As cars get more expensive to make and profit margins dwindle, automakers are coming up with new and loathsome ways to squeeze more money out of their customers. Subscription-based access to vehicle features, like heated seats or remote-start key fobs, are the latest attempt to charge people for things their car already came with. The question is whether customers are going to lay down and take it.
Earlier this week, some media outlets noticed that BMW was selling $18-a-month subscriptions to heated seats in a number of countries, including South Korea. The German automaker had previously tried and failed to get customers to pay $80 a year for access to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto — features that are otherwise free in other companies’ vehicles. But even after BMW reversed its decision to force people to pay for something that used to be free, it was clear that it wouldn’t stop there.