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From Ars Technica:
[...] BMW is planning to move some features of its new cars to a subscription model, something it announced on Wednesday during a briefing for the press on the company's digital plans.
[...] the Bavarian carmaker has plans to apply that model to features like heated seats. BMW says that owners can "benefit in advance from the opportunity to try out the products for a trial period of one month, after which they can book the respective service for one or three years." The company also says that it could allow the second owner of a BMW to activate features that the original purchaser declined.
From Roadshow:
These options will be enabled via the car or the new My BMW app. While some will be permanent and assigned to the car, others will be temporary, with mentioned periods ranging from three months to three years.
[...] So, yes, you could theoretically only pay for heated seats in the colder months if you like, or perhaps save a few bucks by only enabling automatic high-beams on those seasons when the days are shortest.
Also at Hot Hardware, The Drive, TechCrunch, Engadget, The Verge, TechSpot, SlashGear & Forbes.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday July 05 2020, @04:54AM
I have never heard of any car insurance in America where you have to declare any kind of options or modifications, unless you're trying to get coverage for those (in which case they increase the replacement value of the car so they affect the rates). Generally you just give them a VIN number and they can look up the book value from that. They will ask about some safety features and maybe give you a small discount for some of those. But something like heated seats is not going to significantly affect a car's value enough for insurance to care about it.
What's really ridiculous about this is heated seats are something that probably cost about $10-20 at the factory for components plus installation labor. You can go on Ebay right now and buy heated seat components (aftermarket) for about $50, though you'll have to do a lot of work to install them since you have to take the seat covers off, and also do some wiring. These things are just not worth much money, not like LED headlight housings, for instance. So the idea of paying a monthly fee for something that's so dirt-cheap compared to the cost of the car just boggles my mind.