BMW drops controversial seat heating subscription
BMW has abandoned the controversial subscription to heating seats already installed in cars. This was announced by Peter Note, a member of the company’s board of directors for sales and marketing, writes Forbes.
This subscription was first announced in 2020. It was intended to be one of many ways to offer flexibility to customers, who could pay for certain features in the machine as needed.
But instead of options such as autonomous parking or 5G connectivity, BMW charged a subscription fee for heated seats that were installed in the cars during production.
BMW will no longer offer this service. According to Peter Knott, the company is focusing on other on-demand features.
“We actually are now focusing with those ‘functions on demand’ on software and service-related products, like driving assistance and parking assistance, which you can add later after purchasing the car, or for certain functions that require data transmission that customers are used to paying for in other areas,” he said.
At the same time, BMW will no longer offer subscriptions to activate equipment already installed on the car.
“People feel that they paid double – which was actually not true, but perception is reality, I always say. So that was the reason we stopped that,” he added.
By the way, it has recently become known that BMW is preparing the ground for a radical transformation of the electric vehicle (EV) market with its new BMW Neue Klasse series. The name Neue Klasse, which translates from German as “new class,” refers to the BMW coupe and sedan lineup of the 1960s and early ’70s that defined the brand’s identity. The iteration aims to redefine BMW with a focus on sustainability, electrification and revolutionary design elements.