361–370 of 396 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
+ Seat heaters are heavy. You drive them around all year long, they will show up on your fuel bill one way or another.
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…
The feature is sold for much less than $2K. In the article it mentions $400 for a lifetime subscription. What could be attractive to that executives is an opportunity to broaden the market for this feature. I.e. instead of having only one chance to sell you this feature at the time of order, they now can let you trial this after the purchase. They might even run a promo during a cold streak for free (just like Sirius…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except.... This isn't true. I can't just "turn on" adaptive headlights because the vehicle doesn't have the necessary camera to scan the road for oncoming cars installed. I can't just "turn on" adaptive cruise control, because my vehicle doesn't have the necessary front radar installed. I can't just "turn on" the HUD, because my vehicle doesn't have the necessary dash components physically installed. The number of di…
Check out Bimmercode to see what you do have access to.
With the best will in the world, software can't magic a night vision camera into my car.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
And as soon as that car hits the second hand market, the next owner can find the appropriate relay, tap in a switch, and solve the rent to use problem.
"Irregular power draw detected, shutting down for your safety."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would guess their profit is based on some people choosing to enable the future. They would not risk breaking even or losing money if people opted out more than expected. The base model with the feature disabled must be profitable on its own. It's just basic business. > More choices for the consumer. It's a false choice. Creating the illusion of choice is not progress. If I stood in front of your front door with a…
> They would not risk breaking even or losing money if people opted out more than expected. Loss-leader. Allows them to advertise a low base price, but most people will pay more. > It's a false choice Lol it’s not - you can genuinely choose to never pay for it, to pay later, or pay up front. Those are all useful choices I can imagine real people exercising. Why do you think it’s an illusion? Why is not paying not an…
They wouldn't risk it in this case, for such a high cost item. It makes no sense for the marginal cost of the heater, the base price would just be marked above the cost.
> It’s a car seat heater. It’s a luxury. Nothing as dramatic.
Way to miss the point. Thought experiments are dramatic so as to make the principle obvious: just because you've increased the set of possible choices does not mean you've added value. That's the case with the thought experiment and with subscription seat heaters. That's why it's a false choice, the value has already been added by economies of scale, and BMW is trying to profit more without any effort by removing that added value.
As I already explained, we want innovation from effort that encourages progress, not profiteering from artificial scarcity. Skewed incentives that don't result in progress should be criticized and corrected.
I seriously hope this doesn't catch on. For cars with internal combustion engines, the company tends to get constant income via service thanks oil filters, other filters, and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be replaced (assuming people take it to authorised service centers, which I assume most people do when the car is relatively new). With the transition to EV, those avenues dry up because EVs need lesser maint…
I seriously hope this doesn't catch on. For cars with internal combustion engines, the company tends to get constant income via service thanks oil filters, other filters, and a whole bunch of stuff that needs to be replaced (assuming people take it to authorised service centers, which I assume most people do when the car is relatively new). With the transition to EV, those avenues dry up because EVs need lesser maint…
IOW, they're doing it because they can.
The solutions are:
1. Don't buy these cars.
2. Hack the software and share that knowledge.
3. Install a 50-cent switch to apply power to the seat heaters directly.
4. Disable the goddamned modem and share that knowledge too.
The people should charge BMW more for renting space in their car for seat heaters.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think people over-estimate that because most EVs are very new. Of course this is n=1 type data, but the service cost on engine related things for my several years old BMW are quite low compared to other items. They replace the oil once the computer wants it, which is every 30,000 to 40,000km, so less than once a year for most users. And that's all engine costs I've had over the years. But I do have maintenance cost…
> It's more things like replacing tires at least once a year (which I think high torque EVs will do even faster), then at about 100k miles they replaced the wishbones / control arms. I've not heard of tires that need replacing once a year, unless you are doing an insane amount of driving. Tires are generally lasting 50k, 60k, even 85k miles. Can you elaborate on the scenarios that require yearly tire replacements?
I would not want to be in a car with a tire that lasts 85K miles.
Tires come in all kinds of compounds for different conditions but in general, the grippier the tire (i.e. better braking, better turning) the shorter the lifetime.
Race tires take this to the extreme, maximizing grip at all cost and they only last as little as a few hundred miles.
That would be silly for street use of course, but the general pattern stands. Less wear = less grip. I buy top performance street tires for maximum safety, the tradeoff being they'll last about 15k-25k miles depending on the car.
Other factors that have a big influence on tire life is car weight and acceleration. EVs are both very heavy and (most of them) fast accelerating. So tire life is bound to be less than on an otherwise similar ICE car.