don't remember the names, but it went like the usual: basic, premium, platinum.
Prices were in the range of 200, 400, 700 euros a fucking month.
Yeah choosing BMW is a strange choice against something like Tesla when they are doing the same sort of thing. I won’t criticize the “I’m rich so I bought an expensive car” thing, that can happen elsewhere, but the idea that BMW is the lesser of the evils isn’t really accurate.
I wish we were in a world where we could more easily avenge our terrible upbringing in this system moment after moment like Geralt, where if we’re to choose between the lesser of two evils, we’d rather not choose at all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0i88t0Kacs
Are you saying that you can't use the A/C without subscribing to their app?
I think they are very mistaken about the options requiring a subscription and their price. Most of the options you could get a subscription for also are available as a one time purchase… the same way they were in the past. Heating and air conditioning aren’t among those options, they come standard in every car.
BMW did drop the subscription for heated seats after backlash. That one was stupid. The other options I’m a little torn on. There are costs associated with developing the software used for most of the options like driving assistance. I have no problem paying for that development, and the subscription lets me try it for a month to see if it’s worth it. As long as there is the ability to outright buy the option instead of locking into a perpetual subscription I’m chill with it. I also hope that once unlocked, the option is still available when resold. This part I’m not so sure about, but mine seemed to maintain the options purchased by the original owner.
It’s not a super recent article, but a list of options and pricing is available at the bottom of this page: https://www.kbb.com/car-news/bmw-quietly-launches-in-car-subscriptions-in-u-s/
I only had the chance to peek and after reading your comment, it sounds very plausible that general heating is a basic function. I'm sure i saw the seat-heating, in the lowest price subscription though. It must have been before they dropped the subscription for it. The paid air conditioning included air purifing with hepa and carbon filters and some iirc Plasmacluster Ion technology.
I should have been a little more specific ...
Even by not subscribing to the paid subscriptions he said he had to subscribe to the basic subscription, which enables the app.
It looked like they will also drop a random paid feature into the basic for a limited time, every few weeks another feature, so people get to test it. That's what the ad in the app suggested.
I didn't think about the one time purchase to be honest. I assume it to be featured in a submenu, to make it less prominent than the subscription, in order to get a bigger number of subscribers.