BMW has made no secret of its desire to generate regular revenue from its stock of cars around the world, having talked about the idea as far back as 2020 without much of a disguise.
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It’s making headlines for the initiative again now, though, as newly-launched pricing schemes for some of its in-car subscriptions get shared, and in some cases beggar belief.
The BMW ConnectedDrive shop showcases a range of options that you can add to your BMW, many of which will simply enable features for hardware that’s already built-in for your car.
That means, for example, that you can pay £15 monthly to turn on front seat heating in your car, or pay a one-off fee of £350 to have that option in perpetuity.
Or, perhaps, you might like an automatic switcher between high-beam headlights and regular lights – that assistant will cost £10 a month, or £200 to use forever.
The idea of paying a little extra for a mod-con that could slightly improve your experience in a car is nothing new, but the fact that the engineering is all in place and you’re simply paying to unlock a software block is harder to swallow.
Of course, if BMW’s drive into this area results in a revenue stream in line with its hopes, these microtransactions will likely be here to stay.