BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions
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Last year, BMW underwent media and customer hellfire over its decision to offer a monthly subscription for heated seats. While seat heating wasn't the only option available for subscription, it was the one that seemed to infuriate everyone the most, since it concerned hardware already present in the car from the factory. After months of customers continuously expressing their displeasure with the plan, BMW has finally decided to abandon recurring charges for hardware-based functions.
"What we don’t do any more—and that is a very well-known example—is offer seat heating by [monthly subscriptions]" BMW marketing boss Pieter Nota said to Autocar. "It’s either in or out. We offer it by the factory and you either have it or you don’t have it."
BMW's move wasn't solely about charging customers monthly for heated seats. Rather, the luxury automaker wanted to streamline production and reduce costs there by physically installing heated seats in every single car, since 90% of all BMWs are bought with seat heaters anyway. Then, owners who didn't spec heated seats from the factory could digitally unlock them later with either a monthly subscription or a one-time perma-buy option. Nota still believes it was a good idea.
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They could have done it stealthily by having the hardware in all but quietly disabling it in models ordered without it. People don’t mind paying a bit for the option, it’s the “monthly” that gets your hackles up because we don’t want the industry to go that way.
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Later in the article:
"We thought that we would provide an extra service to the customer by offering the chance to activate that later, but the user acceptance isn’t that high. People feel that they paid double, which was actually not true, but perception is reality, I always say. So that was the reason we stopped that," Nota told Autocar.
That's one perspective; another is that BMW was absolutely double dipping with heated seat subscriptions. The company started down that route to reduce production costs, making each car cheaper to build by streamlining the process. Fair enough. However, those reduced costs weren't then passed down to buyers via lower MSRPs. Customers were technically paying for those heated seats anyway, no matter whether they wanted them. Then, BMW was not only charging extra to use a feature already installed in the car, but also subjecting it to subscription billing, even though seat heating is static hardware not designed to change or improve over time.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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Then, BMW was not only charging extra to use a feature already installed in the car, but also subjecting it to subscription billing, even though seat heating is static hardware not designed to change or improve over time.
Well, maybe make the seat heating control software upgradable so every once in a while you push a software update that makes the seat heating a bit less predictable, market it with terms like “intelligent adaptive heating” or “AI enhanced comfort.”
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Seemed like a dumb idea from the very beginning. And I agree with @jon-nyc , the majority of cars today have heated seats, or at least the option for them.
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Later in the article:
"We thought that we would provide an extra service to the customer by offering the chance to activate that later, but the user acceptance isn’t that high. People feel that they paid double, which was actually not true, but perception is reality, I always say. So that was the reason we stopped that," Nota told Autocar.
That's one perspective; another is that BMW was absolutely double dipping with heated seat subscriptions. The company started down that route to reduce production costs, making each car cheaper to build by streamlining the process. Fair enough. However, those reduced costs weren't then passed down to buyers via lower MSRPs. Customers were technically paying for those heated seats anyway, no matter whether they wanted them. Then, BMW was not only charging extra to use a feature already installed in the car, but also subjecting it to subscription billing, even though seat heating is static hardware not designed to change or improve over time.
@George-K said in BMW Is Giving Up on Heated Seat Subscriptions:
Later in the article:
"We thought that we would provide an extra service to the customer by offering the chance to activate that later, but the user acceptance isn’t that high. People feel that they paid double, which was actually not true, but perception is reality, I always say. So that was the reason we stopped that," Nota told Autocar.
That's one perspective; another is that BMW was absolutely double dipping with heated seat subscriptions. The company started down that route to reduce production costs, making each car cheaper to build by streamlining the process. Fair enough. However, those reduced costs weren't then passed down to buyers via lower MSRPs. Customers were technically paying for those heated seats anyway, no matter whether they wanted them. Then, BMW was not only charging extra to use a feature already installed in the car, but also subjecting it to subscription billing, even though seat heating is static hardware not designed to change or improve over time.
tl;dr
"We're a bunch of fucking assholes"
