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BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

motor1.com

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Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#121

Post by norman784 »

gfunk911 wrote: post #100

This seems no different than Intel manufacturing fewer distinct things and using CPU locking to sell at more price points. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/2239/cpu-lock It’s cheaper to physically put the functionality in all the cars than to differentiate at assembly time. We don’t have the same visceral reaction to paying for options at the dealer. (I am assuming they aren’t adding this charge RETROACTIVELY. T…

Isn’t that most of the low end processors have deffects, so they trim down (yes, blocking some features, cores, etc) and selling you at lower prices, but the thing is, you know beforehand what are you buying, without any hidden subscription, etc, also is cheaper than the full featured one, so I’m not particularly mad about it.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#122

Post by lghh »

farisjarrah wrote: post #95
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #79

We are rapidly moving towards Feudalism. If someone can charge you for using things you already bought and 'own', then average man has no property rights. The fee could be increased at any time, or new fees could be introduced. As the housing crysis deepens, average person will never own a home either. So average person will be in the same position as a medieval serf, conpletely dependand on the whims of the lord, pr…

Conversely, I been seeing more people then ever riding, building and modifying electric and motorized bicycles. You can modify a regular $200 mountain bike with a $200 motor kit from amazon and have a $400 motorcycle that you don’t need a motorcycle license for. If you really don’t want to burn fossil fuels, a $1000 bafang mid drive ebike kit can turn a regular bicycle into a hill crushing monster and can be installe…

I would love to live somewhere where an electric bike is an option, but for many of us it is a non-starter.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#123

Post by nameless912 »

ubermonkey wrote: post #115
nameless912 wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, almost no one goes to their dealership for routine maintenance (i.e. tires, brakes, oil). Many/most will go in for bigger stuff like transmission service, steering, etc. but even then many still opt for their local mechanic's shop. To be honest, I would rather see a car going to reputable local shop than to a dealership, but it's really hard to know what "reputable local shop" means when you're buying a us…

What's your basis for this assertion? Everyone I know who drives a foreign car (a set that tilts overwhelmingly to German makers) takes their car to the dealer for routine maintenance because the maintenance is often included in the purchase price . This is true absolutely for BMW, and CAN be true (ie, you can choose to do it) with Volkswagen. If you're not the first owner, then yeah, you may go to a 3rd party, but t…

My basis for this assertion is that I know very few people who are duped into buying maintenance contracts. Those things aren't "included in the purchase price" for anything but the highest end of mass market cars, they're overpriced tack-ons that dealerships push hard when you're purchasing a car.

Granted, I know very few new BMW owners (and the few that I do know, know very little about cars and just wanna go fast); most everyone I know who has a US- or Japan-make car doesn't bother with going back to the dealership, and that's the vast majority of car owners in the US.

EDIT: The other thing to keep in mind is, most Americans aren't buying new cars. In our tech centric bubble, sure, nearly everyone buys a car new off the lot, but in my sample size of a few dozen people in Ohio who are almost all professionals working decent office jobs, maybe half my friends have ever bought a new car, and the rest are driving something second hand. And keep in mind, these are young professionals with low debt and decent financial sense. The average person in the US almost certainly can't afford a brand new car on a frequent basis, and certainly not the dealer markup on services.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#124

Post by lghh »

PaywallBuster wrote: post #108
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you really don’t want to burn fossil fuels, a $1000 bafang mid drive ebike kit can turn a regular bicycle into a hill crushing monster and can be installed with almost no specialized tools. I love electric bikes and want to install the bafang kit myself, but lets keep things in perspective - it's not gonna get my pregnant wife to the hospital.

you keep a car for something that will happen once per ~ 4 years?

Well, there's also the baby after that happens.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#125

Post by basicplus2 »

aabhay wrote: post #111

Am I the only one that actually likes this idea? I live in Austin, where we only need heated seats like three months out of the year at most. On top of that, if I pay $999 for heated seats as an addon, that’s equivalent to 4.5 years of subscription at $18/m. If I could turn off lots of features while I’m on vacation, etc. I think that’s a huge win. But clearly I’m in the extreme minority.

Or...you could put a switch on your dash that turns the heaters on and off as you wish..

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#126

Post by magicalhippo »

MerelyMortal wrote: post #4
xupybd wrote: post #2

I hope people promptly come up with ways to enable these features for free. This is nothing short of criminal. To charge for a feature that is physically in the car. Yes you can do that with a SASS product but no you cannot for a physical product.

As long as you can find the wires that provide power to the seat heaters, add a switch, and splice it into some power, I imagine one can enable it without any software changes.

I had a BMW i3 2017. Last year one of the front turn signal lights broke. So I went to the shop to ask for a replacement bulb.

There I learned you can't just replace the bulb, no. The whole light module had to be replaced, $350 + work.

These things are getting ridiculously integrated. Wouldn't surprise me if the seat heaters had some integrated temperature controller unit just because.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#127

Post by 2Gkashmiri »

2143 wrote: post #76
2Gkashmiri wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

in india, the car market starts at around 4 Lacs Inr or $5000. people tend to now buy cars for like 4-9L or $5000-$12000. the cheapest EV on the market is tata tigor ev for like inr 12Lacs or $15000 and those prices are on the high end spectrum of the general market and mass adoption is only possible if prices are price-matched or be close to the ICE cars. in that situation, it is not possible to add "features" that…

I don't see how your conclusion follows your premise. > people tend to now buy cars for like 4-9L or $5000-$12000 Sure the majority of the sales are for cheaper models, but go to any tier-1 or tier-2 city and you'll see plenty of BMWs, Mercs, Audis, Jaguars, Land Rovers, and whatever else is under the sun. Like, stand on any random junction, and I guarantee that the won't even be a single minute where you won't be ab…

yes. the 12L -25L category is in T1, T2 but the rest of the country is huge and those are a drop in the bucket numbers.

the link you shared, the top 20 cars by volume are all in the sub 12L range so that is what i was saying.

https://www.rushlane.com/maruti-suzuki-chairman-says-bharat-...

yeah, it was maruti who said that so there you go.

>Move up the price range and you start to see nonsense (in this country) features like heated seats. My E-class has a panoramic sunroof which I never open because the sun is scorching here, and the glass' greenhouse effect cooks everyone inside so the AC has to work harder.

i do not own a car. no one in my family does. you say your e-class so your income bracket is already in the top %.

>People have moved past the ₹12 lakh mark a while ago. It's more like ₹25 lakhs now. I see plenty of Hyundais, Hondas, Kias, and Toyotas. None of them exactly have a cheap model anymore.

i am not saying people arent buying this. my point is, they are serving a niche and not cutting into the sales of cheap vehicles where haggling is done on the number of airbags.

>Move up the price range and you start to see nonsense

that is my point. if you stay in the price range of sub 12L, you will not find those features and as long as these cars sell, these features will not be common in india.

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#128

Post by chrisseaton »

basicplus2 wrote: post #125
aabhay wrote: post #111

Am I the only one that actually likes this idea? I live in Austin, where we only need heated seats like three months out of the year at most. On top of that, if I pay $999 for heated seats as an addon, that’s equivalent to 4.5 years of subscription at $18/m. If I could turn off lots of features while I’m on vacation, etc. I think that’s a huge win. But clearly I’m in the extreme minority.

Or...you could put a switch on your dash that turns the heaters on and off as you wish..

That just means you're paying the same money up front rather than as a subscription. Why's that better?

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#129

Post by therouwboat »

aabhay wrote: post #111

Am I the only one that actually likes this idea? I live in Austin, where we only need heated seats like three months out of the year at most. On top of that, if I pay $999 for heated seats as an addon, that’s equivalent to 4.5 years of subscription at $18/m. If I could turn off lots of features while I’m on vacation, etc. I think that’s a huge win. But clearly I’m in the extreme minority.

But your seats have heating elements anyway, do you think bmw is taking loss if you dont buy subscription?

Re: BMW heated seats subscription costs $18 per month in South Korea

#130

Post by chrisseaton »

rockinghigh wrote: post #75
nradov wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some EVs actually require more maintenance. For example, due to incompetent engineering and sloppy assembly, Tesla ranks below most ICE vehicles. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/18/tesla-ranks-30th-in-unoffici...

Neither this article nor my personal experience with Tesla support your claim. > Tesla owners reported more problems with their exterior and interior than with other systems like propulsion, battery or infotainment and navigation. Tesla issues aren't about maintenance, they are mostly about quality control. Maintenance on Tesla is simple: air filters, brakes, tires, air conditioning. https://www.tesla.com/support/car…

> Maintenance on Tesla is simple: air filters, brakes, tires, air conditioning.

Maintenance on a new ICE car is exactly the same, plus an oil change every couple of years.

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