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I don't see the appeal of heated seats, I've never turned the ones in my cars on. OK, I suppose when you've left your car in below zero weather it's useful.

Heated steering wheel on the other hand; that's heavenly.

I suppose if I ever find a BMW attractive enough to buy one despite this consumer-hating behavior (their grilles help me stay away), I'd figure out if I can unplug the seat from the control unit, and just plug it straight to a different power supply to get the heat. Or will they use something like HDMI's Digital Content Protection to prevent "heat piracy"?

Anyway it's all theoretical, it seems they've given up trying to pick your pocket for heated seats, but for other features they're still going to mug you: https://www.drive.com.au/news/bmw-admits-heated-seat-subscri...

by JumpCrisscross1 hours ago|

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> when you've left your car in below zero weather it's useful

Yup. Getting back from any snow sport where you wiped out and all the snow decided your butt's where it's going to hang out sells the product.

by eps1 hours ago|

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> Heated steering wheel on the other hand; that's heavenly

Twice I tried it on rental cars it freaked the hell out of me. This is what I'd imagine people experiencing some exotic neurological collapse feel like - part of hands feeling warm, while surrounding bits feeling frozen. Mixed signaling, really bizarre dissonance. So now when I get a new car, I get pretty much every option except for the heated steering wheel.

by cogogo2 hours ago|

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If you do not have a garage and live in a cold weather climate they are fantastic. Heat up almost instantly when the engine might not warm up entirely to get the heat going for a good 15 min.

by lokar2 hours ago|

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I see you did not grow up going out to the driveway to start the car before breakfast :)

by netsharc2 hours ago|

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Grew up in a warm place. Currently my car sleeps in a relatively warm underground carpark of the apartment block.

by lokar1 hours ago|

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We had to plug our (gas) car in at night. I don’t recommend it.

by lokar2 hours ago|

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You can buy the feature outright when you order the car.

This is just them figuring out that if they pre-install the HW in every car they get enough payments to cover the units never used.

It has two obvious consumer benefits: second hand sales (the new owner may really want it), and very occasional use.

by techdiff42 minutes ago|

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I don't think either of those are consumer benefits at all. And the hardware was charged for when the car was initially sold - it was part of the total unit cost of creation. The subscription was a consumer hostile way of increasing spend with the brand. The genius' at BMW looked at Tesla's Plaid mode and FSD and thought they could replicate that model but failed to realise that people don't view their brands the same way - people treat a Tesla like a software purchase, but a BMW like an expensive toaster.