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These kind of initiatives aren't about the first customer. The person buying new will likely get a free subscription as part of some dealership deal, or will bu

These kind of initiatives aren't about the first customer. The person buying new will likely get a free subscription as part of some dealership deal, or will buy the feature outright at purchase time and wont notice. This is about rent seeking from the freeloaders. That dumbass executive looked at the healthy used car market, got pissed that some people owned BMW's without paying their dues, and asked how to fix that. This service allows a customer to purchase a feature outright, now do you think that feature belongs to the car, or does it belong to the customer? Will it transfer during a sale?

fny 4y ago
> Will it transfer during a sale? Remember, the feature has a lifetime value. All that's happening here is those payments are being deferred. You could (1) charge the 10 year value outright or (2) charge it on a monthly basis. In scenario 1, BMW captures the full value and basically allow their customers to negotiate the remaining value of the feature in the used car market. In scenario 2, BMW requires the second purchaser to enable the feature. It additionally requires that the feature never be turned off for an extended period of time. Say the car sits in a dealership lot for 6 months. Do they profit from the feature then? Altogether it looks like they're trying to streamline production. It's likely a lot cheaper to have all the cars manufactured with heated seats and have some mechanism to enable them. Monthly subscription cost, however, seems insane. Also, inflation is actually a counterargument for a strategy like this. In inflationary environments, money today is worth more than money tomorrow. Also, can you imagine trying to hike subscription prices frequently to keep up with inflation?