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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, @04:59AM (2 children)
I should also add: your comment seems to indicate that the insurance companies would collude with the automakers to prevent hacking like this. I don't see that happening at all; people are *already* hacking cars (and have been for a long time actually, at least for ECUs, but now they're doing it for infotainment systems too), and insurance companies don't care. Insurance companies don't collude with automakers to increase automaker profits; why would they? Insurance companies only care about their own profits, and you hacking your car to enable heated seats doesn't affect that; they don't give two shits about you making modifications like that. Just don't tell them you drive 5000 miles per year and then get in a wreck and have them find out you've been driving 50,000 miles a year, because then they may very well deny your claim because you lied to them about how much you drive the car, which directly affects their risk. Your modifications (esp. non-performance ones) don't affect their risk at all, so they just don't care.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday July 06 2020, @02:31PM (1 child)
They might care if your hacked heated seat catches fire.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday July 06 2020, @08:43PM
That's about as likely as your car spontaneously exploding. These heaters don't use that much power; "full hot" is certainly with the full 14.4V across the electrodes, and it's warm to sit on, but certainly not remotely hot enough to cause ignition of anything.