291–300 of 396 posts
Imagine paying a company $18 a month to warm your butt. Imagine going back in time and telling your great-grandfather you pay someone to warm your butt.
(Paid monthly subscription is a different issue though.)
What dumbass executive greenlighted this? $18 per month over 10 years is $2,160. MSRP for the 2020 2 Series--BMW's cheapest sedan--is $35,300. So instead of charging $2K--5% more--for heated seats out right they have no gone through the expense of (1) building the software, billing, and support infrastructure to manage this (2) pissing off customers. I'm assuming they're also streamlining production by building heate…
What dumbass executive greenlighted this? $18 per month over 10 years is $2,160. MSRP for the 2020 2 Series--BMW's cheapest sedan--is $35,300. So instead of charging $2K--5% more--for heated seats out right they have no gone through the expense of (1) building the software, billing, and support infrastructure to manage this (2) pissing off customers. I'm assuming they're also streamlining production by building heate…
That dumbass executive looked at the healthy used car market, got pissed that some people owned BMW's without paying their dues, and asked how to fix that.
This service allows a customer to purchase a feature outright, now do you think that feature belongs to the car, or does it belong to the customer? Will it transfer during a sale?
What dumbass executive greenlighted this? $18 per month over 10 years is $2,160. MSRP for the 2020 2 Series--BMW's cheapest sedan--is $35,300. So instead of charging $2K--5% more--for heated seats out right they have no gone through the expense of (1) building the software, billing, and support infrastructure to manage this (2) pissing off customers. I'm assuming they're also streamlining production by building heate…
Exactly. This is probably a $300 actual cost item they have to charge 5x for to pay for all the supporting infrastructure and software engineers
To grow profits in excess of inflation in a saturated market, you must charge your costumers continuously more for the same product.
AS a consumer I absolutely hate subscriptions. I will never own a subscription to anything I can replace for something else. I bought solar panels to avoid electric subscription, etc. I never buy on credit, etc
I can see why a car manufacturer would not want to make two versions of each car, one with heated seats and one without. Instead, build it into all of them, and only activate and charge those that actually need it. Also, the subscription is an option. You can also pay the full price for the feature. Where I live, I could see using this once or two months a year. Whereas some would need it more and they might just buy…
In the past this is just how "luxury" options trickled down into standard options. If it's more economical to just produce all cars with the option then it should just be an optimization passed on to the consumer.
I find this pretty surprising in the luxury car market. A lot of features that are standard on base model non-luxury cars are options on luxury cars.
Anyway, this subscription model raises other questions. For example, if I'm paying for the subscription and the seat heater breaks, who is responsible for the repair? Am I paying for a subscription (i.e. lease) of the hardware, or is it just a software subscription?
I can see why a car manufacturer would not want to make two versions of each car, one with heated seats and one without. Instead, build it into all of them, and only activate and charge those that actually need it. Also, the subscription is an option. You can also pay the full price for the feature. Where I live, I could see using this once or two months a year. Whereas some would need it more and they might just buy…
It is mind blowing that this is something people are willing to accept. The feature is there, the ecological damage is done already by including those extra resources, and you've paid for the vehicle but don't actually own its capabilities.
so you buy the car, fully equipped with the heat seating... but you can't turn it on unless you pay a subscription fee? I had to double check this wasn't an Onion article. thats one of the most dumbest brand burning idea's I've ever seen. I'm happy enough with my Mid range Rav4 Hybrid that comes with seat heaters and no subscription fee thanks...
I can see why a car manufacturer would not want to make two versions of each car, one with heated seats and one without. Instead, build it into all of them, and only activate and charge those that actually need it. Also, the subscription is an option. You can also pay the full price for the feature. Where I live, I could see using this once or two months a year. Whereas some would need it more and they might just buy…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You have purchase the physical hardware... The fact that you need to purchase additional software to enable that is absolutely insane and wasteful
> The fact that you need to purchase additional software to enable that is absolutely insane and wasteful I don't know - could be less wasteful to ship identical hardware to everyone. An example from another sector is did you know low end processor chips are often exactly the same as higher end ones, just with features burned off? It means they can re-use imperfect chips, reducing waste, and they can have a simpler p…
But a heated seat is not light, its a lot of extra weight to ship and therefore more fuel used for every car.
What percentage of car owners will pay for that feature to be enabled. 20, 30 , 50?
That's a lot of fuel and energy burnt to get it to that person and over the life of the car the weight of those seats will have a material impact on the lifetime fuel usage of the car, tyre wear times etc etc.