BMW managed to find itself in all manner of headlines when it announced that it would be charging extra for users to be able to enjoy the heated seats feature built into their cars. To be able to use the feature that for a long period was standard and included, BMW thought a subscription that clocked in at around $18 a month, which is more than most entertainment subscriptions on the market, was a good idea, and judging by the latest report from Autocar it (obviously) wasn't.
Because BMW has now decided to drop its heated seats subscription. As for why BMW has made a u-turn on the feature, board member for sales and marketing, Pieter Nota, stated:
"We thought that we would provide an extra service to the customer by offering the chance to activate that later, but the user acceptance isn't that high. 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."
So, strangely enough, people didn't resonate with having to pay extra for a feature that used to be standard after they chose to spend significant sums of money on a BMW in the first place.
It should be said that certain features still require an additional charge to use, including parking assist and some other software-based services.