With a number of car manufacturers charging subscription fees for certain services in their vehicles, consumers may wonder if it’s worth it to them.
German automaker BMW sells monthly subscriptions for heated front seats in some countries, with prices ranging between $19 and $23 per month, or between $504 and $540 to permanently install the feature.
That’s in addition to other features that carry monthly fees, such as automatic high-beam assists, heated steering wheels, adaptive cruise control with lane-keeping assist, and a built-in dash cam.
Other automakers such as Toyota, Lexus, Subaru, GM, Ford, Audi, Cadillac, Porsche and Tesla offer subscriptions for features such as remote start and OnStar.
Auto journalist Stephanie Wallcraft told CTV’s Your Morning on Friday that while it’s unlikely the actual cost of a vehicle will be lower if automakers make more features subscription-based, it could benefit customers in certain cases.
“It’s really a matter of sitting down and doing the math, and also how the automakers package the features,” she said.
A feature like heated seats can end up being cheaper by paying a monthly fee instead of installing it permanently.
“If you’re in a situation where you’re leasing a car, you know you’re only going to have it for three years, and you do the math and say, ‘You know, you’re probably only going to have to use the heated seat feature for four months of the year, Wallcraft said.
“So I’ll pay less to buy it on subscription and then over the course of the lease than I would to buy it upfront, and then it’s the next owner’s problem.”
Car feature subscriptions can also prove beneficial for car manufacturers themselves.
GM said in October 2021 that subscription revenue generated $2 billion a year and was expected to grow to $25 billion by the end of the decade.
Wallcraft said there can be a generational divide when it comes to paying a subscription fee.
“We’re the generation where you’d buy a DVD or a CD and then you own it and you can access that music, that movie, whenever you want,” she said.
“Whereas now when you’re talking to my kid or teenagers, Spotify is the way you access music, Netflix is the way you access movies. I think it’s a different mentality and it might be a generational thing where younger people might be more receptive to the idea of paying for certain car features on an ongoing basis than our generation might be.”
See the full interview with Stephanie Wallcraft at the beginning of the article.
With files from CTVNews.ca Writer Tom Yoon
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