BMW starts selling heated seat subscriptions for $18 a month

Photo by Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images

The adoption of microtransactions for high-end car features is one of the reasons why BMW is now selling subscriptions for heated seats.

A subscription to heat your BMW's front seats costs $18 a month, with options to subscribe for a year or three years for $300.

The launch of this feature in South Korea was reported by a number of outlets this week.

In the UK, Germany, New Zealand, and South Africa, heated seats are now available in the BMW digital store. It doesn't appear to be an option in the US.

Image: BMW

We wanted to know when the subscriptions had been launched in which countries, but BMW couldn't give us that information. The news isn't trumpeted by BMW. Customers have decried the move as greedy and exploitative since the company announced in 2020 that it would allow for microtransactions on features.

Carmakers have always charged more for high-end features, but the dynamic is different when software is the limiting factor.

In the case of heated seats, for example, BMW owners already have all the necessary components, but BMW has put a software block on their function that buyers have to pay to remove. It would make sense to charge a subscription for some software features that might lead to ongoing expenses for the car company. That's not a problem for heated seats.

heated steering wheels from $12 a month, the option to record footage from your car's cameras, and the "IconicSounds" are all included in the BMW subscription.

BMW says that the hardware for this feature has already been installed in your vehicle during production. That's generous.