BMW customers in South Korea can pay ₩24,000 ($18.28 USD at current exchange rates) per month for the privilege of having heated seats, according to the automaker’s website.
The full fee structure was first found by Motor1 and is available on the brand’s ConnectedDrive Store, though you need a local login to see the fees for heated seats, specifically. According to the news outlet, though, customers are first offered a free one-month test period.
After that, they can opt for a subscription term that lasts a month, a year, three years, or “unlimited.” Prices for these rise as high as $406 USD (₩533,000) for the unlimited term contract— that’s the equivalent of less than 23 months of heated seats on a month-by-month basis.
Read Also: BMW To Offer Over-The-Air Upgrades Like Heated Seats And More
BMW’s argument here may be, however, that customers paying month by month will take longer than two years to spend 22 months worth of money on heated seats. The automaker, like others, has shown an interest in à la carte fees for features because, they argue, it means that customers can pay for those features only when it suits them, in this case only the winter months, rather than having them ready at their disposal at all times.
The automaker‘s ConnectedDrive site also offers other monthly services. A heated steering wheel can also be had for the equivalent of around $10 per month, while High Beam Assistant (which automatically changes between high and low beam as needed) costs $8.38 (₩11,000) per month or $182.78 (₩240,000) for a limitless term.
BMW has been testing the waters with subscriptions for features since 2018 with Apple CarPlay, saying it wanted to charge customers an annual subscription for the feature. What this means for American customers remains unclear, but we have reached out to BMW for more information and will update you when we hear back.
Regardless of what BMW chooses to do, though, it seems inevitable that the industry will move towards subscription fees for features. Stellantis announced that it expected to generate $4.4 billion per year in services revenue from its digital marketplace for features on demand and mobility services.
