BMW owners around the world will now be able to enjoy heated seats without the burden of an expensive monthly fee. BMW has scrapped its plan to charge customers an R400 monthly subscription for heated seats after facing criticism for making people pay extra for a basic feature already built into their cars.
This decision was revealed by Pieter Nota, a BMW board member responsible for sales and marketing, during an interview with Autocar at the IAA Mobility conference in Munich. Nota explained that the heated seats subscription was part of BMW’s experiment with microtransactions but had not been very successful.
“We thought we could offer customers an additional service by allowing them to activate this feature later on, but not many people liked the idea,” said Nota. “People felt like they were being charged twice, which wasn’t actually the case, but perception is important, as they say. So, that’s why we decided to stop it.”
The controversy emerged when BMW started offering heated seats as a subscription service in various countries through its digital stores. Depending on the region, customers were asked to pay around R400 per month, with options for yearly R4000, three-year R6500, or “unlimited” access for R8500 subscriptions.
While heated seats and steering wheels may still come at an extra cost, they will be offered as optional packages at the point of purchase from BMW dealerships. In some regions, other features like advanced driver-assist technologies and adaptive suspension are still available as subscription services.
It’s worth noting that the heated seats subscription was never introduced in the United States. BMW confirmed this, but it did make an appearance in digital stores in countries such as the UK, Germany, New Zealand, South Korea, and South Africa. Additionally, a subscription for heated steering wheels was also removed from BMW’s ConnectedDrive store.
This isn’t the first time BMW has experimented with subscription-based services. The company previously attempted to charge an annual fee for access to Apple’s CarPlay, initially offering it as a one-time R6000 option and later as an R1600 annual fee. However, most car manufacturers provide CarPlay and Android Auto for free.
BMW also explored a subscription model for the entire vehicle, launching a service called Access by BMW, where customers could pay approximately R40 000 per month for access to a range of BMW vehicles. Both programs, Access by BMW and the CarPlay subscription, were eventually discontinued. Nevertheless, subscriptions are gaining popularity in the automotive industry as companies explore new ways to generate revenue through monthly or yearly fees, especially through over-the-air software updates.
In general, customers are willing to pay for added features, such as advanced safety technologies. However, when companies charge for functions that are considered standard or typically offered for a one-time fee, it can lead to negative publicity, as seen in this case.
