This kind of thing has always put me off EV’s and newer cars
If you buy a regular car, then _you own the car_. You can use all the features in the car from the day you buy it.
However, manufacturers these days (especially EV manufacturers) seem absolutely hell bent on locking down their car’s systems behind all kinds of paywalls, so that you have to buy “upgrades” (nothing is being upgraded, the manufacturer is just removing a software limitation on the car’s systems) or pay subscriptions in order to use the entire car, despite the fact you’ve already bought it.
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Disgusting.
I’m not buying a car and paying a subscription to use the heated seats. Fuck off.
The whole ‘everything is a subscription’ horse shit is getting out of control.
[removed]
What the actual hell?
So to get this straight, BMW have installed a perfectly good, working feature in a car that the customer owns, but they’re somehow now allowed to use all installed features? Seems bloody ludicrous!
Makes me think… if people were chipping PlayStation, bet your ass ill lift my bonnet, swap the discs at the right time and warm my seats in December
Are all of these hardware included as part of the basic car? If so, then I don’t see it any different than someone buying a new car. If, however, the purchaser of the new car has to buy the hardware, and then pay for the subscription, then this is fucked up.
Regardless, anyone buying a used car is in hell of a shock. Imagine buying a used car thinking you’re going to get all these features only to find out that while you are getting the features, you need to pay extra to use it. Sucks for the seller as well, as whatever premium they paid for is a cost they’ll have to eat.
Unless… BMW is looking to move towards leasing cars being their biggest money maker, which would make sense to sell the complete car, and then penny pinch everywhere they can.
Can they include wiring up their indicators for free ?
next step- rent steering wheel and seats? lol
It’s time to hack your own vehicle! In addition, my heated seats are free!
We’re heading towards a future where everything will be subscription based, and we’ll own nothing.
What’s the point?
If I’m buying a new car on finance I’m already paying monthly to use the heated seats…
So is the button actually there? I sometimes looked at the blank squares in car’s I’ve had and wondered what button would be there if I paid more. To have the actual button and it not do anything would be infuriating!
Jailbreak your car guides incoming.
This is vile but on brand for BMW of late. They first started this shit with a subscription for high beam assist – that’s right a sub so your fucking dipped beams are automatic.
It’s pretty trivial to already code CarPlay, beam assist etc onto the car – all this will do is make a small bit of money from clueless people and make BMW specialist independent garages a bit of extra money for some one time unlock coding sessions.
Totally not worth dragging their brand through the mud over. /sigh
Software locking features is so cringe
Hopefully someone figures out a hack
Buy the car and get to lease the operating system
There was a comment on /r/piracy about this and it seems there’s already a thriving business adding this service to cars without going through the official channels. This is only going to damage sales in the long run
I had a gut feeling that the government pushing for the ban on new diesel and petrol cars purchases by 203X had a catch.
By the time 2030 comes about, most cars are going to be electric AND have some ridiculous features such as an integrated subscription based plan or software to reject third party repairs.
You will have to buy a “DRM”-car because they will be the only cars for sale allowed by the government.
Isnt this the equivalent of on-disc dlc in the gaming world? Not a good look, BMW
“The Register said that while it could work as a way for owners to add features as they can afford them, “on the other hand, it may feel like buying a mug and having to rent the handle”.
Alternatively a mug without the handle is a good way to warm your hands without having to pay the £10 fee for the heated steering wheel.
Just buy the base spec knowing it comes with all the subscription features built in.
Then take it to a grey market tuning shop that will remove the restrictions for you. If they can’t crack the software now it will only take a few months.
They should consider retiring and apologising immediately
The function you have selected, “Brakes”, is not included in your current subscription.
Would you like to browse the available upgrade offers?
Should make this a free service and activate it with correct use of indicators.
If people were spending £40k cash on a car and then having to pay a sub this would never fly.
But 90% of new cars are on finance. More than half of them are company cars. So this will just bump up the monthly price a bit, like adding any option, so people will do it, and BMW will get away with this bullshit.
Looking down at the radio for a second, Steve looks up to see the child crossing the road from between two cars.
He slams his foot down on his brake pedal, with a split second reaction time.
A message pops up on his BMW Dashboard:
“Brakes inactive. Please visit the BMW Website to renew your brakes subscription”
If this scam succeeds, what next, £5 per month to enable indicators?
Toyota tried a similar scheme for their push-button start feature and the backlash was so severe they dropped it pretty quick.
We really are living in a dystopian hell aren’t we
Btw wait until people see the ‘pay per mile’ schemes being considered for EV’s in order for governments to recoup lost fuel duty revenue.
That really will start a debate…👍
I will never ever buy a car that locks built-in features behind a subscription.
I think this is aiming for those in the PCP market.
For arguments sake, lets say you spec a new car without heated seats (the traditional way as in the heated seats module isn’t installed) – all in over 4 years your PCP price is £400 p/m.
If you want heated seats, BMW will need to install the module at factory meaning the cost of the car increases so the PCP price also increases, in this example to £415 per month.
With this new subscription malarky your PCP price is £400 + a subscription of £15 = £415 p/m.
The price is the same, it’s just the breakdown that’s different. People who PCP won’t care as they go into a dealership with a monthly budget in mind and will get what they can for that budget, as technically they already pay a “subscription” to use the car over a certain period before giving it back.
Obviously this sucks if you don’t pay monthly for your car and you own them outright.
Fuck me sideways.
We’re just ducking piggy banks to people.
Thanks, I was running short on reasons to never buy a BMW.
Tesla do it too, had access to incar Spotify and stuff for the first year then they want like £17.99pm for it. I have a mobile phone and Bluetooth though so it’s fine but now my incar experience is worse than Hyundai’s where I can just plug the phone in and use Android Auto.
Edit: on further thought, it might be a data plan you pay for, I might be wrong.
I give it a year before they change this system….
Talk about 1st world problems… FFS
Thr Black mirror episode coming to life ..
Just remember, that there is a more scary aspect to this. In order for this shit to work, the car is connected back to BMW, so they could effectively be monitoring everything you do in the car. I am sure it’s buried in the fine print somewhere, but I suspect this is more than just a subscription to “heated seats”.
39 comments
This kind of thing has always put me off EV’s and newer cars
If you buy a regular car, then _you own the car_. You can use all the features in the car from the day you buy it.
However, manufacturers these days (especially EV manufacturers) seem absolutely hell bent on locking down their car’s systems behind all kinds of paywalls, so that you have to buy “upgrades” (nothing is being upgraded, the manufacturer is just removing a software limitation on the car’s systems) or pay subscriptions in order to use the entire car, despite the fact you’ve already bought it.
[removed]
Disgusting.
I’m not buying a car and paying a subscription to use the heated seats. Fuck off.
The whole ‘everything is a subscription’ horse shit is getting out of control.
[removed]
What the actual hell?
So to get this straight, BMW have installed a perfectly good, working feature in a car that the customer owns, but they’re somehow now allowed to use all installed features? Seems bloody ludicrous!
Makes me think… if people were chipping PlayStation, bet your ass ill lift my bonnet, swap the discs at the right time and warm my seats in December
Are all of these hardware included as part of the basic car? If so, then I don’t see it any different than someone buying a new car. If, however, the purchaser of the new car has to buy the hardware, and then pay for the subscription, then this is fucked up.
Regardless, anyone buying a used car is in hell of a shock. Imagine buying a used car thinking you’re going to get all these features only to find out that while you are getting the features, you need to pay extra to use it. Sucks for the seller as well, as whatever premium they paid for is a cost they’ll have to eat.
Unless… BMW is looking to move towards leasing cars being their biggest money maker, which would make sense to sell the complete car, and then penny pinch everywhere they can.
Can they include wiring up their indicators for free ?
next step- rent steering wheel and seats? lol
It’s time to hack your own vehicle! In addition, my heated seats are free!
We’re heading towards a future where everything will be subscription based, and we’ll own nothing.
What’s the point?
If I’m buying a new car on finance I’m already paying monthly to use the heated seats…
So is the button actually there? I sometimes looked at the blank squares in car’s I’ve had and wondered what button would be there if I paid more. To have the actual button and it not do anything would be infuriating!
Jailbreak your car guides incoming.
This is vile but on brand for BMW of late. They first started this shit with a subscription for high beam assist – that’s right a sub so your fucking dipped beams are automatic.
It’s pretty trivial to already code CarPlay, beam assist etc onto the car – all this will do is make a small bit of money from clueless people and make BMW specialist independent garages a bit of extra money for some one time unlock coding sessions.
Totally not worth dragging their brand through the mud over. /sigh
Software locking features is so cringe
Hopefully someone figures out a hack
Buy the car and get to lease the operating system
There was a comment on /r/piracy about this and it seems there’s already a thriving business adding this service to cars without going through the official channels. This is only going to damage sales in the long run
I had a gut feeling that the government pushing for the ban on new diesel and petrol cars purchases by 203X had a catch.
By the time 2030 comes about, most cars are going to be electric AND have some ridiculous features such as an integrated subscription based plan or software to reject third party repairs.
You will have to buy a “DRM”-car because they will be the only cars for sale allowed by the government.
Isnt this the equivalent of on-disc dlc in the gaming world? Not a good look, BMW
“The Register said that while it could work as a way for owners to add features as they can afford them, “on the other hand, it may feel like buying a mug and having to rent the handle”.
Alternatively a mug without the handle is a good way to warm your hands without having to pay the £10 fee for the heated steering wheel.
Just buy the base spec knowing it comes with all the subscription features built in.
Then take it to a grey market tuning shop that will remove the restrictions for you. If they can’t crack the software now it will only take a few months.
They should consider retiring and apologising immediately
The function you have selected, “Brakes”, is not included in your current subscription.
Would you like to browse the available upgrade offers?
Should make this a free service and activate it with correct use of indicators.
If people were spending £40k cash on a car and then having to pay a sub this would never fly.
But 90% of new cars are on finance. More than half of them are company cars. So this will just bump up the monthly price a bit, like adding any option, so people will do it, and BMW will get away with this bullshit.
Looking down at the radio for a second, Steve looks up to see the child crossing the road from between two cars.
He slams his foot down on his brake pedal, with a split second reaction time.
A message pops up on his BMW Dashboard:
“Brakes inactive. Please visit the BMW Website to renew your brakes subscription”
If this scam succeeds, what next, £5 per month to enable indicators?
Toyota tried a similar scheme for their push-button start feature and the backlash was so severe they dropped it pretty quick.
We really are living in a dystopian hell aren’t we
Btw wait until people see the ‘pay per mile’ schemes being considered for EV’s in order for governments to recoup lost fuel duty revenue.
That really will start a debate…👍
I will never ever buy a car that locks built-in features behind a subscription.
I think this is aiming for those in the PCP market.
For arguments sake, lets say you spec a new car without heated seats (the traditional way as in the heated seats module isn’t installed) – all in over 4 years your PCP price is £400 p/m.
If you want heated seats, BMW will need to install the module at factory meaning the cost of the car increases so the PCP price also increases, in this example to £415 per month.
With this new subscription malarky your PCP price is £400 + a subscription of £15 = £415 p/m.
The price is the same, it’s just the breakdown that’s different. People who PCP won’t care as they go into a dealership with a monthly budget in mind and will get what they can for that budget, as technically they already pay a “subscription” to use the car over a certain period before giving it back.
Obviously this sucks if you don’t pay monthly for your car and you own them outright.
Fuck me sideways.
We’re just ducking piggy banks to people.
Thanks, I was running short on reasons to never buy a BMW.
Tesla do it too, had access to incar Spotify and stuff for the first year then they want like £17.99pm for it. I have a mobile phone and Bluetooth though so it’s fine but now my incar experience is worse than Hyundai’s where I can just plug the phone in and use Android Auto.
Edit: on further thought, it might be a data plan you pay for, I might be wrong.
I give it a year before they change this system….
Talk about 1st world problems… FFS
Thr Black mirror episode coming to life ..
Just remember, that there is a more scary aspect to this. In order for this shit to work, the car is connected back to BMW, so they could effectively be monitoring everything you do in the car. I am sure it’s buried in the fine print somewhere, but I suspect this is more than just a subscription to “heated seats”.